Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Ruby Jones. Each Sunday, we're sharing one
Speaker 1: of our favorite episodes from our sister podcast, Read This.
Speaker 1: The show features interviews with some of the best and
Speaker 1: most beloved writers from Australia and around the world. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from Roxanne Gay. Roxanne is an
Speaker 1: American author, professor, and cultural critic known for her insightful
Speaker 1: and often provocative writing. She's gained acclaim for her essays, fiction,
Speaker 1: and memoirs that explore themes of identity, gender, race, and
Speaker 1: body image. Her new book, Opinions, is a collection of
Speaker 1: Roxanne's best non fiction pieces from the past ten years.
Speaker 1: Michael Williams is the host of Read This, and he's
Speaker 1: with me Now. Hi Michael, Hi, Ruby, Yeah, I'm great.
Speaker 1: So this week on the show, you spoke with Roxanne Gay. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure many of our listeners have either read one
Speaker 1: of her essays or her fiction, But for those who
Speaker 1: might not be familiar with Roxanne, can you tell us
Speaker 1: a bit about her.
Speaker 2: It's kind of hard to remember a time when Roxanne
Speaker 2: Gey it wasn't a key figure in our public, intellectual,
Speaker 2: literary life. She's kind of this extraordinary force. She was
Speaker 2: one of the writers who really got how to use
Speaker 2: the platform formerly known as Twitter, and was ubiquitous there
Speaker 2: for ages when kind of forthright and strident on all
Speaker 2: kinds of issues. Her maybe most famous book is Bad Feminist,
Speaker 2: and that captures a bit of what she does. She's
Speaker 2: this notable campaigner on questions of gender, on questions of
Speaker 2: basic human rights, but she does so through a lens
Speaker 2: that is personal and is kind of funny, and engages
Speaker 2: with pop culture and works on all these different levels.
Speaker 2: As well as Bad Feminist, she also brought out a
Speaker 2: memoir called Hunger that was an account of her own
Speaker 2: relationship with her body that talks about trauma, talks about
Speaker 2: a historical sexual abuse, but it also talks about the
Speaker 2: thing about moving through the world as a fat person
Speaker 2: and the ways in which our culture is ill equipped
Speaker 2: to understand what that might be like.
Speaker 1: And so in this episode, you two discuss Opinions, which
Speaker 1: gathers together ten years of Roxanne's nonfiction writing. She is
Speaker 1: obviously a seasoned essays so I'm wondering what you thought
Speaker 1: of this collection.
Speaker 2: Look, the collection is terrific, partly because it's a snapshot
Speaker 2: of ten years of her opinion writing. So I mentioned
Speaker 2: before about her presence on social media, but she writes
Speaker 2: for kind of conventional masteads, but does hone ways that
Speaker 2: for me are always incredibly energizing. She's willing to go
Speaker 2: against the kind of orthodoxy on the things that she says,
Speaker 2: and she's smart and thoughtful in ways that we really
Speaker 2: want our public intellectuals to be. And so Opinions is
Speaker 2: not just a snapshot of some really terrific writing, It's
Speaker 2: a snapshot of a decade of I think what we
Speaker 2: can all agree is pretty monumental.
Speaker 1: Change coming up in just a moment. It's not Roxanne
Speaker 1: Gay's job to make people happy.
Speaker 2: You were a very cane rata from a very young age,
Speaker 2: I understand to that point. Your parents armed you with
Speaker 2: your own typewriter for your writing and taking you to
Speaker 2: the library every weekend. One of those earliest writing memories
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: You know, I read a lot growing up, and my
Speaker 3: earliest memories were just like the odd that I could
Speaker 3: go to this building where there were so many books
Speaker 3: and I could just take whatever I wanted and go back.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was amazing. It was just amazing. And
Speaker 3: my biggest memories of reading are that I was reading
Speaker 3: way above my pay grade. My parents just assumed that
Speaker 3: if it was in a book, it was good, so
Speaker 3: they didn't monitor my reading or censorate, And so I
Speaker 3: read a lot of very adult stuff at a very
Speaker 3: young age. And like one of the main books I
Speaker 3: remember reading was Clan of the Cave Bear yep by
Speaker 3: gene All, and it's this sort of epic prehistoric novel,
Speaker 3: but also lots and lots of sex, And I had
Speaker 3: no idea what I was reading, but I did know
Speaker 3: that sex was something that happened on a bear pelt.
