AG + HK: Among other exciting projects, you write an advice column for The New York Times titled, "Ask Roxane," where you advise readers on topics like their writing, career aspirations, activism, relationships, and love. What's the worst advice you yourself have ever received?


RG: I've actually received pretty good advice over the years but the worst advice I've ever received is probably to buy a house.



2.

AG + HK: In Bad Feminist, you wrote, "If people cannot be flawed in fiction there's no place left for us to be human." Is this viewpoint one you take consciously when you sit down to write? More broadly, how do you decide what subject matter is more suited for fiction rather than non-fiction? What's the process like for you?


RG: When I sit down to write fiction, I want to create characters who are real and textured and interesting. And I want the reader to be willing to follow these characters, however flawed they may be, where I take them. I love the freedom of fiction for really exploring how messy people are and so yes, it is a conscious viewpoint but it is not so conscious that I try to force it. In terms of subject matter and genre, it is more that there are different urgencies in fiction and nonfiction. With nonfiction, I am trying to respond to the world and make sense of it. With fiction, I am trying to reimagine the world.



2½.    

AG + HK: When did you know...?


RG: I knew the moment I first saw her smile and the light in her eyes.


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Read Roxane's story.

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