I want books I simply cannot put down and that, when I finish, I can’t stop thinking about. I love literary fiction but your story has to have an interesting plot. I am looking for beautifully written, compelling books that challenge, delight, and entertain readers. I am going to publish books I love from interesting writers. Please, please read these guidelines and follow them. This imprint publishes three (3) books a year, so when submissions are closed to unagented writers, it is because my slate is currently full. ROXANE GAY BOOKS ACCEPTS submissions from both agented and unagented writers. Whatever the case, she said she knows that whatever choice director Ryan Coogler ends up making will honor Chadwick Boseman’s “incredible contribution” because he’s “the right person to steer this ship.ROXANE GAY BOOKS IS CLOSED TO UNAGENTED SUBMISSIONS UNTIL JUNE 15, 2022. Shuri, as played by Letitia Wright, and Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia seem the most likely candidates in her eyes, but, personally, she’d like to see one of the dora milaje - the Black Panther’s group of personal bodyguards - take up the mantle. The topic of possible casting choices for the next Black Panther film came up soon after, and Gay had a few ideas about who might fit the role of hero. It felt “exciting,” she explained, “to write two incredible Black lesbians into being who did not die, and who did not fall in love with straight women.” Gay said that she was taken in by the immense potential for creative freedom found in the Marvel universe.
One member of the audience wanted to know what it was like writing Black Panther: World of Wakanda.
“I think of myself as a fiction writer first and foremost, even though no one else in the world does,” she said. Though Gay is most prominently known for her essays, she is also the author of her 2017 memoir Hunger, and short story collection, Difficult Women. “You can’t blow off appointments with yourself to get writing done,” she said. The secret to the success of writers like Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, and Toni Morrison, she said, is the “decades of work… sitting down as often as possible” to write.
#ROXANE GAY ESSAYS AVAILABLE ONLINE HOW TO#
She said too many of the people who come to her looking for professional help - how to get published, for example - haven’t written anything. Gay advised aspiring writers to simply write. RELATED: Prairie Lights reading of Esther Newton’s latest memoir fosters discussion of LGBTQ issues and academia People could use more specific and clear cut guidance, she said, when it comes to making life as a writer reality. Gay takes issue with advice that is simple, platitude-heavy, or contradictory, writing that she more often finds herself breaking the rules than following them.
“One thing we don’t talk about enough is that most writing advice is terrible,” she read to the audience, with particular emphasis. The real focus of her book, however, is what she calls “practical” writing advice. The first chapter of the book follows her trip from a difficult breakup in Nebraska, to getting a PhD in rhetoric and technical communication despite knowing “absolutely nothing about that field” in Michigan, to the moment she decided to “unapologetically” take herself seriously as a writer. “Who I am today as a writer began with a broken heart,” she said. Roxane Gay next read a passage from her upcoming book, How to be Heard. The distinction between me and my trolls is that I know I am no different than them,” Gay wrote in the essay. Ultimately, it’s not about being perfect, the author said. Some of Gay’s disappointment in herself, she said, comes from examining her own behavior as a public figure on the internet, where the line between being toxic and reasonably defensive can be difficult to navigate. RELATED: Fatima Farheen Mirza reads from unfinished second novel at UI Literary Legends event “Who actually has healthy habits?” she responded to an audience question later in the night, laughing.