Speaker 2: And nothing in life since has taught you otherwise.
Speaker 3: That's true, yep. I mean, as far as I know,
Speaker 3: that remains the case, and you know I keep my
Speaker 3: bare pelts with me at all times. But it was
Speaker 3: just amazing to be able to have such a rich
Speaker 3: imagination and a rich imaginary life because my parents fostered
Speaker 3: my love of reading and never tried to change that love.
Speaker 2: Now has your rating? Has your rating changed? Do you
Speaker 2: still push yourself to read stuff that is outside your
Speaker 2: comfort zone? Or have you reached a point where you
Speaker 2: lean into reading what you know you like to read?
Speaker 3: Both? Actually, I do push myself to read outside my
Speaker 3: comfort zone, because I have found some of the most
Speaker 3: amazing books that way. I remember several years ago I
Speaker 3: read this book called The Water Knife by Paolo Bauchi Galoopi,
Speaker 3: and I loved it. It was completely out of my wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: And like to this day, I remember that book like
Speaker 3: with clarity, and I loved that I had taken the
Speaker 3: chance on the book even though I knew nothing about it,
Speaker 3: knew nothing about the author, and actually prefer to know
Speaker 3: nothing about the author or what the book is about.
Speaker 3: I just want to dive in and be surprised. So
Speaker 3: I do like to read outside my comfort zone. But
Speaker 3: there are also things that I love, like I love
Speaker 3: to read the spy thrillers and like mysteries and conspiracies
Speaker 3: in Washington, d c. CIA type novels like give me that,
Speaker 3: and so when I need comfort, that's exactly the kind
Speaker 3: of thing that I read, and I just love it,
Speaker 3: just like, yes, give me more of this. Tell me
Speaker 3: what's happening. If there's like a husband and wife and
Speaker 3: like one of them, like the wife is the head
Speaker 3: of the CIA and the husband's an operative and they're
Speaker 3: like estranged. Yes, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 2: I think it's good to now ask sweight spot the
Speaker 2: things that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and like. It's called comfort reading for a reason.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's important to challenge ourselves intellectually
Speaker 3: and to read different things. But I also think there's
Speaker 3: a time and place for comfort reading and for finding
Speaker 3: something that's reliable that you know is going to just
Speaker 3: like feel like home.
Speaker 2: You read for comfort. Do you write for comfort or
Speaker 2: do you write for challenge?
Speaker 3: I used to write for comfort, and I would like
Speaker 3: to get back to it. And right now it's not
Speaker 3: that I'm writing for challenge. It's that I'm writing to
Speaker 3: deadlines and to promise writing into solicited writing. So I
Speaker 3: enjoy writing still, but it's you know, it's just a
Speaker 3: little more challenging, and it feels like I'm doing all
Speaker 3: of this writing that I'm obligated to write. I'm very
Speaker 3: much interested in it, but it's not like just writing
Speaker 3: with no audience in mind, where there's nothing at stake.
Speaker 3: I'm just writing for myself and maybe something comes of it,
Speaker 3: but maybe nothing does, and that's okay either way. So
Speaker 3: I hopefully will be able to get back to that someday.
Speaker 2: One of the things thinking about the task of kind
Speaker 2: of gathering ten years of opinion writing That struck me
Speaker 2: was not just about whether the wider culture has changed
Speaker 2: in that time, but your position, Roxanne within it. People feel,
Speaker 2: and I'm amongst them, a very strong connection with you
Speaker 2: because of what you write. They have a strong idea
Speaker 2: of who Roxanne Gay is and your name means something
Speaker 2: to them. Has that changed what it is to write
Speaker 2: opinion that kind of rusted on readership.
