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I'm sure for a lot of people, this idea of writing for social change could sound really daunting, or like this outsized responsibility. PS: In your new essay " Writing Into the Wound" you also talk about how it can be hard to know where to begin in addressing the moment that we're in. And so the more that we see underrepresented writers teaching classes like this and demonstrating their expertise as more than just a gut feeling, the more we get to legitimize different kinds of cultural production. It's assumed that we're simply writing from a place of passion and a place of identity and that there's no skill to it. And when people of color create art, we are rarely given credit for the craft behind our work.
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And they are deemed the authority on pretty much everything, including the lives of people of color. Roxane Gay: Well, traditionally when we look to experts - culturally - we're looking to heterosexual, middle-class white men. POPSUGAR: In the class, you talk about showing that "expertise comes in a lot of different packages." Why is it important to use your platform to break those old ideas of who's "allowed" to be an expert? And so sometimes people need to hear that, particularly because publishing tends to encourage the cannibalizing of self for women, for queer people, for trans people, for Black people, for people of color more broadly. But it is not the only thing that we can write about. Now, certainly there's plenty there to say, and if that is something you're interested in writing about, by all means.
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RG: Because underrepresented writers in particular tend to be expected to write about one thing, and that's their subject position and the ways in which they have suffered, as if we have nothing more to offer to the world. Why was that important to you to say right out of the gate? PS: You've taught a course on writing about trauma at Yale, but in the trailer for the MasterClass, you also say writing about social change does not have to equal writing about personal trauma. And we couldn't help but spend a minute talking about what life's been like since she and her wife adopted their puppy, Max. (All of the lessons, of course, are delivered with Gay's signature dry charm.) We caught up with Gay as her MasterClass debuted to talk about the young writers she admires right now and the work of elevating underrepresented voices. Gay has joined forces with the learning platform MasterClass to offer a course on writing for social change, which features practical advice on common struggles like writer's block and advice on what it takes to write courageously. "Publishing tends to encourage the cannibalizing of self for women, for queer people, for trans people, for Black people, for people of color more broadly."