Vivek Shraya Redefines Failure into Fierceness

When it comes to the art of storytelling, Vivek Shraya is a profound and prolific creator. Luxuriously saturated in skill and imagination, her truth is told through inspirational wonderments and profound pontification. She is power; she is strength; she is zealous; she is resourceful, and she is resilient. Potential turned to proof, she is a living example of how vulnerability begets growth.

Shraya has utilized story to overcome the burden of insecurities and that innate imposter syndrome, not allowing self-proclaimed failure to cease the journey of self-actualization. While this multidisciplinary artist originally hoped for a career centered around music, she has carved an opulent path of significant impact in which the mainstream is only now able and willing to receive.

We meet Shraya on the heels of releasing the 10-year Anniversary Edition of her first book, God Loves Hair. Like many, 2020 started off a hopeful year for the musician, writer, teacher, public speaker, activist, visual artist, and playwright, but quickly turned into one of discomfort, adjustment, and shifted focus.

“It’s definitely been challenging mental-health wise. A lot of my identity is tied to being an artist, and a lot of being an artist for me is tied to being able to be in public spaces with other people,” she explains. “I can’t really complain, and I feel fortunate to have the privileges that I have, but yeah, I would say 2020 was definitely one of the worst years of my life.”

Having obligations such as promoting the re-release of God Loves Hair has been a blessing for Shraya, and throughout this conversation, we discuss not only the book but the variety of projects that really give shape to how she became the integrated artisan of story. From the intricacies of being a creative, trans woman of color navigating varying mediums to the grief of unrealized hopes and dreams, her personal and professional narrative is one of virtuous triumph via adaptability.

“I’ve been making art for almost 20 years now, and there are some projects that make a small, tiny dent, and then there’s other projects that mean a lot to me, but they don’t really mean a lot to anyone else, and then there’s projects that maybe have a larger splash. I think that I’ve been really fortunate to see a range of different kinds of impact,” Shraya explains. “I think God Loves Hair for me is sort of split in the middle of my career, and it was a big turning point for me.”

Originally written and released when Shraya identified as male, the perspectives in God Loves Hair remain preserved in he/him pronouns with a forward that informs the reader of how her gender was revealed to her many years after the publishing of the book. So much has happened in Shraya’s career since that first book of short stories was published, but the narrative housed in this historic piece of Shraya’s archive still ring just as true.

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Initially, Shraya dreamed of being a successful musician, and she spent the better part of 10 years solely focused on songwriting and performing. The goal was to obtain a record deal and become a pop star, full stop. However, life had other plans and never led to the sold-out gigs and gold-record status.

“Through that experience of heartbreak, what was interesting is that I still felt the desire to be creative. In that, what I learned was that I actually am interested in using my ‘voice’ in multiple ways, and one of those ways was writing that first collection of short stories,” she says. “I wasn’t like, ‘OK, I’m not a musician anymore. I’m a writer; I want to be a published writer,’ like, none of those things even crossed my mind. It was really coming from a place of an urgent desire to be creative, but I could not write another song again.”

With more things to say outside of melodies and choruses, she started exploring other mediums, such as film and photography, in addition to literature. Still, the connection to music ran deep for Shraya, beginning as early as childhood, and those ties were ones she could not shake.

“Music was tied to my religious community; we used to sing these devotional songs, and it was a way to connect with God, essentially. I grew up very religious, and there was something about that space, especially as a queer kid in a small city, that felt very safe. What was deemed feminine outside of that space, like singing, was actually valued and treasured,” she reveals. 

Describing that music was also a way of gaining protection and favor from the popular girls in high school, there was a deeply embedded, internalized homophobia that lived strongly inside her.

“Because of the homophobia that I experienced on a daily basis as a teenager, I wasn’t one of those kids that really liked being gay,” she says. ”I had friends who, as soon as they were 18, 19, they were at the gay bar every weekend; they had the gay boyfriends, and just seemed to assimilate into gayhood. Like, they secretly got the gay manual, and they were gay, gay, gay, and I did not get the manual. I really, really struggled with being gay.” 

It wasn’t until the short film she made in 2012, What I Love About Being Queer, that she went from a place of self-loathing to a place of self-loving. While she was formerly taught that being queer was abnormal and gross, that project really offered Shraya an opportunity to discover the gaps in LGBTQ characters and storytelling, adding nuance to anecdote. 

Changing the paradigm from the fear of the queer existence to what makes queer people fiercely beautiful, Shraya remembers beaming from behind the camera and feeling like every answer was exciting, validating, and affirming.

“One of my biggest learnings as an adult and as an artist has been tying homophobia to misogyny. I don’t think I really made that connection that when I was getting called faggot, what I was getting called was girly. I think I’ve been slowly making that connection in my work, and there’s been such a huge desire to honor femininity. Whether it’s looking at re-imagining Hindu goddesses from a feminist lens in my first novel, She of the Mountains, to recreating vintage photos of my mom with me as the subject in Trisha. Or, even my last novel that centers Brown women and Brown, female friendships. I think that like I just had such a commitment to femininity, and to specifically honoring and celebrating femininity. 

“And part of that is about healing my own internalized misogyny and homophobia, and a part of that is a form of resistance against the ongoing misogyny in the world. I can make the world a less hateful place towards women, and for women, and feminine people.”

Feeling curious about the fact that people seemed to appreciate the way that she spoke about social issues like homophobia, racism, and misogyny, she wanted to see if she was able to tell story in song that was infused with political themes. Yet, Shraya was once again faced with a harsh reality. 

“After taking, like, a six-year ‘break’ from music, coming back to solo music and making an album, Part Time Woman, it was the first time that I approached songwriting from a storytelling and political perspective. Most of my songs had been about love and heartbreak, which, I guess, can be its own kind of politic, especially from a queer person,” she explains. “But, when I approached Part Time Woman after I had written several books, I’d really seen the power of story.”