Speaker 3: That's a great question. Uh, yes it has. And I'm
Speaker 3: not thrilled about that in that I tend to write
Speaker 3: primarily for myself, but more importantly, I want to write
Speaker 3: what I really want to write. I want to write
Speaker 3: what I think is true, true, and what I genuinely believe,
Speaker 3: and I want to do so without sort of censoring myself,
Speaker 3: without anticipating criticism, without wondering what readers are going to think.
Speaker 3: And as you develop more of an audience, and because
Speaker 3: we have so many ways of interacting with people who
Speaker 3: are putting their work into the public sphere, you tend
Speaker 3: to be exposed to quite a lot of criticism, and
Speaker 3: not all of it is well intended, not all of
Speaker 3: it is useful. And there comes a time where I
Speaker 3: just feel like I don't need any more feedback, and
Speaker 3: I have found that it has affected my writing process
Speaker 3: a great deal, and I'm trying to write my way
Speaker 3: out of it right now and to think less about
Speaker 3: what people might think, even when they like me, because
Speaker 3: I appreciate that, and I will always appreciate that. It's incredible.
Speaker 3: As a writer, you never expect that you're going to
Speaker 3: find an audience, and so that I do have an
Speaker 3: audience is something I will never take for granted, and
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for it every single day. But I then
Speaker 3: start to think, I don't want to disappoint you. I
Speaker 3: don't want to challenge your understanding of me by showing
Speaker 3: you more of who I am. And unfortunately, people tend
Speaker 3: to think they know you because they read your work
Speaker 3: and you've shared some personal details, and you know something
Speaker 3: of me, absolutely, but you know what I want you
Speaker 3: to know. And I'm actually a very private person, so
Speaker 3: you know, maintaining some of those boundaries is also challenging
Speaker 3: so that people understand, like, yes, you know me, but
Speaker 3: you know a part of me that I've chosen to
Speaker 3: put on the page. And I've put it on the
Speaker 3: page because I feel like it's going to support the
Speaker 3: argument I'm making no, there's no other reason for it.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's challenging to navigate all of that.
Speaker 2: That must be so hard, that kind of parasocial relationship
Speaker 2: that kicks in, you know, particularly amongst the many modes
Speaker 2: in which you write and have written. But it seems
Speaker 2: to me a memoir in particular, and a kind of
Speaker 2: into writing that you did for some time, and your
Speaker 2: presence on social media. Those two things create the illusion
Speaker 2: of a kind of heightened transparency. They create an illusion
Speaker 2: of closeness between the rada and you. And because a
Speaker 2: lot of what you've written about in some of those
Speaker 2: spaces is about trauma and is about sharing ideas around trauma,
Speaker 2: the things people project onto you must be pretty exhausting
Speaker 2: thing to navigate.
Speaker 3: It can be. Now I understand where that sort of
Speaker 3: parasocial connection comes from, especially when people have connected with Hunger,
Speaker 3: which is a memoir about my body and about living
Speaker 3: in this world in a fat body. And one of
Speaker 3: the things I've learned with touring this book for the
Speaker 3: past seven years is that everyone has some kind of
Speaker 3: struggle with their body, no matter what size, no matter
Speaker 3: what level of ability, and that has been very eye
Speaker 3: opening and humbling and so I understand the connections that
Speaker 3: people feel. And also because the book engages with trauma,
Speaker 3: a lot of people are carrying around a lot of
Speaker 3: pain and a lot of trauma, and so I do
Speaker 3: try to create space for that as I interact with readers.
Speaker 3: But it's also challenging because you know, I wrote about
Speaker 3: my assault, but it was like thirty eight years ago now,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't mean like I'm completely over it, but
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, this is something that I have
Speaker 3: processed in therapy for just about thirty eight years, and
Speaker 3: I you know, I don't know that I even at
Speaker 3: this point have anything more to say about it. And
Speaker 3: so it can be challenging when people offer so much empathy,
Speaker 3: which I totally receive and embrace and I'm grateful for,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, I often have to try
Speaker 3: and articulate that this happened a very long time ago,
Speaker 3: and you know, the book isn't just about that, It's
Speaker 3: about the aftermaths, and the aftermath, of course, has been
Speaker 3: much longer than one day. And the other challenge is
Speaker 3: that people love to share their own stories of trauma,
Speaker 3: which again I'm honored to receive, but there are certainly
Speaker 3: days where I think I can only carry my own
Speaker 3: trauma today because people have told me the most horrific things,
Speaker 3: like the amount of suffering in this world is staggering,
Speaker 3: the amount of abuse some people have suffered is just staggering.
Speaker 3: And my heart goes out to everyone who has to
Speaker 3: experience things like this, And thank God for books, thank
Speaker 3: God that we have this way of sharing our stories,
Speaker 3: because for generations, people and mostly women, kept these stories
Speaker 3: to themselves and had nowhere to put that trauma except
Speaker 3: sort of back on themselves. And though change can be slow,
Speaker 3: that is changing, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things I so admire about
Speaker 2: your opinion writing is that it is never glib. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a thing happens. I think it's the kind of
Speaker 2: tyranny of limited word counts in newspapers and the desire
Speaker 2: to kind of get that take just so that kind
Speaker 2: of rounds off the edges or decides, Okay, well we
Speaker 2: have to deliver this one thing and do it in
Speaker 2: a way that is self contained. And I feel like
Speaker 2: you write opinion pieces like a book writer, like you
Speaker 2: write them in a way that opens up the idea
Speaker 2: rather than definitively closes it off one way or another.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious about whether there were surprises as you
Speaker 2: went back through that decade long archive. Were there things
Speaker 2: you'd written either that you'd forgotten or that you looked
Speaker 2: at and you're like, oh god, I would do that
Speaker 2: completely differently. Now.
Speaker 3: It's a good question. You know, it's interesting. The word
Speaker 3: count thing is real, and I thank you for those
Speaker 3: very kind words, because it's one of the things I
Speaker 3: struggle the most with. I'm like, I have three thousand
Speaker 3: words of things to say, and you want me to
Speaker 3: distill it down to fifteen hundred or twelve hundred, or
Speaker 3: god forbid, sometimes nine hundred. And it can be really challenging.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the things that I find most jarring.
Speaker 3: When I read a lot of opinion pieces, especially like
Speaker 3: op eds, you barely see any engagement with the subject
Speaker 3: matter at hand, because like, you're in and out, and
Speaker 3: nine hundred words is not a lot. And I also
Speaker 3: believe like we need to trust people and their attention spans.
Speaker 3: I really believe we can go further and we can
Speaker 3: go deeper, but I do try to get as much
Speaker 3: breath and depth as I can. No matter what my
Speaker 3: word limit is. As I was going through the essays
Speaker 3: for this book, I you know, I don't think there's
Speaker 3: anything I would do differently, not because I haven't grown
Speaker 3: or learned, or because I got everything right. But and
Speaker 3: I say this about bad feminists too, it's that I
Speaker 3: did the best I could with the information and resources
Speaker 3: I had available to me at the time I wrote
Speaker 3: those essays. I think the thing that surprised me was
Speaker 3: just how many like book reviews I had written over
Speaker 3: the years, and things like that I tend to forget, like, yes,
Speaker 3: I actually do cultural criticism and I'm not terrible at it.
Speaker 3: And also I noticed like certain tropes that I fall into,
Speaker 3: certain like have like old thing and it's a rhetorical technique.
Speaker 3: And my PhD is actually in rhetoric and technical communication,
Speaker 3: so I know where it comes from. But this like
Speaker 3: accumulation of listing all of the terrible things and then
Speaker 3: making a point and then saying like, here's what we
Speaker 3: need to do now. And when you see it in
Speaker 3: like ten essays, like in a condensed amount of time,
Speaker 3: it's just like, girl, let's try something else. And so
Speaker 3: it was again a lot of humility happened as I
Speaker 3: put the collection together, because I just realized some of
Speaker 3: the things you do are very good, but you have
Speaker 3: a couple little things you rely on a little too much.
