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Scaachi Koul
Koul at a book reading in Toronto in 2017
Born (1991-02-07) February 7, 1991 (age 33)
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Alma materRyerson University
OccupationWriter

Scaachi Koul (born February 7, 1991) is a former Canadian culture writer at BuzzFeed Canada.[1][2] She is the author of the book of essays One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter and was one of the reporters in BuzzFeed's Netflix documentary series Follow This. Before BuzzFeed, Koul worked at Penguin Random House Canada, the acquiring publisher of her book.[3] Her journalism has appeared in Flare,[4] HuffPost Canada, The Thought Catalog, The Guardian, The New Yorker,[5] The New York Times,[6] The Globe and Mail,[7] and other publications.

Career

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Koul freelanced while still at the Ryerson School of Journalism where she wrote for Maclean's from 2009 up until her graduation at the end of 2012.[8][9] From April to November 2014 Koul wrote the "Unf*ck Yourself" column for Hazlitt.[10] In 2015 her column was rebranded "Scaach-22" with the new tagline "managing your own privilege without being a dick".[11]

In March 2015, while Koul was still employed by Penguin Random House Canada, they announced publication of a collection of her essays.[3] Originally the collection was titled The Pursuit of Misery[12] then it was changed to One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter.[13] The book covers subjects including family, race, feminism, body image, and rape culture from her perspective as an Indian-Canadian woman growing up in the suburbs of Calgary.[14] She also discusses her writing career and social media, including temporarily deactivating her Twitter account as a result of invective and threats following a request for long-form submissions from people who were not white men.[15] Koul was praised for her wit and humour,[16] ability to mix sarcasm and sentimentality,[17] and for her effective use of confessional writing as a complement to analytical rigour.[18] She received a shortlisted nomination for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Award for the best book of humour written in English by a Canadian writer.[19]

She hosts the Scamfluencers podcast with Sarah Hagi, which covers scammers who are influencers.[20] Scamfluencers won the Ambie award in 2023 for best podcast covering the entertainment industry.[21]

She also co-host a BBC production podcast Where to be a woman with Sophia Smith Galer.[22]

As of 2024 Slate lists Koul as a senior writer.[23]

Personal life

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Koul was born to Indian parents and raised in Calgary, Alberta.[1] She was a member of the Girl Guides of Canada and participated in their youth programs.[24] She currently lives in New York[25] with her cat, Sylvia Plath. [26] She was formerly married.

Koul is an Indo-Canadian of Kashmiri Pandit descent, and her writing on race and shadism draws from her own life.[7][27] Of her ethnicity, she has stated although she is considered a brown person, her fairer skin has given her a privilege and when she goes to India she is "basically acting as a white person."[28][29]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Scaachi Koul Biography". penguinrandomhouse.ca. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  2. ^ "Scaachi Koul". Buzzfeed.com. BuzzFeed Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  3. ^ a b Robertson, Becky (March 12, 2014). "Doubleday Canada acquires essay collection by Scaachi Koul". quillandquire.com/. St. Joseph Media. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  4. ^ Koul, Scaachi. "Scaachi Koul on the Reality of Dating a Much Older Guy". flare.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  5. ^ "Contributors: Scaachi Koul". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  6. ^ Koul, Scaachi (February 6, 2017). "Meanwhile in Canada … Things Are Just as Bad". The New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  7. ^ a b Koul, Scaachi (May 6, 2016). "Review: Kamal Al-Solaylee's Brown is essential reading for understanding the non-white world". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  8. ^ "Contributors: Scaachi Koul". Maclean's. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  9. ^ Hansen, Leah. "Scaachi Koul". Ryerson School of Journalism. Grads at Work. Archived from the original on May 23, 2017. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  10. ^ Koul, Scaachi. "Unf*ck Yourself". Hazlitt. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  11. ^ Koul, Scaachi. "Scaach-22". Hazlitt. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  12. ^ "Author Scaachi Koul". Hazlitt Magazine. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  13. ^ "Scaachi Koul | Authors | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  14. ^ Donahue, Anne. "12 Days of Feminists: Anne T. Donahue on Fierce Truth-Teller Scaachi Koul". Flare. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  15. ^ Ansari, Sadiya (March 9, 2017). "Scaachi Koul on Race, Anxiety and Her Brand-New Book". Flare. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  16. ^ Volmers, Eric (March 18, 2017). "Calgary's Scaachi Koul tackles Twitter trolls, Indian weddings and body hair in new collection of essays". Calgary Herald. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  17. ^ Arnone, Ted (March 13, 2017). "Jagged utter pill: Scaachi Koul turns social media rage and mockery into an enthralling essay collection". The National Post. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  18. ^ Rosenberg, Alyssa (May 2, 2017). "In Scaachi Koul's debut essay collection, life is ridiculous–and deadly serious". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  19. ^ "Scaachi Koul, Laurie Gelman and Jennifer Craig shortlisted for 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour". CBC Books, May 2, 2018.
  20. ^ "Scamfluencers (Podcast Series 2022– )". IMDb. April 11, 2022. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  21. ^ Chan, J. Clara (March 7, 2023). "Ambie Awards: 'Chameleon: Wild Boys' Wins Podcast of the Year". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 20, 2024.
  22. ^ "Award-winning journalists Sophia Smith Galer and Scaachi Koul launch new podcast". BBC. February 14, 2024.
  23. ^ "Scaachi Koul". Slate Magazine. Retrieved July 20, 2024.
  24. ^ "Diamond Isinger on Instagram: "Created my own Girl Guide role-model edition of "Guess Who?" for @girlguidesofcanada girls to play, featuring lots of accomplished 🇨🇦 women…"". Instagram. Archived from the original on December 25, 2021. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  25. ^ Scaachi Koul [@Scaachi] (March 19, 2019). "i live in new york now sorry to disappoint" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  26. ^ Koul, Scaachi (2017). One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays. Doubleday Canada. ISBN 9780385685368.
  27. ^ Koul, Scaachi (November 2, 2015). "I Was on a CBC Panel and the Internet Wanted To Guess My Race". buzzfeed.com. Buzzfeed Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  28. ^ Catherine Whelan (May 4, 2017). "White privilege in brown Canada". Public Radio International.
  29. ^ "Scaachi Koul's One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, reviewed: Honest and humorous". Retrieved October 14, 2019.
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