Roxane Gay
Please join me in congratulating Roxane Gay, associate professor of creative writing in the Department of English, who was recently honored with the PEN Center USA 2015 Freedom to Write Award. The award is given to individuals and organizations that have produced notable work in the face of extreme adversity or demonstrated exceptional courage in the defense of free expression.
“I refuse to accept that inequality or violence and suffering are things we must accept as facts of life as if we do not dare to want for better, for more,” Roxane noted in her acceptance speech. “I see this world as it is but I refuse to accept this world as it is. In my writing, there is no room for complacency.”
Roxane is the author of the novel An Untamed State, the story collection Ayiti, and The New York Times best-selling collection of essays, Bad Feminist. Her next book, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, will be published in June. Her work has appeared in Tin House, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Short Stories, and The New York Times Book Review, among other places. She is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.
Congratulations, Dr. Gay!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts