Sarah Swinwood

Born and raised in Canada, Sarah began her creative path at a young age, dancing and singing improvised song and dance routines for family members. An audition to the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in Ottawa, Ontario, landed her a spot in the coveted Theater program. This led to film, television and performance opportunities throughout Canada. After High School, Sarah explored different paths that always led her back to writing, improvisation and performance. In 2011, she began working with major producers in LA, writing songs for other artists and helping young talent to discover and develop their craft. Working as a stand up comedian and freestyle rapper led her to New York in 2012 where she was noticed on stage during a freestyle battle by the hip hop producer Keith Shocklee of Public Enemy. They began working together on songwriting and artist development projects. Sarah continues to pursue performance, and writing has remained the centre of her work. She performed as the lead actress in the independent film ‘Recommended by Enrique’ which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2013, where Sarah and her co-star Lino Varela walked away with the award for ‘Best Actor in a Feature Length Film’. The film did well on the festival circuit and is currently being released on the streaming site, Topic.com, soon to be on HBO. Other notable achievements are vocals and songwriting for the ‘Felix and Norton Cookies’ jingle ‘Bling Bling Cookie’, available on all streaming platforms. Sarah has done other writing and voiceover work for notable international projects, such as the visual artist Naomi B Cook who is based in Paris, France, for her short animated film SS EL FARO (2020). Sarah is currently a nonfiction and literary translation MFA candidate at Columbia University in New York, where she works as a site coordinator for the CAT program (Columbia Artist Teachers). She continues to work with young artists of various backgrounds, guiding and assisting them with their poetry and songwriting practice.