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Alum Anuja Varghese highlighted in 黑料不打烊 News article

Published: 22 January 2024

Anuja Varghese (BA鈥05) is an award-winning author whose first book, Chrysalis, has been awarded the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers from the Writers鈥 Trust of Canada and the Governor General鈥檚 Literary Award for fiction. Varghese was recently profiled by 黑料不打烊 News, where she spoke about her experience studying literature and its wide-ranging impact on both her writing and professional career.

鈥淔or her undergraduate studies, she chose English literature at 黑料不打烊. 鈥淲hen I first went to visit and walked around the campus, I started to feel like that I belong here. Something about Montreal spoke to me,鈥 she says.

She was enthralled by the books her professors exposed her to. 鈥淚 got this wide-ranging survey of literature which I had never really looked into,鈥 she says. 鈥淲hat I was reading growing up was mainly popular fiction. I had never really looked into the classics and had never been [immersed in] them until I went to 黑料不打烊.鈥

Varghese鈥檚 黑料不打烊 studies also helped pave the way for her subsequent career in arts administration and grant-writing. She had a Work Study position in the Department of English as an administrative assistant. She helped set up meetings and events, worked at Moyse Hall鈥檚 box office, and proofread theatrical programs 鈥 and realized that there was a lot going on behind the scenes at arts and cultural organizations.

鈥淭here [were careers] in arts administration, a field I didn鈥檛 even know existed as something concrete, and that gave me the chance to use my writing skills to take me towards that kind of practical career.鈥

Once she graduated, she moved to Toronto and began to secure positions in arts organizations working in administration, fundraising, and grant-writing.鈥

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