Published June 22, 2017

At All Souls Unitarian Church in Columbia Heights Monday night, fans lined up around the block to see the author Roxane Gay discuss her latest book, Hunger, with WAMU’s editorial director, Alicia Montgomery. Here are the highlights from her candid discussion:

1. She’s writing a television show!
Gay divulged she’s writing a television pilot called “Grown Women” for Amazon, adapted from her own work. It’s still in the early stages, and being produced by musician Common‘s company in Los Angeles.

2. She says “of course” she’s watching The Bachelorette, which has its first black female lead.
Gay said while she’s excited there’s a black Bachelorette, she thinks it will be even more groundbreaking once there’s a black man cast as the Bachelor.

“It’s always weird when you’re the first black anything, that you have to be so f*cking exceptional,” Gay said. “Rachel is an attorney, she’s gorgeous, she’s charming, she’s intelligent, she’s funny–and THESE are the men?”

3. She had a stillbirth–and doctors blamed her for it.
“I’m going to ask you the question that I’m really scared to ask you,” Montgomery began, “You wrote, ‘We suffered a loss, and it undid me. I needed to blame someone, or something, so I blamed myself. I blamed my body for being broken. My doctor did not dissuade me from doing this, which was its own kind of hell.’ This is the language that a lot of women use to describe losing a baby. Is that what happened to you?”…read more here.