The Audacity of Roxane Gay | Events | jhnewsandguide.com – Jackson Hole News&Guide
Teton County Library’s largest event of the year, Page to Podium, returns Monday with a guest sure to rouse attendees.
Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in “Best American Mystery Stories 2014,” “Best American Short Stories 2012” and “Best Sex Writing 2012” as well as in literary journals like A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review and many others. She is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.
Author of the books “Ayiti,” “An Untamed State,” the New York Times bestselling “Bad Feminist,” the nationally bestselling “Difficult Women” and the New York Times bestselling “Hunger,” Gay is also a mainstreamer for popular culture. She explores topics ranging from politics and patriarchy to Beyoncé and reality television, all in the same sitting, and has authored for Marvel the comic book series “World of Wakanda.”
“There is no one shelf to find all her work because she writes in many genres,” said Leah Shlachter, adult program coordinator for Teton County Library. “Her books are shelved all around the library. If you don’t know her, I would start with her memoir ‘Hunger’ and then her collection of essays, ‘Bad Feminist,’ and then go from there.”
An online search for Gay’s work can leave you overwhelmed with the author’s prolific contributions to popular culture, which also includes work on television, film projects and her newsletter, “The Audacity.”
In a similar vein, “no two Roxane Gay events are the same,” Shlachter said. “I first saw Roxane on a panel at [Association of Writers and Writing Programs] a few years ago, and it’s always a surprise with her.”
Gay “confronts and intersects issues of race, gender, size, sexuality, trauma and relationships with current events, pop culture, imagination, introspection, art and love,” Shlachter said. “Roxane doesn’t need you to think like her. She just wants you to think.”
Her writing is fun and unapologetic. In the introduction to her collection of essays titled “Bad Feminist” she writes that she openly embraces that label and does so “because I am flawed and human.”
In 2019 Yale University invited Gay to serve as a visiting associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies. She already was an associate English professor at Purdue University and is the new president of the board at Performance Space New York.
Her versatility as a social commentator and literary voice for women, black women and gay women — or maybe more importantly just humans — qualifies her to speak to almost any type of audience and have something resonate with the listener — because no one escapes trauma. Schlacter said one of the best qualities about Gay’s work is how immediate it is.
“She keeps the mind active and she remains relevant,” Schlacter said. “Roxane Gay’s work is exciting and vulnerable. She makes you laugh, cry and care, all within the same sentence.”
Gay’s visit was originally scheduled for last year but was canceled due to the pandemic. Instead the library hosted a virtual event with Temple Grandin.
Though this year’s Page to the Podium is happening in person at the Center for the Arts, the community is also invited to attend virtually through a Zoom link set up by the Center for the Arts; register at JHCenterForTheArts.org to join the free online event. It eventually will be posted to Teton County Library’s YouTube channel.
“The Teton County Library Foundation is thrilled to support the library’s Page to the Podium program,” said Maggie Schilling, acting executive director of the foundation, “providing access to authors of a national caliber to the community for free.”
The foundation raises money for programming such as Page to the Podium for the library, a county agency where the primary funding source is county property taxes. County support comprises 85% of the library’s total fiscal year operating budget. The foundation provides about 10% of the library’s annual budget for programming. Schilling said Gay’s visit was made possible with additional support from library sponsors including Fine Dining Restaurant Group, First Republic Bank and Jackson PFLAG.
Page to the Podium started in 2006 with Frank McCourt. Gay marks the 20th event in the ongoing series. A Page to the Podium selection committee made up of library staff puts together a list of authors they think would be a good fit for a Teton County audience.
“The committee considers voice, point of view, author’s literary works, representation, popularity,” Schlacter said, “how well their books circulate in the library, do they have a new book out, what demographics read their work and who would be curious to check them out if they are not already familiar. Then I research writers on the list to find out availability and speaking fees. Everything has to come into alignment to book a speaker.”
The library’s Page to the Podium speaker series lets Teton County and library cardholders experience free literary programming. All you need to get a free ticket is show your library number. At the time of writing this article, there were about 100 tickets left.