Roxane Gay on fierce opinions and why it’s good to be a little delusional

The New York Times writer Roxane Gay spoke in front of an enthusiastic Melbourne crowd on Tuesday night.
Roxane Gay is a woman with light brown skin, short pepper hair. She is looking at the camera with a confident smile and an arch in her brow, sitting on a tan leather sofa against a white wall.

Disclaimer: The article includes references to sexual violence.

If the crowded line around the entire Melbourne Town Hall on Tuesday night (27 August) is any indication, Roxane Gay is a beloved icon. The LA/New York-based social commentator, “bad feminist”, editor and author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, was in Australia for a series of talks relating to her latest collection of essays, Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business.

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Celina Lei is the Diversity and Inclusion Editor at ArtsHub. She acquired her M.A in Art, Law and Business in New York with a B.A. in Art History and Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. She has previously worked across global art hubs in Beijing, Hong Kong and New York in both the commercial art sector and art criticism. She took part in drafting NAVA’s revised Code of Practice - Art Fairs and was the project manager of ArtsHub’s diverse writers initiative, Amplify Collective. Most recently, Celina was one of three Australian participants in DFAT’s the Future of Leadership program. Celina is based in Naarm/Melbourne. Instagram @lleizy_