Roxane Gay

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Roxane Gay

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Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and the New York Times bestselling Hunger. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She has several books forthcoming and is also at work on television and film projects. Her newsletter, The Audacity, where she also hosts The Audacious Book Club, can be found at audacity.substack. ...more

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Roxane Gay I live in the middle of nowhere, I don't have children, I'm an insomniac, I love writing, I'm motivated, writing is often self-medication. …moreI live in the middle of nowhere, I don't have children, I'm an insomniac, I love writing, I'm motivated, writing is often self-medication. (less)
Average rating: 4.05 · 354,442 ratings · 41,572 reviews · 127 distinct worksSimilar authors
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

4.17 avg rating — 119,899 ratings — published 2017 — 73 editions
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Bad Feminist

3.92 avg rating — 118,323 ratings — published 2014
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Difficult Women

3.95 avg rating — 30,165 ratings — published 2017 — 30 editions
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Not That Bad: Dispatches fr...

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4.43 avg rating — 22,540 ratings — published 2018 — 29 editions
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An Untamed State

4.07 avg rating — 19,651 ratings — published 2014 — 30 editions
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Ayiti

4.26 avg rating — 8,196 ratings — published 2011 — 14 editions
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Graceful Burdens

4.04 avg rating — 5,511 ratings — published 2020 — 4 editions
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Opinions: A Decade of Argum...

3.99 avg rating — 3,846 ratings — published 2023 — 12 editions
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Black Panther: World of Wak...

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3.75 avg rating — 3,003 ratings — published 2017 — 6 editions
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The Best American Short Sto...

3.98 avg rating — 2,042 ratings — published 2018 — 5 editions
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The Writing Life
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Roxane’s Recent Updates

Roxane has read
Who Knows You by Heart by C.J. Farley
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I admire the ambition of CJ Farley’s debut novel. I appreciated the narrator’s wryness. She had some really funny lines and wickedly smart observations. The story is both contained and sprawling. In many ways it feels like two novels in one. The dens ...more
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The Favorites by Layne Fargo
The Favorites
by Layne Fargo (Goodreads Author)
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I loved this soapy, well-written, taut novel about a passionate pair of ice dancers across a several years of their personal and professional lives. Katarina Shaw is a talented ice dancer who partners with Heath Rocha, a young man with a difficult pa ...more
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The People's Project by Saeed Jones
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A compact collection of really strong poetry and interesting prose about finding ways to thrive in the current climate, how to fight, how to figure out individual ways forward, how to remember who we are and who we come from. A lot to chew on.
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Discipline by Larissa Pham
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It is lovely to see Larissa Pham blessing us with a novel. Like her nonfiction, the prose in Discipline is both lush and precise. There is a satisfying interiority to this novel and a fascinating structure as Christine goes on a book tour for her deb ...more
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King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
King of Ashes
by S.A. Cosby (Goodreads Author)
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S.A. Cosby never disappoints. When I tell you I was SAT! This book is fast-paced, gripping, relentless, and ruthless. I love the family saga energy and seeing Roman get more and more comfortable with going to any lengths to protect his family. There ...more
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Moderation by Elaine Castillo
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Elaine Castillo is always a pleasure to read and her dense, deeply satisfying prose is so easy to lose yourself in. I love how Moderation, Castillo's sophomore novel, tells a compelling story, and plays with genre. It is the story of what it means to ...more
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Resting Bitch Face by Taylor Byas
Resting Bitch Face: Poems
by Taylor Byas (Goodreads Author)
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These are incredibly sharp poems by a poet with a real skill with using form to excellent ends. The depth of care, research, and precision that has been poured into the work is admirable. There is a haunting undercurrent throughout the collection abo ...more
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Resting Bitch Face by Taylor Byas
Resting Bitch Face: Poems
by Taylor Byas (Goodreads Author)
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These are incredibly sharp poems by a poet with a real skill with using form to excellent ends. The depth of care, research, and precision that has been poured into the work is admirable. There is a haunting undercurrent throughout the collection abo ...more
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The Long Con by Jenna Voris
The Long Con
by Jenna Voris (Goodreads Author)
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Discipline by Larissa Pham
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It is lovely to see Larissa Pham blessing us with a novel. Like her nonfiction, the prose in Discipline is both lush and precise. There is a satisfying interiority to this novel and a fascinating structure as Christine goes on a book tour for her deb ...more
More of Roxane's books…
Quotes by Roxane Gay  (?)
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“I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an example. I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I’m right. I am just trying—trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself.”
Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.”
Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays

“It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away.”
Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays

Polls

112593
Vote For One Book To Be Read in January 2015(Book published in 2014)

A Sudden Light A Sudden Light by Garth Stein Garth
Stein
When a boy tries to save his parents’ marriage, he uncovers a legacy of family secrets in a coming-of-age ghost story by the author of the internationally bestselling phenomenon, The Art of Racing in the Rain.
 
