Tartan Turban Secret Readings #50
We are delighted to welcome you to our 50th Tartan Turban Secret Readings, curated by Priya Ramsingh. Featuring Sonal Champsee, KIRBY, Rajinderpal S. Pal, the work of Anahid Hagopian read by her daughter Antonia Swann, and Stephanie Wyeld.
Our curator Priya Ramsingh is a writer and photographer. Her first book, Brown Girl in the Room was published by Tightrope Books in 2017 and recently republished by Baxter House Editions in June 2026. Her second novel, The Elevator, was published by Palimpsest Press in 2024 and her short story, Pies for Lunch, was shortlisted for best short fiction by The Caribbean Writer in 2021.
A former columnist and writer with Metroland Media, Priya writes the occasional op-eds for the Toronto Star and The Honest Talk online magazine. She has a B.A. in English Literature from Carleton University and a few certificates from various colleges that helped improve her professional skills along the way.
Priya is also a photographer and her images have been published in the Toronto Star, Canadian Geographic, the Audubon calendars and Ontario Birds.
She is currently working on Beyond the Elevator, a novel that continues the story of Aria and Rob from The Elevator because readers wanted more; and Water for Thirsty Dogs, a novel she’s been working on for the past ten years, once again under publisher consideration.
Priya was born in Trinidad and Tobago and has called Toronto her home since 1973. Visit her website at www.priyaramsingh.ca
Sonal Champsee’s upcoming novel, Everyone Can’t Be Wrong, was shortlisted for the 2022 UBC/HarperCollins Canada Best New Fiction prize and is forthcoming in Fall 2026 from Inanna Publications.
The book was inspired by stories of Western tourists having spiritual experiences in India, such as Eat, Pray, Love, since Sonal says she has never once had a spiritual experience visiting her uncle's flat in suburban Mumbai.
Sonal Champsee’s short fiction and essays have been published by magazines such as The New Quarterly, Ricepaper, and Today’s Parent. A lifelong Torontonian, Sonal holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and runs the Dear Abby-style writing advice newsletter, Writer Therapy.
“O Mary, it takes a fairy to make something pretty.”
KIRBY is the author of She, Poetry is Queer, This Is Where I Get Off, a featured columnist at Send My Love to Anyone and publisher at knife | fork | book. Their latest book of poetry, Fairy, arrives in Fall 2026 from Palimpsest Press.
Kirby will be reading from their upcoming publication, Fairy, by Palimpsest Press. In Fairy, Kirby continues to mine their riches and fan the flames lit in their instant classic, Poetry is Queer. Their essays are an act of liberation they call “tending to each other’s freedom,” and are written with signature Kirby directness and panache, from early AIDS-activist monologues, to launching a counter city-wide “safe-sex” campaign that includes the public depiction of an affectionate gay couple, to leaving the States in a love that made them “the most beautiful boy in the world,” to becoming a Canadian queer poetry icon.
Like countless fairies before them, Kirby scouts desire paths beyond mere survival for new queer voices to continue to amaze, flourish, and thrive. Or as Fairy says, “This way >>>”
Visit their website at kirbyfairy.ca
Rajinderpal S. Pal is a writer and performer based in Toronto. Pal’s first collection of poetry, Pappaji wrote poetry in a language i cannot read (TSAR, 1998), was the winner of the 1999 Writer’s Guild of Alberta (WGA) Award for Best First Book. Pal’s second collection, Pulse (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002), was short-listed for both the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize and the WGA Award for Best Book of Poetry.
Pal’s debut novel, However Far Away, was published by House of Anansi in August 2024 and long-listed for CBC Canada Reads 2025.
At TTSR50, he will be reading from his upcoming publication At My Window with a Broken Wing by House of Anansi.
He is the sponsor of the Pal Saqi Award for Fiction given annually to the top student portfolio at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies creative writing program.
Fun fact about Rajinderpal. He once appeared in a nudie shot on the cover of a widely distributed weekly entertainment magazine.
The Golden Bracelet by Anahid Hagopian will be released posthumously in mid-September 2026 by Innana Publications and her daughter Antonia Swann will join us to read from her late mother's work.
Anahid Hagopian’s Syrian childhood was spent in an orphanage until her mother rescued her. Allowing Anahid to marry a British soldier was her mother’s ultimate sacrifice. In England, Anahid met the love of her life, emigrated to Canada, became the beloved teacher Ann Swann, (shortening her first name and using her married last name), and penned her memoir.
Her greatest wish in life was to have her memoir published. On her deathbed, her daughter Antonia promised she would try to "do something with her book". Though Anahid never lived to see it get published, Antonia knows how much having it published would've meant to her.
