Living in a rural town really compelled me to start tweeting so much. Mostly, my Twitter usage is fueled by loneliness. I can go days without talking to another human being unless it's my mother, especially when I'm not teaching or on break.
Roxane GayI am new to superhero comics, though growing up I read Archie comics, religiously. I've been doing a lot of catching up, reading what's out there and it's been wonderful to see what's going on in contemporary comics.
Roxane GayI think hunger is a natural state of being for most people. I mean, hunger is a desire - and you don't only have physical hunger, you have emotional hunger. A lot of my hungers are, in fact, emotional. I think a lot of fat people's hungers are emotional. There are things we very much want, and it can be so difficult to satisfy those hungers. Yet we try. We try so hard.
Roxane GayI look at my older writing to see where my weaknesses are and then I try to address those weaknesses and make new mistakes.
Roxane GayThe other day, I saw a blog post where a woman wrote about why she was unfollowing me and that made me feel incredibly self-conscious and embarrassed about my tweets. I also feel more exposed now that I've become a more visible writer but then I try to get over all that and just use Twitter the way I want.
Roxane GayThat the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they donโt meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldnโt be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.
Roxane Gay