The 28th session of The Tartan Turban Secret Readings is curated by Gavin Barrett and features Leslie Roach, Dwight Jenkins, H. Nigel Thomas and Dannabang Kuwabong.
Date and Time
7:00 – 9:30 PM EST, February 19, 2021. Add to Calendar
How to book
Please book a seat on TTSR 28’s Eventbrite page. Tickets are free.
Venue
This is a virtual reading. Writers reading their work will be participating via Google Meet. Attendees will be able to join the event by clicking [this link] on the day of the reading during the hours scheduled.
Featured writers
H. Nigel Thomas emigrated from St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1968. He now lives in Montreal’s Greenfield Park suburb. He is a graduate of Concordia University, McGill University, and Universite de Montreal. Until 2006 he was professor of US literature at Universite Laval. His short stories, poems, and articles have appeared in several journals and anthologies. He is the author of 11 books. Lives: Whole and Otherwise is available in French as Des vies cassées, and Behind the Face of Winter as De glace et d’ombre.
Dannabang Kuwabong is a Ghanaian Canadian born in Nanville in the Upper West Region of Ghana. He was educated in Ghana, Scotland and Canada, and teaches Caribbean literature at the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan. He has published three books: Konga and other Dagaaba Folktales, Visions of Venom (poetry), and Echoes from Dusty Rivers (poetry). Kuwabong’s poetry adds a new dimension to the growing body of new voices that is beginning to expand and redefine Canadian literature.
Leslie Roach was born and raised in Montreal and Finish this Sentence is about her personal experiences of living with racism and healing from its distorting effects on the self. As this book weaves through the anger and anxiety provoked by racism, it points to the ultimate realization: one is neither the conditioning nor the negative thoughts that racism provokes. Rather, one is powerful and able to arrest those thoughts. Awakening to these truths have helped Leslie to heal. She hopes that her work will be beneficial to others. Leslie is a lawyer who worked for the United Nations for 10 years and is currently based in Ottawa, where she works for the Parliament of Canada.
For updated information and author headshots, follow our Facebook group and our Facebook event page.
Curator
Gavin Barrett is a poet and the author of Understan, a new collection of poems published by Mawenzi House in June 2020. He is the founder, host and series co-curator of the Tartan Turban Secret Readings, a series that focuses on giving emerging BIPOC writers a stage. He is a member of the Canadian Authors Association and sits on its Toronto branch Advisory Board. He is also a member of PEN Canada and The Writers’ Union of Canada, and a member of The League of Canadian Poets.
Open mic
Anyone attending is welcome to read or perform (if you are a musician) in our open mic sessions. If you are a writer or musician who would like to perform in the open mic session, we ask that you listen in to at least one session to get the flavour of the evening and join in on your next visit. To participate in TTSR #28, please contact series curators Gavin or Mayank. This allows them to line up readers and manage the evening in a way that respects each writer’s work.
The ambience at our readings is intimate, extremely informal and very supportive. Open mic readers are given 4 minutes in total, including a brief introduction to themselves and their work. They may read any form of creative writing (fiction/poetry/drama/ screenplay) – or a work of reportage or creative non-fiction. The Tartan Turban Secret Readings is not a lecture or motivational speaking series, so no academic or self-help works, please.
There are detailed open mic guidelines posted in our FB group.
Open mic readers who have published works they would like to offer for sale are free to mention it on finishing their readings.
The Tartan Turban Secret Readings 