At that point she was done with her book tour and was exhausted. I forwarded the entire exchange back to Roxane with the sincere hope she might feel bad that the publicist had ignored me, and that she might consider scheduling something directly. The fifth email did get a response, but it was from a mailer daemon letting me know that the publicist was no longer employed at Harper Collins. I sent several emails (well, four) to the publicist, but alas, she never replied. She said yes and asked me to coordinate the details with her publicist at Harper Collins. After about a year of planning and plotting, I tried to get her attention by inviting her to be on my podcast, Design Matters. I read the New York Times bestselling Hunger by writer, professor, and cultural critic Roxane Gay when it first came out and fell in love with her while reading it. But in order to understand why, it helps to know some backstory.