It's a very weird cultural perception that if you're fat you're dumb, that you're lazy or a loser. Clearly, those are the preconditions for fatness. You're a failure, because only a lazy person, only a dumb person, would allow themselves to get into this situation. It's appalling that this is the mindset. People generally treat fat people like we don't know anything about anything. It's incredibly demeaning. And incredibly frustrating.
Roxane GayWriting, at its best and truest, can offer solace and salvation for both readers and writers.
Roxane GayThe designation is useful and necessary and sometimes limiting but it is only limiting to people who think, for example, that African-American literature couldn't possibly be something they could be interested in or relate to. They have limited imaginations, which is sad.
Roxane GayIt's gut instinct that helps me determine how to write a story. I love the surreal because I am faced with the challenge of making the unbelievable believable. That challenge is thrilling.
Roxane Gay