“I thought it would be a good opportunity to do something more long-term and more focused,” she says. Emerging Writers will remain in place for 2022, Gay told me over the phone from her home in Los Angeles, and the fellowship will exist alongside it. Once selected, the young writers will meet with Gay once a month for one year to receive mentorship on both craft and navigating the business of writing Gay will also promote each fellow on her own Substack newsletter, The Audacity. Named after her late brother, the fellowship program operates through Substack, and allows three aspiring writers to receive financial and professional support from Substack and Gay herself. Now, Gay has unveiled her latest move to put the spotlight on young writers: the Joel Gay Fellowship.
Through her Emerging Writers program, she offers green writers the opportunity to showcase their work through her platforms (she has over one million followers on Instagram and Twitter). But from the beginning of her career, Gay has always made a point to pay it forward. The writer, novelist, professor, columnist, and podcast host Roxane Gay already has a lengthy and deserved title attached to her name, in addition to a string of awards pinned to her works (her essay collection Bad Feminist is a New York Times bestseller, and she won the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018).
