Roxane Gay

http://www.roxanegay.com

Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, 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 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.

A Conversation With Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of three poetry collections: Lucky Fish(2011); At the Drive-In Volcano (2007), winner of the Balcones Prize; and Miracle Fruit (2003), winner of the Tupelo Press Prize, ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the Global Filipino Award and a finalist for The Glasgow Prize and the Asian American Literary Award. She has won a Pushcart, an NEA fellowship and many other accolades and she is a faculty member in the English Department at SUNY-Fredonia. Her most recent book, Lucky Fish, blends the political and personal and is a really exciting and textured collection of poetry. I had a chance to talk to Aimee about her poetry and what influences her writing.

A lot of your poetry is deeply connected to the natural world. What is it about nature that you find so poetic?

Hmmm…I guess I love to let nature do the talking for me, so to speak. And why not—she has a much richer palette than I could ever conjure up! When I first started writing seriously in college, my subjects weren’t very broad: I basically wrote these sappy love and un-requited love poems. As I learned about the power and loveliness of metaphor (and as I began to get bored with myself!), I started to draw upon nature as an alternate lens to re-imagine ‘relationshippy’-issues and what it was like growing up Asian American in predominantly white towns.

Growing up, my father always took the time to make sure my sister and I knew the names of constellations, tree names, and most types of rock, etc. He did this on what now seems like these luxuriously long nature walks in the desert foothills of central Arizona and in the rich greenery of western NY—basically anywhere we lived, he found ways to make sure we didn’t just stay parked in front of a television. Many of those places have become gentrified and paved over so now in particular, I feel an urgency to witness and celebrate the natural world in my writings.

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Author Spotlight / 11 Comments
August 29th, 2011 / 1:00 pm

Two Videos

No Perch does readings in unusual places. Here, Amelia Gray reads from Threats on a moped. (That video quality? How on earth?)

Mule & Pear is a new book of poetry by Rachel Eliza Griffiths and has a book trailer I really love which is saying something because I do not care for book trailers.

Author Spotlight / 12 Comments
August 23rd, 2011 / 4:27 pm

Saturday Afternoon Links Because Rain Threatens

Robert Lipsyte wrote for the New York Times that boys aren’t reading. The Rejectionist neatly sums up everything that’s troubling about Lipsyte’s piece.

At the Los Angeles Review of Books, Emily Green writes about how her work was plagiarized.

Anna Clark wrote a lovely essay about writing, necessity, heat, performing the role of writer and more.

That essay was inspired by this week’s Dear Sugar which is also well worth the read. That column is always worth reading.

White Readers Meet Black Authors has a list of fall releases including Percival Everett.

Maud Newton offers a really interesting take on how DFW has stylistically influenced the way we argue on the Internet, and not for the better.

Fuckscapes by Sean Kilpatrick is available for pre-order from Blue Square Press.

My favorite new Tumblr is Fashion It So which takes a close look at the beautiful fashions of Star Trek: TNG.

Roundup / 37 Comments
August 20th, 2011 / 5:45 pm

The Smooth Surface of Idyll

L'ile a Vache, Haiti

Happiness is not a popular subject in literary fiction, mostly because I think we struggle, as writers, to make happiness, contentment, satisfaction, interesting. Perfection often lacks texture. What do we say about that smooth surface of idyll? How do we find something to hold on to? Or, perhaps, we fail to see how happiness can have texture and complexity so we write about unhappiness. That is easier or for me, or at least seems easier. I am probably too comfortable going there, wallowing in this idea of darkness, suffering, unhappiness. Misery loves company. We are unhappy together.

I have been thinking about happy endings. I am always thinking about happy endings. I am always thinking about happiness.

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Craft Notes / 21 Comments
August 19th, 2011 / 2:00 pm

I Like Caitlin Horrocks A Lot

 

 

 

 This Is Not Your City (Sarabande), the debut short story collection from Caitlin Horrocks, was released in July. The New York Times called the book “appealingly rugged-hearted” in its review and other critics have been equally favorable. Caitlin’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011, Tin House, The Paris Review, One Story, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, and many other fine magazines. She teaches at Grand Valley State University. I read Caitlin’s book several times this summer and what stood out about this collection was the diversity of voice, point of view, form, and style. No two stories were alike and the collection contains what may become my favorite short story of all time, “Embodied,” about a woman who has lived 127 lives. In my review, forthcoming elsewhere, I write about how Horrocks is not a writer you’d typically see named as an experimental writer. This collection, however, makes a strong case for her inclusion in that category because of the subtle but innovative experiments she tries with the eleven fine stories in a very strong collection. Over the course of a few weeks, we had a great conversation about writing toward emotion, what it means to be a Midwestern writer, and much more.

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I Like __ A Lot / 6 Comments
August 18th, 2011 / 11:00 am
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This Wells Tower essay about traveling in Iceland and Greenland with his father and brother is one of the best things you will read this week (and beyond). Also, consider voting for American Short Fiction’s SXSW Interactive panel.

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Late Afternoon Links

The Pen American Center has announced the 2011 award winners. I was particularly pleased to see Danielle Evans win the fiction prize for Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.

Stacy May Fowles suggests that one way to address the gender imbalance in literary publishing is for men to stop submitting to those magazines who have serious gender imabalances among their contributors until those magazines rectify the disparity. I disagree with the suggestion because the responsibility belongs to editors, not writers, but her argument is interesting.

At the Texas Observer, Brad Green’s story, “Fixing Miss Fritz,” is worth a read or three.

Glenn Beck has something of a literary career and Laurie Winer offers some insight on that career, such as it may be.

In this interview, Dinty Moore talks about what he looks for in submissions and other things.

Roundup / 9 Comments
August 11th, 2011 / 5:54 pm
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Today the New York Times tells us everything is going to be okay. That’s not quite what they say, but there are signs of growth in all markets. The adult fiction market, in particular, showed strong growth and e-books are doing pretty well so maybe this writing thing is going to work out, after all. Good news in publishing. Imagine that.

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Late Night Links

Flip Zembowicz has created an interactive character map for A Visit From The Goon Squad. I happened to read this book today so it was fun to stumble across this (via Sarah Malone).

Speaking of Jennifer Egan, she recommends sixty books that have been critical to her in some way.

If you were ever curious about what literary characters throughout history might wear today, there’s a site for that.

The list of panels accepted for AWP has been released.

Tom Lutz’s essay, Future Tense, at the Los Angeles Review of Books, is well worth the read.

Kathy Fish’s Wild Life is available for pre-order by Matter Press.

In the August issue of Bookslut, Elizabeth Buchner writes about reading humiliation.

Roundup / 6 Comments
August 8th, 2011 / 12:06 am

Q & A #7

If you have questions about writing or publishing or whatever, leave them in the comments or e-mail them to roxane at roxanegay dot com and we will find you some answers.

1. Do editors pay big attention to gaps with no activity, the way I’ve heard employers do with resumes? Like if you had 3 things published 4 years ago and now nothing and you’re wanting to get back into it.

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Behind the Scenes / 7 Comments
August 7th, 2011 / 3:08 pm