Vivek Shraya

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. 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.

• Name — Vivek Shraya • Born — YYYY MM DD • Genre — Electro, dance, rock • Occupation — Musician, writer, visual artist • Label — Skinsongs • Website — www.vivekshraya.com

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, 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.

In 2010, Shraya published her first book, God Loves Hair, 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 Mails Best 100 Books of 2014, and nominated for a 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction. 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 collection Shut 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 7, 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." 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".

Shraya is bisexual. On February 15, 2016, she came out as transgender.