The Claremont community has the opportunity this Thursday to hear Roxane Gay "discuss activism, feminism, and offer us a sneak peek at how she navigates the complexities of food, weight, and self-image." If you're not already excited, you should be. If you are already excited, "Oh my god, what a coincidence, so am I!" I haven't read Roxane's acclaimed essay collection "Bad Feminist" yet (it's in my Kindle as we speak, ready to be devoured), but much of her best writing has been published online for free. Reading her essays, for me, is a kind of photosynthesis: I soak up her brilliance and it turns into pure energy. She makes me want to be a writer. She makes me proud to be a feminist.

So, if you needed any convincing, here are some reasons to be completely in love with Roxane Gay as an author and a person:

1. She's a brilliant writer.

You can't throw a stone without hitting a critic lavishing praise on Roxane Gay, and if you read her work you'll start to understand the hype. She transitions fluidly between prose fiction, nonfiction, and personal writing, all of it written with stunning insight and emotional honesty. If you want a collection of essays critiquing pop culture and exploring the complexities of modern feminism, and of course you do, look no further than "Bad Feminist." This fictional short story about a female friendship is so good it gives me chills. Her many New York Times columns are all worth reading: one of particular importance to Claremont College students is this article, defending the "safe space" on college campuses as a necessity for marginalized students. She writes about being black in America, vulnerability and the social expectations of women. Everywhere you see Roxane Gay (and you see her in many places these days), you observe her mastery of the craft. Her writing burns with eloquence. Even when a sentence appears still, it is simmering.

Take this quote from her new novel, "An Untamed State":

It is often women who pay the price for what men want.

I'll be thinking about that sentence for days.

2. She's a proud intersectional feminist.

She calls herself a "bad feminist," but Gay is, in my mind, an excellent one; she recognizes the flaws of feminism, especially in the ways the movement continues to fail non-white, non-cis and non-straight women, but believes in feminism's capacity for positive change and evolution. As she said in a Bust interview:

I think it’s super easy to be like, “Oh, well, feminism is too f**ked up, so we’re not gonna try [to] address any of these problems." It’s a cop-out and it’s lazy and it’s disingenuous. I want no part of it. That’s just not how we’re gonna roll, that’s just not what we’re gonna do. We have to acknowledge it’s flawed and then move on. The conversation can’t stop with “feminism is flawed.” That’s the beginning of the conversation, not the end.

3. She lifts up other writers of color.

As a black female writer in a racialized society, Gay is well aware of the vulnerability and discrimination people of color face in America. She uses her talent and success as a means of uplifting and advocating for other POC. Gay writes powerfully about issues of race, and even made a list of amazing writers of color to publicly challenge the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing world. ("It isn’t hard to find writers of color. All you have to do is read." Amen.)

4. She's bisexual, and she advocates for LGBT issues.

It gives me joy when I find out that someone I admire is queer, and Roxane Gay is no exception. Gay is openly bisexual and often talks about her sexuality, as in this interview:

We see such little representation, and when we do, it is just so disingenuous or just stupid. Like, Do you miss being with men when you are with women? Do you miss being with women when you are with men? Look here heterosexual person, when you are with your partner, you don’t think about anyone else?
We need more accurate representation, and less representation of bisexual people that are wishy-washy. I am entirely clear that I think both men and women are amazingly hot.

She writes about queer issues in "Bad Feminist," especially in "A Tale of Three Coming Out Stories," which discusses the violence and intimidation LGBT people face, and the long road towards acceptance. Her advocacy for LGBT youth is eloquent and powerful, and just seeing a brilliant, bisexual woman succeeding in the world of writing gives me hope and inspiration.

4. She writes honestly about the toughest subjects.

Gay lives at the crossroads between many identities: a black, queer, obese, Haitian-American woman, who is a feminist and a survivor of rape. These identities are vulnerabilities in a society which devalues them. Gay does what every good writer should: she takes her vulnerability and she uses it. She fills her writing with the honesty of personal experience and charges it with raw emotion. This brutal essay discusses rape culture within the context of her own assault, while here she writes about obesity, body shame and her own self-denial. Her ability to lay herself bare to the reader, to make every essay and novel a conversation that starts with "Here I am," is a recipe for great writing.

5. Her Tumblr and Twitter are fire.

Gay's Tumblr is a window into her private emotional world, filled with insight and personal detail. One recent Tumblr post hit me hard:

I hate that no matter what I accomplish, I will always be vulnerable to certain kinds of criticism. There will always be people who call me ugly, hideous, a beast, an elephant, unlovable. These are the things I’ve been told in the past day tempering the amazing news that my novel is going to become a movie. I am often asked why I am a feminist. Maybe I am a feminist because until women are equal, I will never be anything more than my body.

I'm not a twitter person, but her Twitter account is stellar, too: honest, funny and dark in turns. She had this truth bomb to drop about the Cecil the Lion controversy:

I'm personally going to start wearing a lion costume when I leave my house so if I get shot, people will care.
— roxane gay (@rgay)

My god. So real.

6. She has a huge crush on Channing Tatum.

And I mean, who could blame her? But the crush reached epic and hilarious proportions when she reviewed "Magic Mike XXL," in an article entitled "I Wanted to Hug Every Part of Him With My Mouth." Adorably, Channing Tatum appears to reciprocate the love. I just thought everybody should know this.

I'm only a few days away from seeing Roxane Gay in person. I'd tell you again how excited I am, but I'm too busy screaming internally and picking out bouquets to throw. Free tickets are still available for Scripps students and the general public, so if you have the chance to see her: for heaven's sake, do. For those who can't, read her writing, and revel in a different kind of intimacy, one between writer and reader rather than speaker and audience.

Roxane Gay makes me proud to be a feminist: especially a so-called "bad" feminist. She teaches us that we can't be perfect, but we can be honest about our imperfections. In short, she is utterly wonderful. But she doesn't need me to tell you that; her writing speaks for itself.