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Shraya says that she still wasn’t able to obtain the success in music she had hoped for, and the reality is that the music industry is a lot more prejudiced than the literary world. She talks about how the literary world gave her space to talk about things that she couldn’t talk about in music. Shraya even describes how a time she felt the most loved and accepted in a professional setting was when she participated in a writers workshop and was asked questions that solely pertained to storytelling, form, craft, character analysis, and why she gave a book a certain title. 

She wishes to be asked more questions about form, subtlety, or even basic issues like public transit (she uses the Netflix series featuring Fran Lebowitz, Pretend It’s a City, as an example). However, it’s been nearly impossible to sidestep and avoid being pigeonholed into topics that focus on queerness, race, and institutional oppression. 

“I wrote a book called I’m Afraid of Men a couple years ago, and that felt really hard. Writing the book, I had to revisit a lot of teenage and adolescent trauma around violence by men. I think, especially with a memoir, there’s this sense that there’s something cathartic about it, especially if it’s painful, and sometimes by me saying it’s cathartic, it actually alleviates the reader from any kind of responsibility in engaging in a challenging story. It’s really important for me to actually be like, ‘No, this is a really difficult piece, and it was difficult to talk about.’”

Shraya finds that because much of her literature and visual art is based on those traumatic experiences and her marginalized identities, this then turns into a cog in the wheel that feeds the machine of perpetualizing the suffering, queer narrative. As a protest piece, she developed the project called Trauma Clown, which is a photo essay that highlights the commodification of traumatization.

“That series was really born out of being able to suddenly reflect on my career and see an increased interest in my work and support for my work based on how much trauma I disclosed. Going back to I’m Afraid of Men, that, for me, was ostensibly, on paper, one of my most successful projects, and I would say it’s also a project where I revealed the most trauma,” she says. 

“I think that there’s this idea of trauma porn where you can engage in something, and especially if you’re part of the dominant group, you can then just walk away from it. It felt important to push against the kinds of pressures that I have felt in my career to continue doing this. I care about social issues; I have told stories about my trauma, but what I don’t like is when there’s institutional pressure to do that.”

For Shraya, all of these creative pursuits, the pretty and the painful ones, have revealed a symbiotic relationship in that they are all pieces of the same puzzle. They are all forms in which she can expose vulnerability, reflect on her identities, and become a stronger and richer storyteller. Rather than being divergent and singular stories, they enhance each other in interesting ways and always lead her back to music.

Shraya has also ventured into the realm of theatre, debuting the raw and honest musical How to Fail as a Popstar, in which she chronicles that journey of “not quite making it” in the music industry. A reflection on the dreams, disappointments, and inevitable triumph of finding her authentic voice, the theatrical piece debuted in February of 2020 to critical acclaim.

“Sometimes we fail, and sometimes that actually really hurts, and it’s really important that we honor that failure. But simultaneously, my relationship with music continues, and that’s also beautiful for what it is. So, I think both things are true. Music’s like the one that got away,” Shraya confesses. 

When asked what makes her feel fierce, she says that it’s her persistence and perseverance that she is ultimately the most proud of.

Continuing to find new, exciting ways to overlap mediums, she innovates means to channel creativity in a variety of forms that rotate around a singular project, such as the novel The Subtweet. Based on an examination of the music industry, the book comes with a soundtrack of all the songs in the book, and she made a short film called The Subtweet to accompany it. 

All in all, Shraya has released an impressive catalog of creative projects that includes songs, albums, books, films, visual art compilations, and varying collaborations. A single look at the artist’s website gives but a glimpse into the productive machine that is Vivek Shraya. While she has become a resourceful executor of art, there is always a roadblock to maneuver when seeking success in each industry. 

“I think one of the hardest things about being a multidisciplinary artist is, I inevitably encounter racist, homophobic, misogynist barriers in every industry. So, it’s almost like doing it all over again every time,” she explains. “It’s like, ‘Oh right, racism is here? Yes, of course, racism was there.’ It’s ongoing, but I think that I’ve been around for so long, part of it has been trying to see ways in which I can work within systems to maybe not break down my own barrier, unfortunately, but try to break down barriers for emerging artists.”

Approaching Arsenal Pulp Press (one of her publishers in Canada) in 2016, she said she wanted to launch VS. Books, an imprint of Arsenal, as a way to work with young, BIPOC writers in a mentorship role. She has since published two books by Black authors, one who is queer and trans, and has worked closely with them as they navigate the world of publishing for the first time in order to lessen the burden on new, up and coming, writers. 

“I don’t feel like I had any formal mentoring, and that’s, I think, one of the reasons why I feel really passionate about mentorship. Especially the more marginalized you are, the harder it is to access elders or mentors,” she explains. “When you’re marginalized, you’re ushered into elderdom at a very young age; I always say I felt like I was emerging forever. I was 20 and emerging, and then 25 and emerging, and then 30, I was described as emerging, and then suddenly, I was 35, and it’s like, ‘You’re an elder now.’

“So, it’s a very strange thing, I think, when you’re queer, or when you’re a person of color. There is a social responsibility to support your own, and I think it’s an important responsibility; it’s one I take very seriously.”

With her eyes set on what she can do for her community while staying true to her art and continuing to heal from those lifelong wounds, she says that it’s her persistence and perseverance that she is ultimately the most proud of and what makes her fierce.

“I really didn’t think I would make it past 16,” she confesses. “I thought about suicide all the time, and in two weeks, I’m turning 40. It really feels like an accomplishment; it feels like I fought to get here. That’s the beauty and challenge of being queer; I think you earn every year.”