Author and social activist Roxane Gay has collaborated with the online publishing platform Medium to officially launch Gay Magazine.
Gay, 44, released the first edition of the publication via its official website. Gay Magazine will include essays by the likes of fellow authors Grace Lavery, Athena Dixon and more.
In her essay, Lavery describes her struggles with alcohol abuse and the meaning of a “new start.” Dixon, author of the poetry anthology “No God In This Room,” penned a write up on “woman of size.”
In her debut editor’s note for Gay Magazine, Gay wrote about her plans for her latest project. While admitting that she has not created the “editor’s wheel,” she did shine light on her vision for Gay, while also stressing the importance of inclusion.
“What I do have is vision. I have a lot of heart. I am ambitious. I am going to capitalize on what I’ve learned after more than a decade of editing and many more years of writing. With Gay Magazine I am creating an online space where writers are afforded the time to produce their best work and the compensation they deserve for that effort. We will publish intelligently provocative work rather than mindlessly provocative work,” the Bad Feminist” said.
She continued, “Representation matters so inclusion is integral to everything we do. We will not tokenize. We will embrace not only diverse writers but diverse voices and aesthetics.”
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In her 2018 interview with The Guardian, Gay opened up about the impact, and importance, writing has had in her life, following her traumatic childhood rape.
“I think writing always gives us control over the things that we can’t actually control in our lives, so taking control of the narrative of my body as a public space was absolutely helpful in terms of thinking about my relationship to my body.”