The renowned and best-selling writer Roxane Gay will be the keynote speaker at the 47th annual commencement exercises of the School of Visual Arts, to be held Sunday, May 22, 1:00pm ET, at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan. This will be the College’s first in-person graduation ceremony since 2019. The 2020 and 2021 events were held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, a special ceremony celebrating those classes will be held on Monday, June 27, 1:00pm ET, also at Radio City.

Gay’s writing traverses genres and forms. Her books include her debut short-story collection, Ayiti (2011); the novel An Untamed State (2014); essay collections Bad Feminist (2014) and Difficult Women (2017); and Hunger (2017), a memoir. Her work has appeared in the Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Short Stories and Best Sex Writing anthologies, and in literary publications such as McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American and Virginia Quarterly Review. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times; primary writer of the Marvel comic-book series World of Wakanda (2017); writer and editor of The Audacity, an e-newsletter on the Substack platform; and is currently developing several book, television and film projects.

In addition to her printed work, Gay hosts a podcast, The Roxane Gay Agenda, in which she discusses topics like feminism, sexuality, race, culture, politics and food with an array of guests, and is currently teaching at Occidental College in Los Angeles as the institution’s inaugural presidential professor.

Though her own chosen medium is language, “visual art is a big part of my life,” Gay says. “I find it to be incredibly inspiring and very useful to my creative practice because I love seeing the risks that artists are willing to take.” (Participating in SVA’s commencement also holds a personal significance for her; her wife, Debbie Millman, chairs the College’s MPS Branding program.)

“I think it's always exciting to talk to younger people and to people who are about to embark on another exciting journey,” Gay says of addressing the class of 2022. “I think that college graduation is a beginning.”

The 2022 commencement will celebrate the achievements of some 1,130 bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates enrolled in the College’s 30 degree programs. The event will also stream live online, and be archived thereafter, at sva.edu/commencement.

The in-person ceremony will celebrate the achievements of some 1,130 undergraduate and graduate degree candidates.