Last year, first-year students at Bryn Mawr College heard from Jill Lepore, the author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman. This year the Emily Balch Speaker Series brings Roxane Gay, whose many literary accomplishments include the bestselling essay collection Bad Feminist and co-writing the comic book series World of Wakanda.
Gay will visit the campus on Nov. 6, 2018, for an onstage interview and Q&A in Great Hall, followed by the famous Balch Speaker themed dessert reception in Rhoads Hall. This evening event is open to all students taking Emily Balch Seminars. They will be encountering Gay's work in their Balch Seminar classes in the weeks leading up to her visit.
Gay’s writing appears 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, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the 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. She has several books forthcoming and is also at work on television and film projects.
Gay is an associate professor with a specialization in creative writing in the Department of English at Purdue University.
In recent years, the Balch Speaker Series has featured author and historian Jill Lepore; award-winning novelist and essayist Zadie Smith; novelist and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Karen Russell; and graphic novelist Alison Bechdel.
Taught by scholar/teachers of distinction within their fields and across academic disciplines, Balch Seminars challenge students to think about complex, wide-ranging issues from a variety of perspectives.
Books and Other Works
Learn more about Roxane Gay's writing on her website.