Speaker 3: And so I've actually been trying to do different things
Speaker 3: in my essays since I opinions together and just like,
Speaker 3: let's grow a little here.
Speaker 2: It's definitely challenging. It's it's worse even than hearing your
Speaker 2: own voice back on type is saying your repeated tics
Speaker 2: and retired. For once in my life, could I just
Speaker 2: list either two or four things rather than insist on
Speaker 2: doing three every single time?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And I know, you know, every time you read
Speaker 3: a book back you start to see ticks. Like in
Speaker 3: my novel and Untamed State Mirae, who's the protagonist, she
Speaker 3: exhales cigarette smokes so much, and I'm clearly using it
Speaker 3: as this device to show that she's sad or she's pensive.
Speaker 3: And when I read through the novel, I was like,
Speaker 3: my god, she exhales too much. Fortunately, I don't take
Speaker 3: myself so seriously that I can't laugh at like my
Speaker 3: ticks and quirks. And you know, I just always think,
Speaker 3: oh man, that's imprint forever. But then I I'll tell myself.
Speaker 3: I'm going to do better next time.
Speaker 2: Self awareness is a curse. I mean really, there really
Speaker 2: is the unself aware. You can say many things about them,
Speaker 2: but they're happy.
Speaker 3: I think they really are. I mean they just want
Speaker 3: around like life is great.
Speaker 2: After the break, Roxane shares the changes in her opinion
Speaker 2: writing over the years and reveals the people she refuses
Speaker 2: to debate with. See that was a list of two things,
Speaker 2: not three. We'll be right back. So opinions gathers a
Speaker 2: decade's worth of your writing, and I want to know,
Speaker 2: as you were putting it together, how much the business
Speaker 2: of opinion and writing opinion you think has changed over
Speaker 2: those ten years.
Speaker 3: You know, in some ways the business has not changed,
Speaker 3: but in other ways it has. In that the media
Speaker 3: sphere continues to get smaller and smaller, and pay rates
Speaker 3: are stagnant. People are still being paid today what they
Speaker 3: were paid ten years ago, if not less, And that's
Speaker 3: incredibly disheartening. And if you don't already have a portfolio,
Speaker 3: a career, a name for yourself, it's even more difficult
Speaker 3: to break in. And even though there are fewer legitimate
Speaker 3: media outlets, there are an ever increasing number of ways
Speaker 3: that people can express their opinions, and so the importance
Speaker 3: of opinion in some ways is diluted by social media
Speaker 3: and all of these ways that people can speak into
Speaker 3: the void.
Speaker 2: It's hard not to feel a bit like the ubiquity
Speaker 2: of opinion has had a corrosive effect on other forms
Speaker 2: of journalism as well, that opinion kind of at this
Speaker 2: point does rules.
Speaker 3: Separate, yes, and it has contributed to assuming that opinions
Speaker 3: are facts, but you know, as to saying, ohs, feelings
Speaker 3: are not facts. Opinions are important. I think we need
Speaker 3: to be exposed to a range of opinions. But we
Speaker 3: all so need journalism, We need fact checking, we need
Speaker 3: people to function in reality. And when we legitimize only
Speaker 3: opinion over factual, researched and rigorous information, you know, we're
Speaker 3: really saying that we're just going to trust any old thing.
Speaker 3: And the reason people prefer that is because it's easier.
Speaker 3: Few people really want to contend with difficult subject matters
Speaker 3: and difficult things. They'd rather just go along with someone's opinion. Now,
Speaker 3: most opinions are fine, they're reasonably good. But when you
Speaker 3: bring in toxic opinions from toxic people who want to
Speaker 3: do more harm than good, and people are easily swayed
Speaker 3: by those voices. You really start to have a problem.
Speaker 2: I couldn't write more. And there's also an element of
Speaker 2: bad faith in it. It seems to me as well.
