Queer Folks' Tales

Queer Folks’ Tales continues its fifth year in the Scottish home of storytelling, with rave reviews and even an award under its belt!Celebrate the start of summer 2026 with LGBTQ+ storytellers galore from around Edinburgh and Scotland sharing stories of queer lives, past, present and future.

Sometimes hilarious, often moving, occasionally shocking, the mix of true and fictional stories is as varied as the range of performers we invite.

Household names feature alongside new and diverse queer storytellers from the different communities of Scotland.

Many of the tales told will be true stories of LGBTQ+ experience in Scotland today.

Hosted by Edinburgh’s Turan Ali, who is joined in June by stand-up Heather Ross, crime novelist Emma Christie and musician Raveloe.Turan Ali has been a producer, director and writer of BBC radio dramas and comedies for over 25 years.

He’s been a stage storyteller since 2012, and a stand up since 2019.

He tours internationally, just completed an east Asian stand-up tour to Singapore, Vietnam and Japan, and has two sell out monthly storytelling shows in Vienna.

He’s the creator, producer and host of Queer Folks’ Tales for which he won the Creative Edinburgh Leadership Award 2024.

QFT now tours across Scotland year round and is Creative Scotland funded.Emma Christie has written 4 psychological thrillers set in Edinburgh’s Portobello.

Her debut novel The Silent Daughter was shortlisted for Bloody Scotland’s esteemed McIlvanney Prize and for the Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2021.

Her latest novel Watch Your Back was described as ‘superb’ by Ian Rankin and was named as Thriller of the Month in The Times.

She also runs Write and Walk retreats - which combine writing sessions with spectacular walks in Spain.

She’s currently working on her 5th novelHeather Kondak Ross is a Scottish-Canadian writer and performer based in Edinburgh.

Along with creating award-winning shorts and sketches with her comedy group Get Your Goat Comedy, she has just adapted her first feature length film and performed for the 2025/2026 cohort of Scotland's Comedy Platform.

She hass also written, produced and performed for CBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 4, OutTV and Montecristo Magazine.Raveloe (a moniker found within the pages of George Eliot's Silas Marner, about a reclusive weaver) is the project of Glasgow songwriter Kim Grant.

She takes inspiration from nature, magical-realism, the spectrum of human experience and emotions, and artists like The Microphones, Big Thief, Jason Molina.

Her debut album was Exit Light (2023) and she has headlined at Celtic Connections and been featured on BBC Radio.