  4 votes 23.5%

Everything I Never Told You Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng Celeste NgLydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins this debut novel about a mixed-race family living in 1970s Ohio and the tragedy that will either be their undoing or their salvation.
 
  3 votes 17.6%

Leaving Time Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult Jodi PicoultFor more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice’s old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts.
 
  3 votes 17.6%

Station Eleven Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Emily St. John MandelAn audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
 
  3 votes 17.6%

Mermaids in Paradise Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet Lydia MilletMermaids in Paradise is Lydia Millet’s funniest book yet, tempering the sharp satire of her early career with the empathy and subtlety of her more recent novels and short stories. This is an unforgettable, mesmerizing tale, darkly comic on the surface and illuminating in its depths.
 
  2 votes 11.8%

The Book of Strange New Things The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber [author:Michel Faber|16272It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings—his Bible is their “book of strange new things.” But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.
 
  1 vote 5.9%

Us Us by David Nicholls David NichollsDouglas Petersen understands his wife's need to 'rediscover herself' now that their son is leaving home.

He just thought they'd be doing their rediscovering together.

So when Connie announces that she will be leaving, too, he resolves to make their last family holiday into the trip of a lifetime: one that will draw the three of them closer, and win the respect of his son. One that will make Connie fall in love with him all over again.
 
  1 vote 5.9%

An Untamed State An Untamed State by Roxane Gay Roxane GayAn Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

Before, During, After Before, During, After by Richard Bausch Richard Bausch
In prose that is direct, exact, and lyrical, Richard Bausch plumbs the complexities of public and personal trauma, and the courage with which we learn to face them. Above all, Before, During, After is a love story, offering a penetrating and exquisite portrait of intimacy, of spiritual and physical longing, and of the secrets we convince ourselves to keep even as they threaten to destroy us. An unforgettable tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished storytellers.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales Stone Mattress Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood Margaret AtwoodMargaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

Revival Revival by Stephen King Stephen KingA dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

17 total votes
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“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.”
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

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message 9: by modes

modes so happy you're coming to pittsburgh and looking forward to speaking with you soon (i'm with the city paper and your publicist has been kind enough to help facilitate an interview)! absolutely loving "difficult women."


Roxane Thank you, Evelyn!

Evelyn wrote: "I just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying An Untamed State. I am reading it for my book club so I'm torn between wanting to read it very slowly and carefully, taking time to digest all t..."


Evelyn I just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying An Untamed State. I am reading it for my book club so I'm torn between wanting to read it very slowly and carefully, taking time to digest all the tidbits, and wanting to devour it all in one sitting. I am completely enthralled (at the half-way point) and so eager to continue reading; I can already tell this will be one of my favorite books of the year! :)


message 6: by R.B.

R.B. Anderson Hi Roxanne,
An Untamed State sound like a powerful read and I have added it to my Want list.

Thank you for befriending me.
RBA


message 5: by Dean

Dean Pusell Thank you for being my friend Roxane :))). Peace


Jaimie Teekell I don't tumbl, so I have no way of commenting to yours though I'm subscribed via RSS. As a single writer living alone who feels like she has no life and cooks for herself and shit, I loved your latest. Not that balance isn't important, but I'm sure the people out there with "lives," the ones who can think at all, think, "I should do something with my life" now and again. You inspired me to make chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to yesterday but I thought, "What's the point?" Your post wasn't really even about doing something for yourself. It was mostly just the yummy pictures.


message 3: by Erin (last edited Jun 20, 2013 11:13PM)

Erin Enjoyed your article in Salon about Paula Deen. Was excited to realize that I recognized your name from Goodreads and that I intend to read your fiction someday!


Roxane Thanks!



message 1: by Jason

Jason Jordan Welcome to Goodreads, Roxane. :)


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