*FINALIST FOR THE CITY OF CALGARY W.O. MITCHELL BOOK PRIZE*
“A deeply generous and honest gift to the world.”
—Elliot Page
The author of I’m Afraid of Men lets readers in on the secrets to a life of reinvention.

Vivek Shraya knows this to be true: people change. We change our haircuts and our outfits and our minds. We change names, titles, labels. We attempt to blend in or to stand out. We outgrow relationships, we abandon dreams for new ones, we start fresh. We seize control of our stories. We make resolutions.

In fact, nobody knows this better than Vivek, who’s made a career of embracing many roles: artist, performer, musician, writer, model, teacher. In People Change, she reflects on the origins of this impulse, tracing it to childhood influences from Hinduism to Madonna. What emerges is a meditation on change itself: why we fear it, why we’re drawn to it, what motivates us to change, and what traps us in place.

At a time when we’re especially contemplating who we want to be, this slim and stylish handbook is an essential companion—a guide to celebrating our many selves and the inspiration to discover who we’ll become next.

Vivek Shraya is the author of the young-adult collection God Loves Hair, the novel She of the Mountains, the poetry book even this page is white, and the children's picture book (with Rajni Perera) The Boy & the Bindi (all published by Arsenal Pulp Press), as well as I'm Afraid of Men and What I Love About Being QUEER. She is editor of the Arsenal Pulp Press imprint VS. Books, dedicated to work by young black, Indigenous, and writers of colour. Vivek was the 2014 recipient of the Steinert & Ferreiro Award for leadership in Toronto's LGBTQ community, the recipient of Anokhi Media's inaugural Most Promising LGBTQ Community Crusader Award in 2015, a 2015 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist, and a 2015 recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie Prize Honour of Distinction. Originally from Edmonton, she now lives in Calgary, where she is an assistant professor in the University of Calgary's Department of English.

Vivek Shraya's profile page

• Short-listed, W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize

*FINALIST FOR THE CITY OF CALGARY W.O. MITCHELL BOOK PRIZE*
One of Book Riot’s “Bite-Sized Queer Reads For Every Occasion”
Praise for People Change:

“People Change is a profoundly honest, insightful, and deeply generous invitation to examine our relationship with change, our love of it and our fear of it. With wit and vulnerability, Vivek touches on themes that show up in all our lives and ultimately asks us to reinvent how we relate to the constant that is change.”
—Elliot Page, actor and producer

“A binary and label smashing examination of the infinite vastness of the self. Vivek’s introspection of her own life’s archive offers invaluable insight into how we define ourselves. My future self will definitely be bringing a copy to my younger self when we finally get those time machines built!”
—Lilly Wachowski, filmmaker (Matrix trilogy, Bound, Work in Progress)

“Vivek has redefined my view of what change can be, how not to fear it. Change is evolution.”
—Tanya Tagaq, author of Split Tooth

“At once personal and philosophical. A must-read for our times, as we flounder with the particular and universal nature of change.”
—Deepa Mehta, director of Water, Fire, and Earth

“A profound and thoughtful meditation on who we are and what it means when we change. Vivek Shraya’s personal journey touches on the universal and enfolds us all.”
—Anna Maria Tremonti, journalist and former host of CBC’s The Current

“If you, too, get anxious thinking about change, [People Change] is the book for you. Shraya writes about change from a variety of angles, exploring her own transition and music career, celebrity comebacks, divorce, and more. She reflects on the possibilities present in even the scariest changes, and argues for celebrating change for its own sake, rather than trying to run from it.”
—Book Riot