Speaker 2: The people who who express opinion not because of any
Speaker 2: kind of authenticity or strength of feeling, but because they
Speaker 2: know it's going to get a response. They know that
Speaker 2: it's grist to the meal of entertainment and conflict.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and that's one of the things that frustrates me most. Like,
Speaker 3: believe what you want to believe. I can well not respect,
Speaker 3: but I can understand a true believer. We may be
Speaker 3: diametrically opposed, but if you genuinely believe, at least you
Speaker 3: believe something. What really gets under my skin are the
Speaker 3: people who are only seeking attention by any means necessary,
Speaker 3: who are seeking power and other forms of cultural validation
Speaker 3: because they're going to say the most provocative thing or
Speaker 3: the most ridiculous thing, and they don't even really believe it,
Speaker 3: like a Donald Trump or a JD.
Speaker 2: Vance.
Speaker 3: Now do I believe they have noxious ideologies, absolutely, but
Speaker 3: are they true believers of their conservative, supposedly values. No,
Speaker 3: they're not. Trump will talk about God, and I doubt
Speaker 3: that man has ever stepped foot in a church, and
Speaker 3: I just can't respect anything along those lines, nor do
Speaker 3: I take it seriously, even though you can't ignore it,
Speaker 3: because these are people who are running for president and
Speaker 3: vice president in the United States.
Speaker 2: And there is that element with both of those examples
Speaker 2: opinion or political position as vaudeville. It's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: this is going to this is one hundred percent going
Speaker 2: to energize our base, or this is going to make
Speaker 2: the people we despise angry, and therefore that's where our
Speaker 2: victory lies.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, it's politics is entertainment, and that's just
Speaker 3: incredibly frustrating because politics isn't about entertainment. It shouldn't be
Speaker 3: about entertainment. It should be about introducing candidates to the
Speaker 3: people and allowing people to have choices, to be able
Speaker 3: to decide which candidates will best suit what they want
Speaker 3: for themselves, their families, their communities, and in many ways,
Speaker 3: politics has always been a bit of a circus, especially
Speaker 3: in the United States, but it has become more and
Speaker 3: more and more ridiculous, and right now it's just incredibly
Speaker 3: frustrating that this is what we're left with. And that
Speaker 3: this is seemingly the best that we can deal. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I just wish that we could do better. And
Speaker 3: I mean that for people of all political persuasions, for candidates,
Speaker 3: you know, on both sides of the proverbial aisle, like
Speaker 3: let's do better.
Speaker 2: Part of the kind of narrative around the twenty sixteen election,
Speaker 2: and part of the kind of collective memory of that,
Speaker 2: was that one of the things that history seems to
Speaker 2: remember that Clinton failed at in that election was talking
Speaker 2: to people who weren't her base, talking to talking to
Speaker 2: people who were disenfranchised for different reasons, and kind of
Speaker 2: taking their grievances seriously. It's what jd. Vance made his
Speaker 2: name on, rising up on those grievances. And I'm interested
Speaker 2: in that question of talking to people with whom you
Speaker 2: don't agree. It's something that I know you've put a
Speaker 2: lot of thought into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have no problem talking to people I don't
Speaker 3: agree with. I am always interested in other perspectives and
Speaker 3: hopefully learning from people with different points of view. Like
Speaker 3: how else, I mean, nobody should be in an intellectual
Speaker 3: vacuum or a silo. That said, there are certain viewpoints
Speaker 3: that I don't need to entertain that I don't have
Speaker 3: to legitimize, and those are any viewpoints that are grounded
Speaker 3: in bigotry and that prioritize isolationism as xenophobia, misogyny, transphobia.
Speaker 3: Like I'm not going to sit and talk to the
Speaker 3: racist next door. I don't need to do that. I
Speaker 3: already know what they think, So nothing is going to
Speaker 3: be gained. And oftentimes what we do is we ask
Speaker 3: marginalize people to humanize themselves to people who don't see
Speaker 3: them as human in the hopes that that will work.
Speaker 3: If you don't see me as human, there's nothing I
Speaker 3: can say or do that's going to change your mind.
