Vivek Shraya

Last updated
Vivek Shraya
Vivek Shraya.jpg
Vivek Shraya, 2021
Background information
Born (1981-02-15) February 15, 1981 (age 43)
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Genres Electro, dance, rock
Occupation(s)Musician, writer, visual artist
LabelsSkinsongs
Website www.vivekshraya.com

Vivek Shraya (born February 15, 1981) is a Canadian musician, writer, and visual artist. She is a seven-time Lambda Literary Award finalist and is considered a Great Canadian Filmmaker of the Future by CBC Arts. [1] [2]

Contents

Shraya is dedicated to bringing creative writing opportunities to emerging BIPOC writers through the founding of her award-winning publishing imprint VS. Books, which serves as a "mentorship and publishing opportunity" for these writers. [3]

Shraya is also a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation, which fights for health, economic justice and representation for LGBTQ women. [4] [5]

How to Fail as a Popstar , a web series adapted from her stage play and book of the same name, premiered in 2023 on CBC Gem. [6]

Career

Music

Shraya began writing songs at the age of 13 and released her first album, THROAT, in 2002. Since then, she has released a dozen solo albums in a range of genres, including If We're Not Talking (2007), Keys & Machines (2009) and 1:1 (2011). Shraya has also created two albums, Bronze (2015) and Angry (2018), with her band, Too Attached, which she and her brother, Shamik Bilgi, formed in 2015. She has toured extensively in North America, both as a solo artist and with Too Attached, sharing the stage with Tegan and Sara, [7] Dragonette, Melanie C, Team Dresch, Melissa Ferrick, Brian Byrne, Greg MacPherson and Bonjay. [8]

Shraya's 2017 album, Part-Time Woman, a collaboration with the Queer Songbook Orchestra, was named one of the 17 best Canadian albums of 2017 by CBC Arts [9] and longlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize. [10]

Writing

In 2010, Shraya published her first book, God Loves Hair, [11] an illustrated collection of 21 linked short stories about a brown, genderqueer child growing up in immigrant family in Alberta. God Loves Hair was nominated for a 2011 Lambda Literary Award in the Children's/Young Adult category. Shraya's second book, She of the Mountains, a lyrical novel consisting of two intertwined love stories, was named one of The Globe and Mail 's Best 100 Books of 2014, [12] and nominated for a 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction. [13] Shraya was awarded the Honour of Distinction at the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Awards. [14]

In 2016, Shraya released her debut poetry collection, even this page is white, an incisive exploration of the effects of everyday racism and colonialism in Canada [15] that won a 2017 Publishing Triangle award [16] and was longlisted for CBC's Canada Reads. [17] The Boy & The Bindi, a children's picture book about a young boy's fascination with the dot on his mother's forehead, was also published in 2016. Shraya's first non-fiction book, I’m Afraid of Men, was released in August 2018. [18]

In 2017, Shraya partnered with Arsenal Pulp Press to create an imprint, VS. Books. [19] Through VS. Books, Shraya supports young writers of colour by providing mentorship through the writing and editing processes and publishing a book by a different emerging artist every year. The first VS. title, Téa Mutonji's short story collection Shut Up You're Pretty, was published in 2019. [20]

Shraya's first graphic non-fiction work Death Threat was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2019. [21] Ness Lee did the visual art for the book.

Shraya's second novel The Subtweet was published on April 7, 2020 by ECW Press. [22] The book is focused on an intense friendship between two women of colour musicians.

