Roxane Gay: 'Women need to be encouraged to recognise that their anger is not a liability'
Roxane Gay takes part in an online discussion this week at International Literature Festival, Dublin.
Roxane Gay, she has just returned from a work trip to Iceland, with the Land of Fire and Ice offering some welcome respite — after quarantine, of course — from the political, cultural, ecological and epidemiological turmoil in her home country.
“It was amazing to get out of the United States,” she says. “We had a wonderful time, Iceland is a stunning country.”
While the pandemic didn’t stop Gay travelling to Iceland, neither was it going to halt an even more momentous event — Gay and her wife Debbie Millman were married in a civil ceremony in California over the summer. They plan a bigger celebration in New York next year. Gay has been splitting her time between California, where she lives and New York, where Debbie is based.
The writer was due to visit Ireland for the first time this year, for appearances at the West Cork Literary Festival and the International Literature Festival Dublin, the latter of which has now gone online, offering those from beyond the Pale an opportunity to hear the bestselling author in conversation. Gay’s topic for discussion is ‘Big Problems: Making Sense of 2020’. Where will she even begin?
She sighs. “I just don’t know any more, I just don’t know. The world seems to be completely falling apart, the United States in particular….. it is hard to know where to start when so much is up in the air and so much is contingent on whether a fascist will be re-elected or a centrist. It is a difficult time but certainly, Biden-Harris is the right way to go, it is the only way to go,” she says.
Gay is prolific in her output, across all genres and mediums, from short stories to novels, newspapers to comic books, blogs to podcasts. Since the release of her acclaimed book of essays Bad Feminist in 2014, she has been at the forefront of discussions on culture and identity, drawing legions of fans with her incisive takes on feminist and racial issues, informed by her own experiences.
Gay’s anger at injustice helps fuel her writing. “I don’t think anger is the primary driver in my writing but it certainly informs a lot of what I have to say,” she says.
However, it is clear that the world doesn’t respond particularly well to angry women. How do we change that?
“I think men have to get their shit together and allow women to have access to the full range of emotions that they allow themselves access to,” she says. "[Women need] to be encouraged to recognise that their anger is not a liability, it is an asset. What will you allow that anger to push you toward?"
In her powerful and moving memoir Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, Gay wrote about her struggle with her weight and the trauma that ensued after she was gang-raped at the age of 12 in an abandoned cabin in woods near her home in Nebraska. She described it as “by far the hardest book I have had to write”.
“It does take a toll. When you are only writing about the worst parts of the world and the worst parts of humanity, it can be overwhelming and you can start to feel like that is truly the only thing in the world and that there is nothing good, nothing hopeful.”
Radical honesty is at the heart of Gay’s ethos and she extended this to another taboo this summer, when, under the Twitter hashtag #publishingpaidme, she shared the details of the advances for four of her books, in an effort to highlight the pay inequality experienced by black writers.
“Especially in the US, people are discouraged from sharing what they make because employers count on our ignorance to pay us in unequal ways,” says Gay. “The more we can be transparent about money, I think the more people can advocate for what they deserve.”
A self-confessed workaholic, Gay has written about how until last year, she had never taken a vacation as an adult. Her work rate is enviable; she edited the recently released Selected Works of Audre Lorde, is currently writing a young adult novel, working on a new comic book series (she previously wrote World of Wakanda, a spin-off from the Marvel Comics' Black Panther title), has a graphic novel out later this month, and is slated to release a book of writing advice called How to be Heard next year. This is apart from the TV and film projects she is working on. How does she manage her time?
“I don’t,” she laughs. “I take it day by day. I don’t have a set schedule because my calendar is full and varied. I generally do more meetings during the day and writing at night….I always struggle with my motivation but I’m doing my best to manage the frustration of Covid and the isolation with trying to at least get some work done.”
She has the portfolio career down to a fine art — writer, professor, editor, blogger, cultural critic, social media commentator. Which would win out if she had to pick?
- Roxane Gay, in conversation with Jessica Traynor, an online event, takes place on Thurs, Oct 22, at 8.30pm. Tickets from www.ilfdublin.com
"I’ve started reading Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine and I’ve just read Caste: The Lies that Divide Us by Isabel Wilkerson, which is very good."
"I would recommend P-Valley (Starz/Amazon), I May Destroy You (BBC) which I really loved, and Selling Sunset (Netflix). I also recently got into Snowpiercer (Netflix), which is wonderful — interesting and dark."
"I have been listening to the music from the P-Valley soundtrack, they made a playlist on Spotify, and a lot of Stevie Nicks. I don’t listen to podcasts or radio much, only when I’m in my car driving, so when I’m in LA."
All events are online, tickets from www.ilfdublin.com
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