Stephanie Wyeld is the author of The Book of Maggie published by DarkWinter Press in March 2026, a coming-of-age story within a fundamentalist church community that asks how much progress women can claim when the systems built to control them remain in place.
Stephanie grew up across a variety of fundamentalist churches, including one where they thought the signature on the bum of Cabbage Patch Kids was the mark of the devil. She's had a lot of therapy since, though, and is mostly normal, whatever that is.
Stephanie has an undergraduate degree in science, a master's degree in engineering, and fifteen years of being a stay-at-home mom under her belt. She's worked in just about every industry, but the most recent is her favourite: moonlighting in a doctor's office weighing babies and giving vaccines. She continues to write fiction, and is currently working on another novel (or three).
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About The Tartan Turban Secret Readings
In good weather, Barrett and Welsh hosts a (not so) “secret" reading series on its rather lovely open-air office rooftop deck or in its large open-concept studio space in Toronto. In winter, our readings migrate online in a virtual reading format that accepts writers from across the country and can be attended from anywhere in the world.
The Tartan Turban Secret Readings feature poetry, drama and prose readings and celebrate Canadian multicultural writing created by IBPOC writers. The idea is to provide a platform for IBPOC writers with few such platforms. At the same time, all writers who want to celebrate Canada’s multiculturalism, literary diversity and Indigenous heritage and have talent to share are welcomed.
Curators change from reading to reading. If you would like to curate an evening, contact Gavin Barrett, who is the series curator.
Tartan Turban Secret Readings are variously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the League of Canadian Poets, The Writers’ Union of Canada and Barrett and Welsh.
Open mic
Anyone attending is welcome to read or perform (if you are a musician) in our limited-room 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 #50, please contact Priya Ramsingh or series curator Gavin Barrett. This allows us to line up open mic readers and manage the evening in a way that respects each writer's work. These are first-come, first-served spots.
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. Detailed open mic guidelines are posted in our FB group.
Open mic readers who have published works they would like to offer for sale are free to mention these upon finishing their readings.
Smile, you'll be on camera The sessions are photographed, filmed and streamed on FB/YouTube live and recordings will eventually be posted on YouTube and the series website. Please be aware that by attending this event, you agree to be photographed and/or filmed and give permission to use your likeness in promotional and/or marketing materials.
About Barrett and Welsh
Barrett and Welsh is a minority-owned, creativity-powered, change-making advertising and branding agency that puts ideas first to make ideas last. A certified B Corporation, it uses design and advertising to create access and inclusion for racialized minorities and persons with disabilities.
Accessibility Barrett and Welsh donates its beautiful open-concept office space as a venue for the readings, but the offices are on the top floor of an old townhouse that was converted, pre-AODA, into the more modern office building it is today. Unfortunately, this means the office is not wheelchair-accessible as there is no elevator and the stairs are fairly steep. We do our best to accommodate anyone with mobility needs, but this is mainly limited to helping them up the stairs or carrying assistive devices up for them. If anyone attending is hearing-impaired and lets us know in advance, we can arrange for the pieces being read by the featured writers (if they consent) to be projected. We also live-stream each reading to make each session accessible to audience members who cannot attend in person.
About the series co-curators
Gavin Barrett is the series curator of the Tartan Turban Secret Readings, which he co-founded with the late Mayank Bhatt in 2017.
Mayank Bhatt's novel Belief was published in 2016 by Mawenzi House. The novel explores youth radicalization and alienation and the impact of terrorism on a family in the context of the failure of the immigration and settlement framework in Canada. Trachea, his collection of short stories, was published posthumously in 2025 by Mawenzi House. Mayank Bhatt immigrated to Toronto in 2008 from Mumbai (Bombay), where he worked as a journalist. His short stories have been published in TOK 5: Writing the New Toronto and Canadian Voices II. In Canada, he worked as a security guard, as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce and as an organizer for the Festival of South Asian Literature and Art. He lived in Toronto with his family and passed away after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer in the summer of 2022.
Gavin Barrett is a poet, creative entrepreneur, and the author of a collection of poems titled Understan (Mawenzi House, 2020), a CBC Books recommendation. He was born in Bombay and lived in Hong Kong for several years before immigrating to Canada. Gavin’s poetry has been published in Reasons for Belonging (Viking Penguin India), an anthology of 14 Indian poets; The Joao Roque Literary Journal; the Pen India journal; The Folio; The Independent (Bombay); The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad; and Poiesis, the Bombay Poetry Circle journal. He was a contributing writer to This|ability, a book on Canada’s art brut and outsider artists. He is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of idea consultancy and brand advertising agency Barrett and Welsh. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Authors Association (Toronto), PEN Canada and is EDI co-chair of The League of Canadian Poets.