Quill & Quire reviewed The Subtweet in March 2020, concluding that "While it wrestles with the political realities of working in the arts and navigating social media, The Subtweet also elucidates certain social-justice modes of thought. Shraya’s narrative pushes back against the ways mainstream and pop-culture formulations of social justice are used to further agendas misaligned with principles of equity. It critiques the ways in which social-justice rhetoric can be wielded as a weapon for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or the pursuit of personal vendettas. The Subtweet attempts to nudge the reader toward a more critical perspective and to encourage the reader to be more skeptical of what comes out of the mouths of public figures, especially when money and politics are involved." [23]

Shraya's 2022 book People Change was published by Penguin Random House and was included in CBC Books list of "26 Canadian Books to Read for Pride Month". [24]

Media and visual arts

Shraya has created five short films that have screened at festivals across Canada and internationally. [25] [26] In 2016, she released a photo series, Trisha, featuring old photos of her mother displayed alongside contemporary re-creations of the images with Shraya herself as the subject. [27] [28] This project has been shown in galleries across North America [29] and a digital version of Trisha has circulated internationally.

Before coming out as trans on February 15, 2016, Shraya made the film, Seeking Single White Male on August 1, 2010. This film depicts a set of pictures of Shraya increasingly altering her features to those more associated with a Caucasian person. The images depict the bleaching of her brown hair to blonde in addition to the constant use of blue eye contacts over her brown eyes. [30] In a post on her website just over two years after the original post, Shraya shares that the purpose behind the film was “to show how the internalization of racism can manifest externally.” [31] An analysis of Seeking Single White Male completed in June 2019 reveals that “The comments incorporated into this video clearly address the existence of racialized conceptions of desirability within the gay community in Ontario, Canada.” [32] Prior to 2010, Shraya altered her appearance to appear more Caucasian in response to the “racialized conceptions of desirability” in the Edmonton gay bars that she frequented. Seeking Single White Male has been shown in multiple screenings including the Vancouver Queer Film Festival in 2011 and the Reel Asian International Film Festival in Toronto, ON in 2012. [33]

Shraya's first theatrical work debuted on February 18, 2020. The work is called How to Fail as a Popstar, chronicling "her journey to 'not quite' pop music superstardom. A reflection on the power of pop culture, dreams, disappointments and self-determination, this astonishing performance is a triumph in finding one’s authentic voice." [34] The play includes original songs written and performed by Shraya.

In 2020, Shraya partnered with Pantene on their global Hair Has No Gender Project, highlighting the importance of hair in a trans or gender non-binary person's identity and transition. The campaign's film included a conversation about self-expression and familial support between Shraya and her father, Mohan Bilgi. [35]

Shraya has also composed music for the television series Sort Of . Alongside Emily Persich, Moël, Terrell Morris, Shan Vincent de Paul and Ceréna, she won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Music in a Comedy Series at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards in 2023. [36]

Personal life

Vivek Shraya identifies as bisexual. On February 15, 2016, Shraya also came out as transgender [37] and announced via her Facebook account that she is now using she/her pronouns.

Discography

Books

Related Research Articles

The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the best volume of poetry published by a first-time poet. It is presented in honour of poetry promoter Gerald Lampert. Each winner receives an honorarium of $1000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie-Louise Gay</span> Canadian illustrator and childrens writer (born 1952)

Marie-Louise Gay is a Canadian children's writer and illustrator. She has received numerous awards for her written and illustrated works in both French and English, including the 2005 Vicky Metcalf Award, multiple Governor General's Awards, and multiple Janet Savage Blachford Prizes, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amber Dawn</span> Canadian writer

Amber Dawn is a Canadian writer, who won the 2012 Dayne Ogilvie Prize, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer.

The Ferro-Grumley Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle and the Ferro-Grumley Foundation to a book deemed the year's best work of LGBT fiction. The award is presented in memory of writers Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley. It was co-founded in 1988 by Stephen Greco, who continues to direct it as of 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raziel Reid</span> Canadian writer (born 1990)

Raziel Reid is a Canadian writer whose debut young adult novel When Everything Feels Like the Movies won the Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature at the 2014 Governor General's Awards. The novel, inspired in part by the 2008 murder of gay teenager Lawrence Fobes King, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2014. Its launch was marked with a national book tour with Vivek Shraya, who was simultaneously promoting her new book She of the Mountains. In 2015, Reid became adjunct professor of Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults at the University of British Columbia.

