Roxane Gay

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Roxane Gay

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Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy culture blog, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK and essays editor for The Rumpus. She teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University. Her first book, Ayiti, is a collection of fiction and nonfiction about the Haitian diaspora experience. Her novel, An Untamed State, will be published by Grove Atlantic and her essay collection, Bad Feminist, will be published by Harper Perennial, both in 2014.

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Roxane Gay I will send Channing Tatum a whole lot more than that.
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.
Average rating: 3.92 · 50,121 ratings · 6,855 reviews · 50 distinct works · Similar authors
Bad Feminist

3.89 avg rating — 34,531 ratings — published 2014 — 18 editions
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An Untamed State

4.04 avg rating — 10,401 ratings — published 2014 — 17 editions
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Ayiti

4.23 avg rating — 720 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions
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Difficult Women

4.10 avg rating — 465 ratings — published 2017 — 6 editions
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Urgent, Unheard Stories

3.70 avg rating — 124 ratings — published 2015
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Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

4.03 avg rating — 73 ratings — expected publication 2017 — 10 editions
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The Year I Learned Everything

3.75 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2017
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How to Be Heard

3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings5 editions
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The Best American Short Sto...

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3.81 avg rating — 1,794 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions
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Goodbye to All That: Writer...

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3.68 avg rating — 1,548 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions
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More books by Roxane Gay…

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Interviews

December 2016, Roxane Gay
"This Bad Feminist author is best known for her essays and columns. Now she's back with Difficult Women, a collection of short stories. She talks to us about feminism, influences, and who would play her in a movie." ...More

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Roxane’s Recent Updates

Roxane is now friends with Chris
8029168
Roxane rated a book really liked it
I'm So Fine by Khadijah Queen
I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On
by Khadijah Queen (Goodreads Author)
read in January, 2017
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Sharp prose poems that capture black womanhood, the ways of men, and life in Los Angeles.
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What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
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With her luminous debut collection, What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, Lesley NNeka Arimah marks her richly deserved place in contemporary fiction. At the center of each impeccably written story, Arimah offers up a new kind of yearning--for ...more
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How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell
How to Murder Your Life
by Cat Marnell
read in January, 2017
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This is definitely a readable book. The descent to rock bottom is seductive when it happens in such a glamorous way--clubbing, sexy magazine jobs, suffering painted prettily. One thing that is inescapable is that privilege makes addiction sustainable ...more
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This Is Just My Face by Gabourey Sidibe
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Gabourey Sidibe’s delightful memoir This Is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare offers a memorable look into what happens when a black girl’s dreams come true, from the inside out. From her unique childhood as the daughter of a subway singer mother and po ...more
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We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. by Samantha Irby
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Reading Samantha Irby’s We Are Never Meeting In Real Life cracked my heart all the way open. The essays in this outstanding collection are full of her signature humor, wit, and charming self-deprecation but there is so much more to her writing. For e ...more
Roxane wants to read 100 books in the 2017 Reading Challenge
She has read 5 books toward her goal of 100 books.
 
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Massive Cleansing Fire by Dave Housley
Massive Cleansing Fire
by Dave Housley (Goodreads Author)
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Linked stories about the end of the world with many beautifully observed moments. At times the connective tissue of the stories weakened but overall this is a great collection, well worth a read for both the prose and the premise.
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L'Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems by Elisa Gabbert
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A deeply satisfying book of poems from one of my favorite poets. Crisp language and cadence. Every poem ends on a lovely note.
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Look by Solmaz Sharif
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Outstanding collection that is smartly assembled. Family, history, war, and how in a culture of war language can be used against humanity.
More of Roxane's books…
“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

“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

“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

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%

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%

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%

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%

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%

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%

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.
 
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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.
 
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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%

17 total votes
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Comments (showing 1-9)    post a comment »
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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 7: 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 6: by Dean

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


message 5: by Steve

Steve Thanks Roxane, for accepting my friend request.

Steve


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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