One of the most prolific writers of our generation talks about not wanting her parents to read her work, insomnia, and having a Scrabble nemesis.
Via roxanegay.com
This year, the inimitable Roxane Gay will publish two new books: An Untamed State , her debut novel out earlier this month that has been selected by Library Journal as one of the spring's best debuts, and Bad Feminist , an essay collection slated to be published in August. Gay is best known in the blogosphere and among the Twitterati for her sharp wit and affecting honesty, and for consistently publishing amazing work.
She teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University much of the time, but she has also been essays editor for The Rumpus, co-editor of PANK, an editor for a Salon series on feminists of color, and much more. Her short stories, published along with a collection that included poetry and nonfiction in 2011 called Ayiti, have been included in the Best American Short Stories series, Necessary Fiction, and other publications. I interviewed her about how she works and her new books.
Via roxanegay.com
How do you do everything? You edit PANK, you write and edit for Salon and The Nation, you teach at Eastern Illinois University, you have a fantastic blog, you also are Twittering. How is this humanly possible?
Roxane Gay: I live in the middle of nowhere and I'm an insomniac, I guess. I just make the time and I read and write really fast so that makes a lot possible for me. I wish I had an explanation for it. I'm grateful for it.
Do people ask that a lot?
RG: Yes.
What is your favorite writing?
RG: Fiction is my happy place. I love writing nonfiction too; It's just a different muscle. There's an urgency that has to be satisfied.
Talk about how you came up with the idea to write An Untamed State.
RG: It started as a short story, "Things I Know About Fairy Tales," a story about a woman who was kidnapped and the main character wouldn't leave me alone. I wanted to look at how violence is born in a country like Haiti.
The men in the book have as much range as the women. That balance is uncommon in literature — was it intentional?
RG: All too often men are uniform characters and that's not realistic. The men are human beings.
There was some seamless point of view shifting in the book. Did you decide that before you began writing or did it happen during the writing?
RG: The story becomes claustrophobic and dark. When I wrote the first draft in first person, it was too much. To air the chapters out, I decided to shift the point of view.
There is a lot of harrowing, potentially triggering writing in it. How did you deal with that personally?
RG: Writing some of the darker scenes were hard, but I allowed myself to go there. Plenty of violence in books and film are unreadable and unwatchable. I wanted to convey what would it feel like to be in this situation.
Is it a challenge to write both fiction and nonfiction at the same time?
RG: Not really. I'm a Libra. I'm always interested in balance. I'm writing nonfiction and thinking through some social issue. Fiction allows me to step away from the world as it is and I enjoy that balance.
What is your advice to young writers about writing and blogging?
RG: You have to be consistent. You have to be yourself. You have to be committed to what you're doing. You have to not be afraid to be ambitious. You don't want to be so focused on yourself and what you're doing that you forget to read other writers.
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