Critically acclaimed and bestselling author Roxane Gay teaches a MasterClass on writing for social change. But will this course really help you with your essay or fiction writing? Today, I'm sharing my honest thoughts in this Roxane Gay MasterClass Review, and whether I think this class will benefit writers who wish to write about social change.

Who is Roxane Gay?

 Renowned for her humor, strength, and razor-sharp intellect, Roxane Gay is a writer and cultural critic. She's the author of Bad Feminist, a collection of personal essays, and the novel An Untamed State, among others.

Gay's a columnist for the New York Times, and has contributed fiction to Tin House and Oxford American. She's also written graphic novels, including The Sacrifice of Darkness and The Banks.

And let me tell you–she's wickedly funny, which made this MasterClass a total delight to watch.

What is MasterClass?

If you're new to it, MasterClass is an online learning platform that offers self-paced courses made up of short, high-quality video lessons on just about every topic you could imagine. Each class is taught by a leading expert in their field.

A MasterClass membership gives you full access to their entire course library. This includes everything from business, music, science, and, of course, creative writing. New classes are added every month, so there's always something new to dive into.

Notable writing MasterClass instructors include James Patterson, Neil Gaiman, N. K. Jemisin, Judy Blume, Amy Tan, and David Mamet.

There are three annual pricing plans you can choose from:

• Standard, which comes to $10/month;
• Plus, which comes to $15/month; and
• Premium, which comes to $25/month.

Plus membership is a great middle ground of the three plans. With this membership, two devices can watch MasterClasses at the same time, and you can download lessons for offline viewing, which makes watching your courses even more convenient.

It's important to note, however, that MasterClass bills annually, so while Plus membership may have an advertised “monthly price” of $15, you'll receive an annual subscription and will be billed for the entire year at once.

MasterClass offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee, though, so if you're not happy with the classes, you can cancel your plan within this time-frame.

What does Roxane Gay’s MasterClass include?

There are twenty video lessons in Roxane Gay’s MasterClass, totaling just over three hours.

Here's what you'll find inside:

1. Meet Your Instructor
2. Writing as a Black Feminist
3. Challenging Ideas and Changing Minds
4. Getting Started as a Writer
5. Roxane's Writing Process
6. Roxane’s Writing Toolbox
7. Research
8. Self-Editing: Re-Visioning Your Work
9. Consuming and Criticising Culture
10. Writing About Trauma
11. Writer’s Workshop: Feedback
12. Writer’s Workshop: Common Ground
13. Writer’s Workshop: Finding Your Voice
14. Engaging With Your Readers
15. Having a Day Job
16. The Business of Writing
17. Finding an Agent
18. Getting Published
19. Becoming a Good Literary Citizen
20. Moving Forward

Each lesson is relatively short (most under 10 minutes long), making it easy to squeeze into your day. Or you could binge the entire course in an afternoon. Once you get started, it's hard to stop!

For more details, check out Roxane's MasterClass here.

What I loved about Roxane Gay’s MasterClass

There's so much I loved about this MasterClass. Unsurprisingly, given she’s a professor as well as a writer, Roxane Gay is a phenomenal teacher. Her lessons are practical, approachable, and infused with her signature wit and at times self-deprecating humor.

Humor is something Roxane Gay speaks about at length, and how you can use humor to connect with readers as well as reach people who are uncomfortable with your topic. This is, of course, particularly useful for essayists, but even as a fiction writer, I enjoyed diving deeper into how to use (my admittedly goofy) humor effectively in my work.

While the course emphasizes writing for social change, many of Roxane Gay's tips are helpful for all writers. She shares advice on everything from dealing with writer's block to incorporating humor in your writing, conducting research, and editing your own work. She goes into detail about how to step back and think about your work from a big picture perspective, what questions to ask yourself while you're editing, and advises writers to read their work aloud to find out what's working and what isn't. Gay also talks about the importance of receiving feedback for your work, but that you don't have to accept or use every note someone gives. At the end of the day, you should stand by your work.

I especially appreciated her thoughtful approach to writing about trauma. Gay emphasizes the importance of being in a healthy, supported place before tackling emotionally heavy material, and reminds fiction writers not to simply use your story as a “veil for your experiences,” but to focus on crafting a genuinely good story.

While essayists and social justice-minded writers will get the most out of this course, anyone who enjoys writing with purpose and depth will find Roxane Gay's insights valuable.

There's also a downloadable PDF class guide, which includes extra details about Roxane and her work, plus writing exercises to help you dive deeper into the lessons. I really enjoyed flipping through it.

What Didn’t Work as Well for Me

One thing in this course I found a little less engaging were the writer's workshops. Instead of exercises you can complete yourself, these lessons feature Roxane critiquing other writers’ work in real time. While it was incredibly interesting to see her give this feedback—she uses the “OREO method” that we use here at The Write Practice—it made the experience feel more passive compared to other MasterClasses I’ve taken.

That said, the PDF class guide includes exercises and writing prompts that help bridge the gap. So, as long as you utilize the workbook, you can still put these lessons and Roxane Gay's advice into practice right away.

Roxane Gay is also a traditionally published author, and isn't a huge fan of self-publishing. While she offers a balanced perspective on the self-publishing industry, explaining why it's useful for writers as well as the drawbacks of doing everything yourself, some indie authors might not find her lessons on the traditional publishing process helpful. 

Key Takeaways

Roxane Gay is a sharp, thoughtful, and entertaining teacher. Her MasterClass offers a wealth of writing wisdom, particularly for those interested in writing personal essays, creative nonfiction, or fiction that explores social change.

I also really enjoyed learning about Gay's writing process. And while the writer's workshops weren't as engaging as other exercises might have been, I still learnt a lot from them.

The class strikes a nice balance between personal reflection, practical writing tips, and big-picture advice about the publishing world. I definitely recommend it for all writers, but especially for cultural critics, social commenters, and those exploring current events in their work.

What is your favorite essay or story by Roxane Gay? Let us know in the comments! 

Ready to take Roxane Gay's MasterClass? Check it out here.