Susin Nielsen is a Canadian author for children, adolescents and young adults. She received the 2012 Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature and the 2013 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award for her young adult novel The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, which deals with the aftermath of a school shooting.

The 29th Lambda Literary Awards were held on June 13, 2017, to honour works of LGBT literature published in 2016. The nominees were announced in March 14, and the winners announced at a gala ceremony on Monday evening, June 12, 2017 in New York City. Winners are in bold.

<i>God Loves Hair</i> Short story collection by Vivek Shraya

God Loves Hair is a collection of 21 short stories by Vivek Shraya with illustrations by Juliana Neufeld. The collections tells the stories of a child of Indian immigrants growing up in Canada. Originally self-published in 2010 it was a finalized for the Lambda Literary Award. In 2014 it was rereleased by Arsenal Pulp Press. In 2020 a hardcover 10th anniversary edition which includes a new story, new illustrations and a foreword by writer Cherie Dimaline.

Kai Cheng Thom is a Canadian writer and former social worker. Thom, a non-binary trans woman, has published four books, including the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir (2016), the poetry collection a place called No Homeland (2017), a children's book, From the Stars in The Sky to the Fish in the Sea (2017), and I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World (2019), a book of essays centered on transformative justice.

Joanne Robertson Misko Anungo Kwe (Red Star Woman) is an Anishinaabe author, illustrator, and water protection activist. Joanne is a member of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and is of the Bald Eagle clan.

Jessica L. Webb is a Canadian writer of mystery thriller novels. Her second published novel, Pathogen, won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Mystery at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017, and her fourth novel, Repercussions, is a shortlisted nominee in the same category at the 30th Lambda Literary Awards in 2018.

Gwen Benaway is Canadian poet and activist. As of October 2019, she was a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

The 31st Lambda Literary Awards were held on June 3, 2019, to honour works of LGBT literature published in 2018. The list of nominees was released on March 7.

Tess Liem or T. Liem is a Canadian poet from Montreal, Quebec, who published their debut poetry collection Obits in 2018. The book was named one of the year's best Canadian poetry collections by CBC Arts, and won the Gerald Lampert Award from the League of Canadian Poets in 2019.

Joseph Cassara is an American writer, whose debut novel The House of Impossible Beauties was published in 2018. The novel, an exploration of drag culture in New York City in the 1980s during the HIV/AIDS crisis, was inspired in part by Angie Xtravaganza and the film Paris Is Burning.

Emilia Nielsen is a Canadian writer and academic. An associate professor in the faculty of social sciences at York University, she has published both poetry and academic literature on the sociological aspects of health and disability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Téa Mutonji</span> Canadian writer and poet

Téa Mutonji is a Canadian writer and poet, whose debut short story collection Shut Up You're Pretty was published in 2019.

Ma-Nee Chacaby is an Ojibwe-Cree writer and activist from Canada. She is most noted for her memoir, A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder.

Chase Joynt is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, video artist, actor, and professor. He attracted acclaim as co-director with Aisling Chin-Yee of the documentary film No Ordinary Man (2020), and as director of the film Framing Agnes (2022). He won two awards at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival for his work on the latter.

Robin Stevenson is a Canadian author of thirty books for kids and teens. Her writing has been translated into several languages, and published in more than a dozen countries. Robin's books regularly receive starred reviews, have won the Silver Birch Award, the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize and a Stonewall Book Award, and have been finalists for the Governor General's Awards, the Lambda Literary Award, and others. She writes both fiction and non-fiction, for toddlers through teens.

