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I always work with text orally in the writing process, saying passages aloud to measure flow.

Vivek Shraya

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Vivek Shraya
Measure
Flow
Saying
Process
Writing
Orally
Work
Aloud
Always
Passages
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More quotes by Vivek Shraya

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When I wouldn't leave home without my blue contacts or when I was bleaching my hair, I didn't have the language to articulate that I was trying to assimilate to whiteness. If anything, I was trying to look normal.
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Children are receptive to talking about gender creativity, confirming the importance of the book as a means to instigate this dialogue at an early age.
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I worry about what Trump will inspire in Canada, especially given incidents that have already occurred here since the election.
Vivek Shraya
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I used singing as a safety measure. I would pay attention to what songs the popular girls liked, learn those songs from the radio or library cassettes, and then accidentally sing or hum these songs in class. This would impress the girls, who would then defend me from the boys.
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If anything, I have witnessed the ways my art travels, or is rendered more accessible, when sanctioned by or connected to white artists.
Vivek Shraya
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Music is my first love, where my artistic journey began.
Vivek Shraya
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Of course, I can't separate my queerness from my brownness - if anything, my queerness amplifies my brownness, and vice versa - but I spent so much of my early twenties trying to erase my differences, often without awareness of what I was doing.
Vivek Shraya
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In my thirties, I have felt a greater urgency to make art that highlights what it feels like to be racialized, likely due to living in a country that obscures our racism with the idea of multiculturalism.
Vivek Shraya
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I don't yet know what style will be required for my next novel, but my sense is that each book will involve a new relationship to language.
Vivek Shraya
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I recently did a reading at an elementary school in Ottawa, and one of the children asked me if I was a girl. I said yes. Another child commented that I had a deep voice. I responded: Can girls have deep voices? There was a pause and then the group responded, Yes!
Vivek Shraya
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I didn't want to give the white reader an opportunity to think of racism as imaginary - a sentiment that is already a central barrier in addressing the problem.
Vivek Shraya
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When I do book readings, I always incorporate music or singing.
Vivek Shraya
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I do use art as a site of protest, particularly in relation to dominant narratives.
Vivek Shraya
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Making music has been connected to one of my greatest heartaches, because my own music has never quite connected with audiences. But it was this heartache that pushed me to explore other artistic avenues, like writing and filmmaking, and I ultimately feel most at home in a multidisciplinary environment.
Vivek Shraya
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My art career often feels less like an art career and more like a career in educating, usually by using my body.
Vivek Shraya
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When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.
Vivek Shraya
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Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.
Vivek Shraya
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In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.
Vivek Shraya
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Art can sometimes be separate from the artist.
Vivek Shraya
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Despite the fact that I'm not highly skilled in any visual art, aesthetics have always played a strong role in my art, including my first albums.
Vivek Shraya