A Time review noted: "Gay's writing is simple and direct, but never cold or sterile. Gay published a short-story collection, Ayiti (2011), then two books in 2014: the novel An Untamed State and the essay collection Bad Feminist (2014). For the spring of 2019 Gay was serving as a visiting professor at Yale University. Gay announced her departure from Purdue in October 2018, voicing concerns about the fairness of her compensation and noting Purdue had failed to address the issue. She was an associate professor of creative writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at Purdue University from August 2014 until 2018. Gay worked at Eastern Illinois University until the end of the 2013–14 academic year. While at EIU, she was a contributing editor for Bluestem magazine, and she also founded Tiny Hardcore Press. Career Īfter completing her Ph.D., Gay began her academic teaching career in 2010 at Eastern Illinois University, where she was assistant professor of English. Ann Brady served as her dissertation advisor. Her dissertation is titled Subverting the Subject Position: Toward a New Discourse About Students as Writers and Engineering Students as Technical Communicators. She was inducted into the Omicron Delta Kappa Circle. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication in 2010. Gay attended graduate school at Michigan Technological University in 2008, where she earned a Ph.D.
She completed her undergraduate degree at Vermont College of Norwich University, and also earned a master's degree with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Gay began her undergraduate studies at Yale University, but dropped out in her junior year to pursue a relationship in Arizona. Her parents were relatively wealthy, supporting her through college and paying her rent until she was 30. Gay began writing essays as a teenager, with much of her early work being influenced by her experience with childhood sexual violence. She attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Gay was raised Roman Catholic and spent her summers visiting family in Haiti. Her mother was a homemaker and her father is owner of GDG Béton et Construction, a Haitian concrete company. This story originally appeared in the 2021 October issue of Town & Country.Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Michael and Nicole Gay, both of Haitian descent. Over time that very small part grew, and I came to understand that acquired tastes may be more challenging, but they are also infinitely more valuable. A very small part of me knew she was doing me a favor. I remember that breakup distinctly not because I’m still sad about it but because, as my ex was detailing everything about me she found too difficult to appreciate, a very small part of me knew she was talking about the best, most interesting parts of me. They don’t require any real consideration.
Things that are universally appealing are unacquired tastes. It has no sharp edges, no flawed surfaces. Universal appeal is a dreary, bland thing. I am not interested in much of anything that will appeal to everyone. There is a dangerous tendency to conflate representation and inclusion with universality. We now have a cultural obsession with universality. All too often, taste is used as a cudgel to force conformity, to create a social hierarchy where those with the right tastes are culturally valued and those with the wrong tastes are not.