Otelia Cromwell Day 2017

Roxane Gay Delivers 2017 Keynote Address

Author and cultural critic Roxane Gay delivered the keynote address at 2017’s Otelia Cromwell Day ceremony, Thursday, November 2, in John M. Greene Hall.

Gay’s work garners international acclaim for its reflective, no-holds-barred exploration of feminism and social criticism. With a deft eye on modern culture, she brilliantly critiques its ebb and flow with both wit and ferocity. Her collection of essays, Bad Feminist, is considered the quintessential exploration of modern feminism. NPR named it one of the best books of the year and Salon declared the book “trailblazing.” Her debut novel, An Untamed State, was long-listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. In 2017, Gay released her memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, as well as a collection of short stories titled Difficult Women.

Gay is a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times and has served as the co-editor of PANK and nonfiction editor at The Rumpus. Her writing has also appeared in McSweeney’s, The Nation and many other publications. She recently became the first black woman to write for Marvel, creating a comic series in the Black Panther universe called World of Wakanda.