Melissa Wiley is the author of Antlers in Space and Other Common Phenomena, an essay collection published by Split Lip Press. Her creative nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in places like The Rumpus, DIAGRAM, The Offing, Juked, Noble /...  read

Nestor Gomez was born in Guatemala but has lived in Chicago since the mid-80's. He has shared several stories about driving for a ride-sharing company, which he used as material for his first solo show. Nestor told his first story...  read

Tracy Harford-Porter was born in Brooklyn, NY and now resides in the Chicago suburbs. She has worked for Essence Communications as a photo editor, the Harlem Children's Zone as the managing editor of Harlem Overheard, StoryCorps as a facilitator coordinator,...  read

Edward McClelland is the author of How to Speak Midwestern. A past Tuesday Funk reader and Gapers Block contributor, he has also written for The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Reader, where he was a staff...  read

Tori Szekeres is a writer living somewhere in Chicago's northwest suburbs. She previously read with storytelling shows such as Miss Spoken, Serving the Sentence, The Stoop and That's All She Wrote. You can see her writing on sites like Consequence...  read

Lori Barrett moved to Chicago ten years ago, and found a friend in Andrew and Gapers Block. She has also freelanced for the Wall Street Journal on hard-hitting topics like custom-stuffed pillows, dog-food delivery services, and luxury horse ranches, and...  read

Steve Bellinger was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago by a single mom who worked nights for a printing company. She would bring home books and magazines to encourage her kids to read. This is how Steve...  read

Naomi Buck Palagi was raised in the woods of central Kentucky, and lives in Northwest Indiana now after several years in Chicago. She's published a variety of experimental and more traditional poetry in journals such as Moria, Spoon River Review,...  read

Jenn Sodini grew up in Pittsburgh, went to school in Amherst, and then moved to Chicago and never looked back. She passionately hosts and co-produces CHIRP Radio's The First Time, a live-music-and-storytelling series held quarterly at Martyrs', and Psychotic Break,...  read

Keidra Chaney is a writer, editor, blogger and digital strategist, though she's not sure what that actually means these days. She has been published in Chicago Sun-Times, Time Out Chicago, Bitch Media, Paste, and a bunch of publications that no...  read