Shauntay Grant

Shauntay Grant is a Canadian author, poet, playwright, and professor. Between 2009 and 2011, she served as the third poet laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Career

Grant began publishing her work after she was approached by Sandra McIntyre, a senior editor at Nimbus Publishing, during an event where she read a poem from her teenage years. The poem, called "Remember Preston", talked about her childhood experiences in North Preston, and on McIntyre's suggestion, was turned into a children's book, released in 2008 by the name of Up Home. Similarly, her following two books, The City Speaks In Drums (2010) and Apples and Butterflies (2012), were based on poems written by Grant. She developed the play over several years and workshopped it with Eastern Front Theatre and Black Theatre Workshop. The Bridge tells the story of two estranged brothers in a rural Nova Scotian Black community. Grant won Outstanding New Play by a Nova Scotian at the 2020 Merritt Awards for The Bridge, which was also nominated for Outstanding Production. In 2020, her board book for children, My Hair is Beautiful, was selected as one of the Best of the Year by School Library Journal blogger Betsy Bird in her Fuse 8 Production review of children's books.

Grant is a former host of CBC Radio's national Poetry Face-Off and regional concert music program All The Best. She currently works as an associate professor for Dalhousie University, where she teaches creative writing.