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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.

Vivek Shraya

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Vivek Shraya
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When I do book readings, I always incorporate music or singing.
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In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.
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I tend to focus less on genre as a starting point and more on idea or intention and let the idea dictate genre.
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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!
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I always work with text orally in the writing process, saying passages aloud to measure flow.
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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.
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Should I be collaborating with artists of color solely because of their race and my politics? This question is weighted with my own worry that I have been invited to speak or collaborate solely because of my race, and not because of my abilities.
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As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.
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I am more likely to get paid for my art if it's presented alongside a white artist, so the questions around value and agency arise: What choices should I make, or do I have to make, if I want to be compensated for my work? Why isn't my art valued on its own?
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I have dedicated a significant portion of my time and artistry to making art that addresses various forms of oppression, including white supremacy, misogyny, and biphobia.
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As a general rule, I tend to collaborate with artists whose work I admire.
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I worry about what Trump will inspire in Canada, especially given incidents that have already occurred here since the election.
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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.
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I feel like I have had to catch up to the art I've made, and learn from the protagonists I have written, especially in relation to gender.
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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.
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Writing about racism requires a directness that writing a love story does not.
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I am always hesitant to call myself an activist, mostly out of respect for the activists who are using their bodies and voices to protest or activists online who are constantly engaging and educating others.
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