Speaker 3: And I shouldn't have to do that work regardless, Like
Speaker 3: that's work you need to do on your own. And
Speaker 3: so I I am always interested in debate and discussion
Speaker 3: and learning, and I do learn quite a lot from
Speaker 3: talking to people of different intellectual persuasions. But there are
Speaker 3: also people I find unreachable.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about opinion and the ways in which it's
Speaker 2: shifted over the past ten years. One of the things
Speaker 2: that really strikes me is you read all these things
Speaker 2: about the kind of diminishment of trust in media and
Speaker 2: the diminishment of trust in masstheads that once upon a time,
Speaker 2: you know, a particular publication would carry such authority that
Speaker 2: everything that they did would be kind of regarded as worthwhile.
Speaker 2: And I think the biggest shift is a shift to
Speaker 2: trust in individuals rather than trust in companies or mass
Speaker 2: heeads anymore. How do you feel about the authority you
Speaker 2: carry now you're no longer an opinion writer as activist
Speaker 2: from the margins, Now you're opinion writer as establishment. How
Speaker 2: does that feel?
Speaker 3: Feels weird? And I don't think of myself that way.
Speaker 3: I still feel like I'm writing from the margins. But
Speaker 3: I also recognize that I do have an audience, and
Speaker 3: that the audience tends to look to me, not necessarily
Speaker 3: for guidance, but just you know, where do you stand?
Speaker 3: And so it feels that there's a lot of responsibility there.
Speaker 3: And I don't mind responsibility and I don't mind accountability,
Speaker 3: but it is challenging in that I know that people
Speaker 3: tend to often be disappointed when I don't articulate their
Speaker 3: exact opinion, or when they think I'm being too compromising
Speaker 3: or too middle of the road, which I don't think
Speaker 3: of as my writing at all. But you know, like,
Speaker 3: for example, I do think that Harris is the right
Speaker 3: candidate right now, and I also think that we need
Speaker 3: to hear her policies, like really, what you stand for?
Speaker 3: I mean, I know that the team is working on this,
Speaker 3: and so hopefully soon they will actually put some policy
Speaker 3: positions on the candidate's website so that we can have
Speaker 3: a substantive conversation about her as president and not just
Speaker 3: not Donald Trump. And yeah, you know, I would like
Speaker 3: to know more about what she intends to do about
Speaker 3: the war in Gaza and the extraordinary loss of life
Speaker 3: and the extraordinary suffering that's happening there. But I feel
Speaker 3: like we can have those conversations, and I can also say, yes,
Speaker 3: I'm very enthusiastic about this candidate, and so I know
Speaker 3: that that's not going to sit well with every reader,
Speaker 3: But I also know that my job as a writer
Speaker 3: is not to make people happy. It's to share my
Speaker 3: point of view and hopefully do so with as much
Speaker 3: rigor and integrity as possible. And it's not that I'm
Speaker 3: always right, but it is that I do put care
Speaker 3: into my work as.
Speaker 2: A reader, as a global citizen, as a human being.
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful for the care that you take, Roxane Gay,
Speaker 2: and I'm grateful for your time today.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, Michael, Truly, those are great questions.
Speaker 2: Roxanne Gay's latest collection of essays, Opinions, is out now.
Speaker 2: Roxanne is in Australia this month. She'll be appearing at
Speaker 2: Carriageworks in Sydney as part of the Festival of Dangerous
Speaker 2: Ideas on the twenty fourth and twenty fifth of August,
Speaker 2: and she's going to be in Melbourne at Melbourne Town
Speaker 2: Hall on the twenty seventh of August at an event
Speaker 2: presented by the Wheelers Cender and Now or Never Festival.
Speaker 2: You can go to either of their websites to get tickets.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to another special episode of
Speaker 1: Read This. Join us each Sunday to hear our favorite
Speaker 1: interviews from the show. Listen out for us in conversations
Speaker 1: with Miranda July, Malcolm Knox and Mary Beard. And if
Speaker 1: you don't want to wait until next Sunday to dive
Speaker 1: in to Read This, you can search for it wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts.