Join us for a reading and performance with Rae Spoon, a musician, author and producer with twenty-five years of experience in the arts industry. Rae has a passion for supporting artists in forging their own spaces in the industry.
Speaker Biography
Rae Spoon is a musician, author, and producer with twenty-five years of experience in the arts industry. They have published three books with Arsenal Pulp Press and a humorous booklet called How to (Hide) Be(hind) Your Songs (2017). Their first book, First Spring Grass Fire (2012), was nominated for a Lambda Literary award and the co-write Gender Failure (2014) was on the Over the Rainbow Project book list was published in German. Rae’s first novel, Green Glass Ghosts (2021), was illustrated by Gem Hall and reviewed by Quill & Quire, CBC and the Globe and Mail. In 2013 Rae was awarded a Dayne Ogilvie Prize Honour of Distinction by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and has been nominated for two Polaris Prizes and a Western Canadian Music Award.
Rae has a passion for supporting artists in forging their own spaces in the industry through sound recording workshops, mentoring, grant writing, project management and music production. In 2015, Rae founded Coax Records in the hopes of using their experience to create a space in the music industry where under-represented artists from lots of communities can share their music on their own terms.
Rae is a settler with European ancestry. They grew up on Treaty 7 territory in Calgary (the traditional and ancestral territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy: Kainai, Piikani and Siksika as well as the Tsuu T’ina Nation and Stoney Nakoda First Nation). Rae currently lives in Tkoronto/Toronto (the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples) and Tiohtià:ke/Montréal (the unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk Nation). Rae is a non-binary and trans artist who is cancer experienced and lives with disabilities.
Visiting Writers Program
The School of Creative Writing’s Visiting Writers Program provides an opportunity for our students, alumni and faculty to connect with insightful writers in small group settings. We encourage everyone in Creative Writing to take advantage of this opportunity – it’s a unique benefit of being involved in the School.
These events are open to all Creative Writing students, alumni and faculty. If you’d like to bring a friend, please do! Registration is not required to attend our public events. Follow the link provided at the top of this event listing to participate.
