Origins & Early Life

Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017). Gay is the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. She was an assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University for four years before joining Purdue University as an associate professor of English, where she was tenured.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

In 2018, she left Purdue to become a visiting professor at Yale University. She joined Rutgers in 2022. Gay is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, founder of Tiny Hardcore Press, essays editor for The Rumpus, and the editor for Gay Mag, which was founded in partnership with Medium. Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 15, 1974, to Michael and Nicole Gay, both of Haitian descent. Her mother was a homemaker and her father is owner of GDG Béton et Construction, a Haitian concrete company.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

She is a cousin of Harvard...

Contemporary Figures & Related Historical Timelines

• Adria Petty — Contemporary (Born in 1974) (1974): American director, editor, and artist known for music video work with Beyoncé.
• Alanis Morissette — Contemporary (Born in 1974) (1974): Iconic singer-songwriter known for raw emotion and confessional alt-rock anthems.
• Charles Lindbergh — Contemporary (Died in 1974) (1974): Pioneering aviator famous for the first solo transatlantic flight.
• A. P. J. Abdul Kalam — Shared historical date (10-15 · Born) (1931): Visionary aerospace engineer, scientist, and former President of India.
• Abd al-Rahman III — Shared historical date (10-15 · Died) (961): Founder of the Caliphate of Córdoba, a period of immense Islamic cultural zenith.
• Christian Bale — Historical peer (Born in 1974) (1974): Versatile English actor renowned for intense physical transformations in film.
• Cooper Manning — Historical peer (Born in 1974) (1974): American entrepreneur and TV personality, son of Archie Manning.
• 2014 League of Legends World Championship — Historical peer (Born in 2014) (2014): The 4th League of Legends World Championship, held in Asia in 2014.
• Alain Resnais — Historical peer (Died in 2014) (2014): Pioneering French filmmaker exploring memory, consciousness, and narrative structure.
• Amy Winehouse — Historical peer (Died in 2011) (2011): Iconic British soul artist blending jazz, R&B, and retro sounds.
• 1974 Historical Timeline & Archive — Explore world events and figures from 1974
• October 15 (10-15) On This Day — Historical birthdays and events on October 15