Tuesday Funk, in association with the wildly successful new Chicago Writers Conference, put on a terrific reading event this past Friday night at Open Books in Chicago's River North. If you've come to expect the unexpected from Tuesday Funk, then you probably weren't surprised about being surprised about some of the surprises that were sprung upon that evening.
After some introductory remarks about the great work that Open Books does and about our sponsorship partner the Chicago Writers Association, Patricia Skalka kicked things off for us with a noirish, engrossing scene from her Wisconsin-set mystery novel, Death in Door County. Host William Shunn followed that up with the stream-of-consciousness narrative of an old woman awakening in a new robotic body, "Find the Gray Triangle." And Rachel Wilson brought us a poignant chapter from her forthcoming debut young adult novel, Don't Touch.
Our Poem by Bill, "Telegraph," was composed on a topic provided by CWC backer Tina Woelke—"reading." M. Salahuddin Khan followed that up with a powerful excerpt from his novel Sikander, about a young Afghani mujahid who must live with the reality of his first killing. And Mary Robinette Kowal, after an emotional epistolary story about resurrection from the dead, startled and delighted our audience with a shadow puppet play from the 17th century.
People, this is the sort of thing you miss when you miss Tuesday Funk! But don't despair. We'll be bringing you videos from the evening over the next couple of weeks, and then we'll be back on October 2nd with our United States of Horror Edition featuring John Everson, Cynthia (cina) Pelayo, and The Colin & Ishmael Players. Be sure to join us!
