Stephanie Raina Norman

Stephanie was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her mother was a sales rep and her father owned his own construction company with her uncle. Her parents divorced while she was young and her father remarried. Stephanie has three half-sisters, all younger. Her youngest sister Emma Brown appears in the Titanically music video alongside her as a mermaid in a blue mermaid tail. Stephanie enjoyed acting in musicals and plays throughout her school years. She belonged to choirs, played flute and guitar, and performed at local open mics and coffee houses. In 2007 she began to experience chronic health issues and would later be diagnosed with interstitial cystitis and endometriosis. She would join several awareness and activism groups. In 2008 Stephanie became a mermaid performer named Raina and founded her companies Halifax Mermaids and Canadian Mermaids. The group would eventually grow into 12 and win multiple awards. Through her mermaid entertainment company Stephanie was invited to be a key-note speaker for various mermaid-themed conventions, at high schools, and at universities. Her performance work included charity performances for groups such as Make a Wish and similar charities and non-profits. In 2017 Stephanie facilitated the largest mermaid convention in the world at the time, NC Mermania, with a record-setting 500+ in attendance. Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Applies Arts in Child and Youth Development from Mount Saint Vincent University in 2009. She followed this up with a degree from the same university in Education in 2012. Stephanie graduated at the top of her class. For her film "Raina: A Year and a Half in the Life of a Mermaid", Stephanie was able to swim with wild manatees in Florida. In 2015 she swam with sand tiger sharks. 2015 also saw Stephanie meeting one of her special effects idols; Robert Short. Robert is the creator of the "Splash" (1984) mermaid tail worn by Daryl Hannah. In 2018 Stephanie helped found the Halifax Freediving Club to make freediving more accessible to people on Canada's east coast. She currently has a breath hold of 3 minutes. Stephanie has published 3 books about her experiences as a mermaid, titled "Fishy Business: How to be a Mermaid", "Fishy Business: My Life as a Mermaid", and "The Fishy Business Handbook for Mermaids". In November 2018 Stephanie was quoted on Late Night with Stephen Colbert after speaking out in the media about the sexual harassment she faced as a mermaid performer. Stephanie experienced viral online media exposure while discussing how "mermaiding" empowered her to overcome her chronic illnesses. Currently, in addition to upcoming film projects, Stephanie also runs a Youtube series entitled "So You Want to be a Mermaid" where she discusses the performing mermaid industry. She continues to run her mermaid companies alongside her partner Sean Norman.