She herself was grateful to receive guidance early on in her career from novelist Tayari Jones, who, Gay recalls fondly, actually called her on the phone to share industry advice. In addition to working with authors on edits and revisions, Gay will help them navigate their book launch and beyond. I am also very invested in making space for Black women, queer women, queer writers, and writers of color broadly-writers whom we don’t see enough of in mainstream publishing, despite the prevailing attitudes toward diversity.”

“I’m going to publish books that I love,” Gay said in a recent call over Zoom, “and that I feel as an editor I can bring something valuable to. In her newsletter, the Audacity, she writes of her objectives, “This is not an imprint that will try to be everything to everyone. While the imprint’s submissions process is deliberately inclusive, Gay plans on bringing a clear and intentional editorial point-of-view to the manuscripts she selects. In dispensing with these requirements, Gay intends to invite submissions from writers traditionally locked out of publishing opportunities: namely, people with the talent and discipline to write a powerful work of art but not the connections or opportunities that come with being college educated, white, upper middle class, or located in New York City, the industry’s seat. (No YA, as of yet, or poetry.) What Gay is not necessarily looking for is prior publishing experience, blurbs, a social media platform, an agent, an MFA, or a college degree. Roxane Gay Books will put out three titles a year, at least to start, with the aesthetically omnivorous Gay casting a wide net in terms of the submissions she’s seeking-story and essay collections, novels in a variety of genres, as well as nonfiction and memoirs.

Writer and editor Roxane Gay announced news of her imprint in May 2021.

Roxane gay the audacity