References

  1. ↑ "About · Vivek Shraya". vivekshraya.com. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  2. ↑ "17 for '17: These are the great Canadian filmmakers of the future". 2017. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  3. ↑ "2020 Open Call / VS. Books". vsbooks.ca. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  4. ↑ "About TSF". Welcome. Archived from the original on 2019-04-20. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
  5. ↑ "About • Vivek Shraya". vivekshraya.com. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
  6. ↑ Hina Imam, "‘How to Fail as a Popstar’ asks us to make space for failure". Xtra! , October 13, 2023.
  7. ↑ "Vive Le Shraya" Archived 2007-02-13 at the Wayback Machine . SEE Magazine, August 24, 2006.
  8. ↑ "Bonjay and Too Attached on the limits of 'diversity'" Archived 2018-07-18 at the Wayback Machine . Now , May 23, 2018.
  9. ↑ "The 17 best Canadian albums of 2017". CBC Music. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  10. ↑ "2018 Long List - Polaris Music Prize". Polaris Music Prize. Archived from the original on 2018-06-25. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  11. ↑ "Vivek Shraya launches his first collection of short stories" Archived 2012-09-24 at the Wayback Machine . Xtra! , May 5, 2010.
  12. ↑ "The Globe 100: The best books of 2014". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2017-03-01.
  13. ↑ Gentes, Brian (2021-03-15). "2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  14. ↑ "Alex Leslie wins 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers". Quill & Quire , June 8, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Review: Vivek Shraya's even this page is white".
  16. ↑ "Vivek Shraya wins Publishing Triangle Award | Quill and Quire". Quill and Quire. 2017-04-28. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  17. ↑ Taunton, Paul (Dec 19, 2016). "CBC Canada Reads 2017 announces longlist, including Katherena Vermette, Vivek Shraya, André Alexis". National Post . Retrieved Feb 2, 2017.
  18. ↑ "Vivek Shraya's new book I'm Afraid of Men set for fall 2018 | The Star". thestar.com. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  19. ↑ "Vivek Shraya gives writers a path through barriers with VS. Books – Broken Pencil Magazine". brokenpencil.com. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  20. ↑ Sue Carter, "Téa Mutonji selected as first writer under Vivek Shraya’s VS. imprint with Arsenal Pulp". Quill & Quire , December 11, 2017.
  21. ↑ Death Threat.
  22. ↑ Shraya, Vivek (7 April 2020). The subtweet: a novel. ECW Press. ISBN   978-1-77041-583-6. OCLC   1121630522.
  23. ↑ "The Subtweet". Quill and Quire. 2020-03-05. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  24. ↑ "26 Canadian books to read for Pride Month". CBC News. June 7, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  25. ↑ "Toronto artist Vivek Shraya asks an important question in 'What I Love About Being Queer'". Nightlife.ca. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  26. ↑ "Screening: Canadian Shorts". OUTeast Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2018-07-26. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  27. ↑ "Why this trans artist is recreating photos of her mother | CBC News". CBC. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  28. ↑ "On Becoming My Mother". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  29. ↑ "Vivek Shraya's "Trisha" Blurs the Past and the Present" . Retrieved 2018-07-25.
  30. ↑ Shraya, Vivek (1 August 2010). "Films". Vivek Shraya.
  31. ↑ Shraya, Vivek (7 August 2012). "Seeking Single White Male: Two Years Later and An Open Letter". Vivek Shraya.
  32. ↑ Liu, Yilong; Park, Soyang (June 2019). "Confronting Ambiguity: Reading the Intersection of Racial and Sexual Marginalization in Rex Vs Singh and Seeking Single White Male". ProQuest. ProQuest   2331236046.
  33. ↑ Shraya, Vivek (1 August 2010). "Seeking Single White Male". Vivek Shraya.
  34. ↑ "How to Fail as a Popstar · Vivek Shraya". vivekshraya.com. 18 February 2020. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  35. ↑ Daniel, Sarah (2020-11-24). "Meet Pantene's new Canadian ambassador, Vivek Shraya". Fashion Magazine. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
  36. ↑ Connie Thiessen, "2023 Canadian Screen Awards: Comedic & Dramatic Arts". Broadcast Dialogue, April 14, 2023.
  37. ↑ "Girl, It's Your Time: Trans Artist Vivek Shraya On Finding Freedom and Wholeness". Autostraddle. 2016-05-19. Retrieved 2017-03-01.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.