Christa Couture has had a remarkable life. A queer Indigenous woman and mother, and a self-described “cyborg” with a high-tech robotic leg, the award-winning musician, author and broadcaster has weathered an astonishing number of extreme experiences. On stage, she shares her stories in a hybrid keynote and musical performance, sharing two inexorably linked themes: hopefulness and hopelessness, and how they make life meaningful. Hearing Christa speak is a deeply human experience that reminds us to connect to who we are; to open our eyes and reflect on what truly matters.
Christa Couture is an award-winning performing and recording artist, nonfiction writer, and broadcaster. She is also proudly Indigenous (mixed Cree and Scandinavian), queer, disabled, and a mom.
Her debut nonfiction book, How to Lose Everything, was published in 2020 by Douglas & McIntyre. She has been published in Room, Shameless, and Augur magazines, and on CBC.ca. In 2018, her CBC article and photos on disability and pregnancy went viral. She has spoken for audiences of Walrus Talks, CBC, Moses Znaimer’s IdeaCity, and Imaginate.
Christa’s sophomore album The Wedding Singer and The Undertaker won a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award, made the Top 10 on CBC Radio 3, and landed a #1 song on the National Aboriginal Music Countdown. She is the weekday afternoon host on Toronto’s 106.5 ELMNT FM, and is a frequent contributor to CBC Radio on Now or Never and The Next Chapter.
Christa has come to know every corner of grief—its shifting blurry edges, its traps, its pulse of love at the centre and the bittersweet truth that sorrow is a powerful and wise emotion. Her debut memoir, How to Lose Everything, delves into the heart of loss, from the amputation of her leg as a cure for bone cancer at a young age to her first child’s single day of life, the heart transplant and subsequent death of her second child, the divorce born of grief and then the thyroidectomy that threatened her career as a professional musician.
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