Roxane Gay to Receive 2015 Freedom to Write Award

Posted on November 6, 2015

PEN Center USA announced that Roxane Gay will receive the 2015 Freedom to Write Award. The award is given to an individual who has "demonstrated exceptional courage in the defense of free expression." Ms. Gay is a professor of English at Purdue University, a bestselling author and a cultural critic.

Her work has appeared in many publications, including Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, McSweeney’s, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus and Salon. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Bad Feminist. Her next book is Hunger, which will be released by HarperCollins in 2016.

In a statement she said, "The freedom to write has been one of my life's greatest blessings and it is a freedom that should be available to everyone who wants or needs to share their voice. I am thankful that organizations like PEN Center USA are doing the necessary work to ensure that such freedom is protected. It is humbling to be considered worthy of such an award. I am thrilled and honored."

In her blog she mused about winning the award writing, "It feels pretty fancy. I am proud and honored. It feels particularly exciting to win this award as a woman, as a black woman, as a feminist writer, as a queer writer, as someone who writes about pop culture and social justice in equal measure. I don’t know that I am worthy but I do know I am not unworthy." She shared these thoughts in the middle of an entertaining post about making pot roast and her lack of zeal for grocery shopping. She has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

Ms. Gay will accept her award at The 25th Annual Literary Awards Festival on November 16, 2015, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Others being honored the same evening are Francis Ford Coppola, who is receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award and John Kiriakou, who will receive the organization's First Amendment Award.