I don’t know how I became aware of Roxane Gay, but it probably has something to do with working on the #SVYALit Project and Christa Desir and Carrie Mesrobian. A lot of my life has been learned and changed by working with Christa Desir and Carrie Mesrobian on the #SVYALit Project to be completely honest. But somewhere along the line, I began following Roxane Gay, author of the book Bad Feminist.

This week I am staying in Ohio to work my library job, and yes my life is weird. But this week was also OLC, the Ohio Library Conference. And my direct supervisor is also an OLC committee member and so when she said I want you to go to OLC on Thursday I said yes, because that’s what you do when your boss wants you to do something. It turns out that Thursday was also the day that Roxane Gay was speaking, so I chalk the day up as a win.

In fact I also got to talk to authors Adam Silvera (More Happy Than Not) and Jasmine Warga (My Heart and Other Black Holes), which made the day even more of a win.

But listening to Roxane Gay, it was like sitting in a room full of thoughtful and reflective truthbomb after truthbomb. As she spoke, I couldn’t stop Livetweeting what she was saying. I thought that she came across as kind, gracious, humble, yet empowered and confident and challenging. She also read three or four of her essays and they were funny, insightful and sometimes charming. At the end of the day I stood in line to have a copy of the book signed and I couldn’t decide who to have it signed for: Myself, The Teen, Thing 2 . . . so in the end I asked her to sign it to all three of us and proclaimed, “maybe it will be our family heirloom” to which she replied, “well there’s no pressure there for an author.” We then went on to talk about what her favorite Channing Tatum movie is . . .

For me one of the main takeaways from everything that Roxane Gay was saying is that I didn’t have to be a perfect feminist – none of us are – but that you just have to keep trying. Recognize that each of us – you, me, the people you pass along the street – are not any one thing. I am not just a woman. I am not just a librarian, a mother, a wife – I am all of the these things and more. And my experience of events – even the same types of life events – are different than yours and that’s okay. There is no one universal experience, there is no right way to respond. And she demonstrated time and time again in her words that feminism is caring about all people, all of them, not just women.

And “She’s The Man” is probably the best Channing Tatum movie, in case you were wondering.

Live Tweeting Roxane Gay at #OLC15//

Filed under: Sunday Reflections