Tuesday Funk is excited that Connor Coyne, founder of The Gothic Funk Nation and Tuesday Funk, is returning to our series! None more excited than me. Over four years ago, Reinhardt Suarez and I introduced Connor at our New York reading Fiction Flask (now Guerrilla Lit).

There's something about a circle here...I can't put my finger on it...circle, circle, circle...

What matters is this: Connor = Excitement! Did I mention that he also published his first novel last month? EXCITEMENT!

Connor grew up in the East Village of Flint, Michigan, and has lived in Chicago and New York City. He earned his BA from the University of Chicago and his MFA from the New School. He has written plays, poetry, short stories, and novels, and his work has been published in Santa Clara Review, Moria Poetry Zine, Dick Pig Review, The Saturnine Detractor, and the Flint Broadside.

He has a website at connorcoyne.com and a blog devoted to the apotheosis of the Gothic. This year he published his first novel, Hungry Rats, but he is even more excited by the birth of his daughter, Mary Adelina.

Join Tuesday Funk October 5th at 7:30 p.m. to see Connor and all of our great readers.

October is our fall fiction reading, and our lineup of manly writers—CONNOR COYNE, JACKIE ADAMSKI, and WILLIAM SHUNN—will bring you brawny, beer-soaked stories to fit the season.

Tuesday Funk convenes Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early, grab one of the 600 amazing international beers at the bar, and come on up. We start seating at 7:00 pm. Stay afterward for some great Belgian-style food from Hopleaf!

Please bring your friends and show your support for Tuesday Funk. Help us deliver a record turnout so we can keep staging these readings at Hopleaf, the finest food-and-drink establishment on the north side.

Please also become a fan of Tuesday Funk on Facebook, so you never miss an invitation to our readings. And watch this space over the next couple of weeks for spotlight posts about our readers.

Hi, everyone. My name is William Shunn, and I'm one of the new co-producers of Tuesday Funk. If you're reading this, you've probably already noticed our spiffy new web site. I'd like to tell you about some of the other changes afoot.

Tuesday Funk has been one of the most exciting and unpredictable reading series in Chicago since its founding in early 2008. We've featured wild-eyed poets, lark-tongued troubadours, and more excellent fiction, verse, and essays read live than you could shake a blue pencil at. I'm fortunate enough to have been asked to read for the series four times in the past couple of years myself, and I'm proud to have been considered an adjunct member of the Tuesday Funk family.

Connor Coyne, Reinhardt Suarez and Hallie Palladino of the Gothic Funk Nation have run Tuesday Funk with scary efficiency since 2008. I'm very pleased and more than a little humbled to now be co-producing together with Sara Ross (whose entry into the family was announced in July). Sara and I hope to keep the same great mix of genres and disciplines that has made the series so much fun in the past, while throwing in some curve balls to keep things fresh and interesting. We have some big shoes to fill.

While I never want the series to get away from its roots as a showcase for Chicago writers, I'd love to bring more out-of-towners into the mix too. So if you're a writer (or something similar) and plan to be in Chicago the first week of any given month, please drop us a line and we'll see if we have room for you. We'd love to have you. (Email us at tuesdayfunkchicago@gmail.com.)

Oh, another thing. Chicagoans, please mark your calendars for our next reading on Tuesday, October 5, 7:30 pm, at Hopleaf. We'll have Jackie Adamski and Gothic Funk/Tuesday Funk founder Connor Coyne with us that night, and I'll be batting cleanup with my fifth appearance as a Tuesday Funk reader. But most importantly we need to keep our attendance high so we can continue using Hopleaf's upstairs bar month after month. More reminders will follow, but we hope to see you there.

We also have a new Facebook page. Please drop by and "like" Tuesday Funk. And watch for Sara and me to tell you more about ourselves and our upcoming readers over the next several days.

Finally, thanks to Hallie and Reinhardt and especially Connor for all their hard, often thankless work, for their continued input and advice, and for entrusting us with their baby. For all that things may be changing, and for all that we'll make mistakes along the way, we hope to keep the high quality of the Tuesday Funk the same. Thanks, Gothic Funk Nation, for letting us be citizens.

As you know, the Hopleaf Bar has been home to the Tuesday Funk Reading Series for about a year, now. The Hopleaf folks have been gracious and generous with their space. So we’d like to return the favor and spread the word about a Hopleaf event that is for a good cause (um, for da kids).

It’s a really cool event for a noble cause. C’mon. You wanna be noble, right? Oh, and there’s beer.

Alright, ladies and gents. We’re back. Better than ever. Because of the robots.

Come to Tuesday Funk, and you will know why we cry. Wait. That doesn’t sound too fun. Forget about the cry part. Just come on down (if you want to live) to Hopleaf, listen to some great readers, and drink high class beer.

First of all, I’d like to announce that Tuesday Funk will take a much needed break in August. But it will be back on the first Tuesday of September.

Now then, an explanation of the title of the post:

Traditionally, comics and magazines with the volume number set to zero are meant to be explanations of the origins of the series. All is supposed to be revealed. However, in this case, I use it in the “Pol Potian” (word?) way to mean “making a new start.”

As announced at July’s Tuesday Funk, I, your friendly neighborhood Reinhardt Suarez, will no longer be hosting this exciting and intrepid reading series (every first Tuesday of the month at Hopleaf Bar–check it out!). I cannot express how fun it has been to see this reading grow into what it is, and how fun it has been to help it along in the minuscule ways that I have.

But fear not! Though we were hoping LeBron would actually sign with us, we did have a backup plan. And that involved sending me, two draft picks to be named later, a collection of Stevie Nicks CDs, and three large pepperoni pizzas to an undisclosed reading in far-flung Minneapolis for the rights to Sara Ross, a veteran host from such illustrious places as New York City (city of glamor and fame!) and Washington D.C. (city of knife fights and jowly men in suits making bad decisions with ill-gotten gains!)

He broke our hearts, too. Tonight, we are all Cleveland.

Sara, along with Tuesday Funk stalwart, Hallie Palladino, will continue to bring you eclectic nights of fiction, essays, and poetry at the same TF-time and same TF-channel. So please stay tuned.

*Cue sunset, me walking toward it, and finding out that it’s a matte painting.*

RS

It’s once again time for your regular monthly serving of Tuesday Funk! As always, we have a gaggle of great readers, and as always, we are at Hopleaf, home of beer, frites, and the best audience in the Chicagoland area. So end your Fourth of July weekend the right way with us. We’ll bring the bag of chips if you bring the “all that.”

This month’s readers:

Liza Ann Acosta

Kevin Kane

Dan Duffy

Hi all!

Come join us for another explosive Tuesday Funk!

Where: Hopleaf Bar

When: June 1, 2010, 7:30 PM

Readers: Sean Manning, Truly Render, Sara Ross, and Cesar Torres

It is time once again to invite you to a Tuesday Funk Reading. After our one-month hiatus, we are back to bring you awesome readers, awesome beers, and cool company. So if you’re a TF veteran, welcome back! And if you’re new to TF, what the hell are you waiting for?

Hi all. This is Reinhardt here, co-host of the Tuesday Funk Reading Series. Normally, you’d be looking at this and reading the info for our illustrious reading coming up. However, due to a semi-unfortunate event (a beer brewer’s conference coming to Chicago in early April). our lovely venue cannot host us in April. So, alas, we will take a short hiatus until May 4, when we will come back better than ever!

Until then, have at thee.

Love, Reinhardt (also on behalf of Connor Coyne and Hallie Palladino)