Vivek Shraya is a Canadian musician, writer, and visual artist. She currently lives in Calgary, Alberta, where she is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at University of Calgary. Shraya is currently a director on the board of The Tegan and Sara Foundation, which fights for health, economic justice and representation for LGBTQ women.
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, Keys & Machines and 1:1. Shraya has also created two albums, Bronze and Angry, 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, Dragonette, Melanie C, Team Dresch, Melissa Ferrick, Brian Byrne, Greg MacPherson and Bonjay. 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 and longlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize.
Writing
In 2010, Shraya published her first book, God Loves Hair, an illustrated collection of twenty-one 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 Mails Best 100 Books of 2014, and nominated for a 2015 Lambda Literary Award. Shraya was awarded the Honour of Distinction at the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Awards. 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 that won a 2017 Publishing Triangle award and was longlisted for CBC's Canada Reads. 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. In 2017, Shraya partnered with Arsenal Pulp Press to create an imprint, VS. Books. 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 collectionShut Up You're Pretty, was published in 2019. Shraya's first graphic non-fiction work Death Threat was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2019. Ness Lee did the visual art for the book. Shraya's second novel The Subtweet was published on April 7th 2020 by ECW Press. 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."
Media and visual arts
Shraya has created five short films that have screened at festivals across Canada and internationally. 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. This project has been shown in galleries across North America and a digital version of Trisha has circulated internationally. Shraya's first theatrical work debuted 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." The play includes original songs written and performed by Shraya.
Personal life
On February 15, 2016, Shraya came out as trans and announced via her Facebook account that she is now using the pronouns she and her.
