And I was in the unfortunate position of having to reject these truly painful stories that clearly took quite a lot for the writers to submit. Most of the submissions were just straight testimony. I thought of the class after asking myself, how do we write about trauma? And how do we write about it well? I had edited an anthology called Not That Bad, a compilation of women writing about their experiences with rape culture. Roxane Gay: I don’t know that it changed my thoughts, but it certainly expanded them and helped me develop a stronger understanding. I’m sure few would wonder why I was interested in talking to her about this particular essay-which we did via a Zoom call from our respective Los Angeles homes-about the nuance and intricacy involved in writing about one’s trauma for public consumption. Roxane and I have known each other for a few years and, of course, my awareness of and admiration for her writing predated that. The piece is well hewn but expansive, exploring the ways in which we reveal ourselves through writing-by choice, as in the detailing of an assault, or more obliquely, as in how a journalist describes a piece of writing about an assault, and the writer who experienced it.
ROXANE GAY STATEMENT HOW TO
In her new essay, she describes the book’s reception-overwhelmingly positive responses from readers, while interviews with some members of the media ranged from misinformed to callous-and how the experience of writing the book led to further questions of how to depict trauma in writing. I could admit this thing had happened to me, but I was not ready to share the details.” Finally, in Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, Gay wrote “directly and openly about my sexual assault, how it changed me, how that assault has haunted me for more than thirty years.” “I wrote around it,” she writes of that book’s description of the assault. The piece, inspired by an undergraduate workshop Gay taught at Yale on writing trauma, describes Gay’s experience attempting to write about being gang-raped at age 12, first in fictional stories written as a teenager, “melodramatic and overwrought and dark and graphic,” and then, as an adult, in work like her essay collection Bad Feminist. Gay’s new imprint will publish fiction and nonfiction, and, in partnership with Grove, will sponsor a publishing fellowship program “for candidates who might not have access to the industry through traditional avenues,” according to Grove.Īuthor Roxane Gay on the set of the talk show "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.“We are walking wounds, but I am not sure any of us know quite how to talk about it,” writes Roxane Gay in her new essay, “Writing Into the Wound,” published on Scribd. “It has been a lifelong dream to have a literary imprint of my own where I could publish great books and have the support of a storied publishing house behind me.” “I love having a hand in bringing brilliant writing into the world, and over the past 15 or so years, I’ve done that in various editorial capacities that have been incredibly gratifying,” Gay said in a statement Wednesday. I am excited to share that I am starting a publishing imprint, Roxane Gay Books in partnership with and my amazing editor /t8vzM1FPil Gay has worked for years with Grove, which in 2014 released her debut novel “An Untamed State.” She also has long been interested in promoting other writers, whether through her Medium magazine Gay or through her Audacious Book Club. The author of such works as “Bad Feminist” and “Hunger” is teaming up with Grove Atlantic on Roxane Gay Books, which will publish three books a year.
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NEW YORK - Roxane Gay’s latest project is an imprint that will release the kinds of books she likes to read.