Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, and commentator who brought her incisive, socially aware voice to comics from 2017 to 2020. She is best known in the medium for co-writing *Black Panther: World of Wakanda* with Yona Harvey, a series exploring the lives of the Dora Milaje, and for the graphic novel *The Banks*, created with Ming Doyle. She also wrote *The Sacrifice of Darkness*, an adaptation of her short story, and contributed to *Black Panther - Start Here*. Gay’s comics work, like her acclaimed essays and memoir *Hunger*, centers on identity, power, and resilience. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she built a career as a novelist and essayist—her collection *Bad Feminist* became a *New York Times* bestseller—before entering the comics field. A former tenured professor at Purdue and a visiting professor at Yale, she now holds the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. She also founded Tiny Hardcore Press and served as an editor for *The Rumpus* and *Gay Mag*. Gay’s comics contributions, though brief, brought nuanced, woman-centered storytelling to mainstream superhero and independent titles, earning her recognition as a vital crossover voice.