5 Questions with Tanya
Tanya Roy has been a storyteller on the eastern seaboard for over 20 years. As a mother, educator, entrepreneur, humanitarian, actor and producer, daughter, and divorcee, she never has a shortage of inspiration, finding humor and humanity in every experience. Best known in competitive storytelling for her wit and distinctive style delivering the bittersweet parts of life with humor, she uses performance poetry as a way to delve deeper in the hardest parts of the human condition. Through her writing and her spoken word, her specialty is connecting with audiences so their time together becomes a shared experience.
1. What’s the most iconic thing you’ve ever overheard in public?
You can meet my main character energy, or you can get out of my way. I am the only one who gets to be the villain and the hero in my life.
2. What harmless opinion are you ferociously passionate about?
I actually think about this often because I love the What's Your Hot Take Subway Guy. I think that the ability to reach people at all times has made us more rude as individuals and alienated us as a society. People cannot be trusted to keep their word when plans are made because they now have the ability to beg off at the last minute or to put off making plans at all. I think that when we had to go through the trouble of making plans in advance, and then we had to show up or people would worry about us, we were a more compassionate people and a more polite society.
3. What’s your “origin story” in three sentences?
I believed the things that I was told by the adults in my life when I was a child.
As a teenager I realized that, while they weren't outright lies, they weren't facts, they were beliefs or hopes or pipe dreams.
But because no one told me I couldn't make them be true, instead of becoming disillusioned, I became empowered.
4. What’s your most unpopular (but very correct) opinion?
Pineapple belongs on pizza.
5. What’s a book, movie, or show you will evangelize until you die?
AudioBook: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - but it must be the audio version read by Jeremy Irons.
Book:And The Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomas Rivera
These will make complete sense if you read my piece in the issue. I am a storyteller at heart and it's how my mind works. I want a book to invite me to walk with it and a story that speaks by what it doesn't say.