Ugandan-Canadian author Iryn Tushabe opens Write Out Loud season
SWIFT CURRENT – Write Out Loud opens its season Wednesday, Sept. 16 at the Lyric Theatre with Ugandan-Canadian writer and independent journalist Iryn Tushabe.
Tushabe's novel Everything is Fine Here (House of Anansi Press, 2025) follows a young woman who learns her sister is gay in a country with anti-homosexual laws. The story shows that, despite Uganda's harsh legislation, queer people are living on their own terms and resisting oppression in clever and beautiful ways.
The novel was named a CBC Best Book of 2025 and won the First Book Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. Tushabe won the City of Regina Writing Award in 2020 and 2024, was a finalist for the 2021 Caine Prize for African Writing and was shortlisted for the 2023 Journey Prize, which recognizes the year's best short story by an emerging Black writer. Her fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in The Walrus, Briarpatch, Prairies North, Adda and The Journey Prize Anthology.
Tushabe is the 2026-27 Regina Public Library writer-in-residence.
The Saskatchewan Writers' Guild is sponsoring the presentation, with support from the City of Swift Current, the Coast Hotel and Nightjar Restaurant.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Local musician Roni Hasret Osak performs at 7 p.m., followed by Tushabe's presentation. Admission is $10.