I have been and continue to be committed to art as a tool to ignite, comfort, and discomfort.
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.
I couldn't write about love without writing about hate - specifically, how the experience of hatred embeds itself in the body and prevents love from entering or leaving.
Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.
Children's books have great potential to reveal new possibilities to readers, because the intended audience is at an age of genuine learning.
In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.
As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.
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."
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.
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!"
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.
I do use art as a site of protest, particularly in relation to dominant narratives.
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."
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.
It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.
When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.
My intention was never to write a "trans novel" - which is perhaps an effective strategy for writing a trans novel.
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.
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.
I have always considered the aesthetic of a project, including press photos, as a means to further the message of the art itself.
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.
When I do book readings, I always incorporate music or singing.
I think white artists have a responsibility to be not only naming white supremacy, but to be using their power and privilege to support artists of color.
As a brown artist, I have mixed feelings about my relationship to art and my "responsibilities" post-Trump.
I would love to see more dialogue around the "responsibilities" of art consumers - how can audiences better financially support artists we love, artists who are doing the work, so that artists have a more solid foundation upon which to make art?
