Curated by Lisa de Nikolits. Featuring Anita Jack-Davies, Rummana Chowdry, Mark Sampson and visual artist Peter Owusu-Ansah, with a customary appearance by Gavin Barrett.
The Tartan Turban Secret Readings are variously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the League of Canadian Poets and The Writers’ Union of Canada.
Date and Time
7:00 – 10:00 PM EST, Thursday, September 22, 2023. Book your free tickets now, via Eventbrite!
Curator
Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits is an award-winning author of eleven published novels. Everything You Dream is Real is her most recent book. Her work has appeared on recommended reading lists for CBC Books, the Quill & Quire, Open Book Toronto, The Miramichi Reader and the 49th Shelf, as well as being a Chatelaine Editor’s Pick and a Canadian Living Magazine Must Read. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia, and Britain. Previous works include No Fury Like That which was published in Italian, under the title Una furia dell’altro mondo, in 2019 by Edizione Le Assassine and which is under negotiation for film rights in Mexico by Scenic Rights. Lisa lives and writes in Toronto and she has a new novel coming out in Spring 2023, Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon, also with Inanna Publications.
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Featured writers
Mark Sampson is the author of All the Animals on Earth Mark Sampson has published four novels, All the Animals on Earth (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020), The Slip (Dundurn Press, 2017), Sad Peninsula, (Dundurn Press, 2014) and Off Book (Norwood Publishing, 2007). He has also published a short story collection, The Secrets Men Keep (Now or Never Publishing, 2015), and a poetry collection, Weathervane (Palimpsest Press, 2016). His stories and poetry have appeared in many literary journals across Canada and in the United States, including The New Quarterly, PRISM International, The Antigonish Review, The Puritan, and FreeFall magazine, and he has been a frequent book reviewer for Quill & Quire and Canadian Notes & Queries. Born and raised on Prince Edward Island, he currently lives and writes in Toronto.
Rummana Chowdry, author of Dusk in the Frog Pond and Other Stories is the author of forty-three books, in both Bengali and English, which include poetry, short stories, novels, and essays. She is a leading global commentator on issues of migration that pertain to the South Asian Diaspora. She has received several notable awards including Woman of the Year, 2010, Canada, and Best Writer and Translator for Diaspora Literature, Ontario Bengali Cultural Society, 2016. She has also received several awards for her contributions to Bengali, English and Diasporic literature and translation work, including, most recently, the Kobi Jasim Uddin Award, 2019, and the Bangladesh Lekhika Shongho Award for Literature and Translation, 2017. She immigrated to Canada in 1982 and for the past thirty years has worked as an accredited interpreter/translator. She lives in Mississauga, Ontario. Dusk in the Frog Pond and Other Stories is her new collection of short stories.
Visual artist Peter Owusu-Ansah is a self-motivated, Deaf visual artist. His colourful squares works are an investigation of who he is. He uses Photoshop to create endless colours and interactive possibilities and captures his pure joy. He uses the joy he captures not just to advocate for himself but also to help promote inclusion toward Deaf artists, Disabled artists and communities that are excluded in the art world. His works have been shown around Canada. Peter won the Murray and Marvelle Koffler Founder’s Award at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair in 2021.
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Open mic
TTSR40 will not feature our traditional open mic to make space for sign language interpretation of our featured writers and our interview with our visual artist who identifies as Deaf. We thank you for your generous understanding and hope you will enjoy this very special experience.
Anyone wishing to read or perform (if you are a musician) in our limited-room open mic sessions is welcome to sign up for a future 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.
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 upon finishing their readings.
The Tartan Turban Secret Readings 