Author Roxane Gay Visits UK
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 8, 2015) — Roxane Gay was born in Nebraska, of Haitian descent, but her family moved quite a bit during her childhood. That doesn’t completely explain the divergent, eclectic nature of her writing, but perhaps it’s a starting point.
Like many children who felt a bit isolated from their peers, Gay turned to books to find friends. By the time she was in her teens, she was already writing essays. But it’s only been in the past few years that her books and stories began flying from bookstore shelves and garnering the favorable attention of critics.
She is the author of the short story collection "Ayiti" (2011), the novel “An Untamed State” (2014), the essay collection "Bad Feminist" (2014), and “Hunger” (forthcoming 2016). She also edited the book “Girl Crush: Women's Erotic Fantasies.” Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in "Best American Mystery Stories" 2014, "Best American Short Stories" 2012, "Best Sex Writing" 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon and many others.
She will appear for a reading at the University of Kentucky Singletary Center Recital Hall at 8 p.m. Oct. 14. Several UK College of Arts and Sciences departments and programs are involved in the 2015-16 Visiting Writers Series. The event is sponsored by the MFA Program in Creative Writing and the UK Department of English Visiting Writers Series. It is co-sponsored by the African American and Africana Studies Program and Department of Gender and Women's Studies .
MEDIA CONTACT: Gail Hairston, 859-257-3302, gail.hairston@uky.edu