Posts by author
Roxane Gay
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The Rumpus Interview with Valerie Trueblood
“The short story is a dark form, don’t you think? There are sunny ones but they’re in the minority. I don’t want complete darkness, though. I like a dappled story.”
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The Rumpus Interview with Karolina Waclawiak
Roxane Gay talks with Karolina Waclawiak about her new novel, How to Get into the Twin Palms, the displacement of being from different worlds, loneliness, and Los Angeles.
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An Open Letter
On her blog today, respected critic Ruth Franklin wrote an open letter to the editors of Bookforum. She writes: I have considered opting out of writing for magazines at which women are not represented among the top editors, such as Bookforum. But…
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Problem Solving: Part 1
When we talk about issues of representation, many editors say, “Where do I find writers of color?” I’d like to start to answer that question by compiling a working list of writers of color, across genres. Please feel free to…
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Where Things Stand
After the VIDA counts in 2010 and 2011, as well as Jennifer Weiner’s count she released on her blog in January 2012, I wanted to see where things stood for writers of color. Race often gets lost in the gender…
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Peculiar Benefits
What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
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Today’s Required Reading
At Guernica, Randa Jarrar writes about this one time when she tried to visit her sister in Palestine and she was deported by Israel. I was so afraid of facing the guards at the airport that I had a difficult…
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The Rumpus Interview with Julianna Baggott
Julianna Baggott’s Pure is about a post-apocalyptic world where the responsibility for changing and saving civilization lies with children.
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The Trouble With Prince Charming or He Who Trespassed Against Us
I enjoy fairy tales because I need to believe, despite my cynicism, that there is a happy ending for everyone, for me.
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Girls Girls Girls
A television show about my twenties would follow the life of a girl who is lost, literally and figuratively. There wouldn’t be a laugh track.
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What We Hunger For
I am always interested in the representations of strength in women, where that strength comes from, how it is called upon when it is needed most, and what it costs for a woman to be strong.
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Beyond the Measure of Men
Here we are again. In the New York Times Book Review, Meg Wolitzer takes up the matter of “women’s fiction,” in her essay, “The Second Shelf.” She does a fine job of addressing the ongoing, fraught conversation about men, women, the…