LGBTQ+, Storytelling

Queer Folks' Tales

with Turan Ali, Kirsty Logan, Ellen Galford and Man of the Minch

(Thu 15 June: 7:30pm)

Welcome to Queer Folks’ Tales, our hugely popular bi-monthly storytelling series where queer storytellers from a diverse range of backgrounds, ages and cultures around Edinburgh and Scotland share stories of LGBTQ+ lives, past, present and future.

Sometimes hilarious, often moving, occasionally shocking, the mix of true and fictional stories across the year is as varied as the range of storytellers we invite. Household names feature alongside new and diverse queer storytellers from the different communities of Scotland. Many of the stories told in the Queer Folks' Tales evenings will be true stories of LGBTQ+ experience in Scotland today. Hosted by Edinburgh’s Turan Ali, who is joined on June 15th by novelists Kirsty Logan and Ellen Galford and singer-songwriter Man of the Minch.

Turan Ali has been producing, directing and writing BBC Radio dramas and comedies for over 20 years. He has also been telling stories of queer lives and experiences on stage since 2012, and more recently as a stand up. His shows have toured internationally and he has two sell out monthly storytelling shows in Vienna. This year he is adapting and directing Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children for BBC Radio 4.

Kirsty Logan is a writer whose latest book Now She is Witch (Harvill Secker 2023) is "a queer medieval witch revenge quest". Forthcoming is The Unfamiliar (Virago 2023), a memoir of queer pregnancy and parenthood. She has two previous novels, three story collections, two chapbooks and a 10-hour audio play for Audible. Her books have won the Lambda, Polari, Saboteur, Scott and Gavin Wallace awards and have been adapted for stage, radio and podcasts.

Ellen Galford was born in New Jersey, USA, but has lived in Scotland for half a century. She’s had long and short fiction and essays on various queer topics published on both sides of the Atlantic. Her fourth novel The Dyke and the Dybbuk received the Lambda Award for humour from the American Publishers Association. She says now she’s too ancient to give a damn, she’s reconnected with a very old flame (poetry) - mostly exploring Jewish, Scottish and LGBTQI+ themes.

Man of the Minch is the musical alias of Glasgow based singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Pedro Cameron, who has been shaking up Scottish folk music. He blends traditional Celtic sounds with personal, profound storytelling and is the founder of Bogha-frois: LGBT+ Voices in Folk, which debuted at Celtic Connections in 2019. The release of his debut album The Tide is at the Turning in August 2021 brought wide critical acclaim. A beautiful, original voice you won't be able to get out of your head.