Tuesday Funk sends its heartiest congratulations to Chicago's own Alex Shakar, whose novel Luminarium was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction this past Friday evening!

Alex will be joining us on June 5th to read from Luminarium, an evening you won't want to miss. And you also won't want to miss our upcoming May 5th program, featuring Chris Mendius, B.C. Bell, Susanna Lang, Julie Rosenthal, and Tom Underberg. It all gets underway at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf. We'll see you there!

Tom Underberg writes speculative fiction and raises children. He also obsessively documents bricks, sidewalks and manhole covers for his blog on invisible infrastructure. Before his twins were born he had real jobs in software and consulting. He lives with his wife and children in Evanston in an old house with a big porch.

Hear Tom read on Tuesday, Monday 1 at Hopleaf's upstairs bar at 7:30 p.m.

Hi, Funkers. We're not going to make another long pitch here. We're just going to note that, if you're a writer in Chicago, you need the Chicago Writers Conference. And the Chicago Writers Conference needs you back.

Only five days remain in their Kickstarter funding drive, and there's still more than $2,500 left to be raised. The conference only gets funded if the campaign reaches its goal, so please please help!

But don't just take it from us. Take it from Boing Boing. And take it from conference organizer Mare Swallow herself:

So please, again, dig deep and DONATE NOW.

Julie Rosenthal is a freelance writer in Chicago. Her fiction has been recognized by ChiZine and has appeared in Kaleidotrope, A cappella Zoo, and Columbia College's annual Story Week Reader. Another story is forthcoming later this year in Breaking the Bow, an anthology from India-based Zubaan Books.

She is working on a novel about the unsolved murder of King Edward the Martyr of England.

Julie adds, "Thanks very much to Bill and Sara -- and to all of the loyal supporters of Tuesday Funk."

Hear Julie read Tuesday, May 1 at Hopleaf's upstairs bar at 7:30 p.m.

Susanna Lang's first collection of poems, Even Now, was published in 2008 by The Backwaters Press. A chapbook, Two by Two, was released in October 2011 from Finishing Line Press, and a new collection, Tracing the Lines, will be published by Brick Road Poetry Press in fall 2012.

She has published original poems and essays, and translations from the French, in such journals as Little Star, New Letters, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, The Green Mountains Review, The Baltimore Review, Kalliope, Southern Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Chicago Review, New Directions, and Jubilat. Book publications include translations of Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, both by Yves Bonnefoy.

She lives with her husband and son in Chicago, where she teaches in the Chicago Public Schools.

Hear Susanna read on Tuesday, May 1st at Hopleaf's upstairs bar at 7:30 p.m.!

There's a strong spring wind blowing a great evening your way! Our 45th episode of Tuesday Funk will feature readings from Chris Mendius, B.C. Bell, Susanna Lang, Julie Rosenthal, and Tom Underberg! You'll also get a new Poem By Bill, not to mention your pick of dozens of varieties of cold beer at the bar.

The evening gets underway with your co-hosts Sara Ross Witt and William Shunn on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early for a seat, and grab a beer from Johnny at the cash-only bar. We start seating at 7:00 pm and no earlier. Admission is always free, but you must be 21 or older. And come early or stay late after for some great Belgian-style food downstairs.

Please bring plenty of friends, and become a fan of Tuesday Funk on Facebook so you never miss an invitation to one of our readings. See you there!

We were bowled over last night at Hopleaf by the great performances at Tuesday Funk, the reading series whose eclecticism knows no bounds. Personal essays, poetry, erotic science fiction, exotic science fiction, liquor labels (seriously!)—our delighted audience never knew what would strike next.

The evening kicked off with Mare Swallow's funny and poignant tale of, you know, the kind of stuff that happens when you're college. Charlotte Hart brought us a strong slate of poems, including several she created and illustrated for the labels of organic spirits from Koval Distillery. And J.H. Palmer related the hilarious and affecting story of the hazy weekend in Amsterdam that pointed the way back home to Chicago.

After a halftime break for beer and a Poem by Bill, Mary Anne Mohanraj brought us a tale (or was it a tail?) of furrie empowerment and eroticism on a distant planet. And Richard Chwedyk wrapped things up for us with a charming poem (see below) and a chilling story from his "Saur" series.

But if you weren't there, don't think you rolled a gutter ball! We'll be posting video from the evening's performances over the coming days and weeks so you can catch up on everything you missed. And of course Tuesday Funk will be back on May 1st with our guests Chris Mendius, B.C. Bell, Susanna Lang, Julie Rosenthal, and Tom Underberg. Be sure to join us!

Put those books back on the shelf and get on down to Hopleaf tonight for the 44th magnum opus from your friends at Tuesday Funk!

Our vaunted lineup tonight includes Richard Chwedyk, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Mare Swallow, Charlotte Hart, and J.H. Palmer, not to mention one of our patented Poems By Bill.

So "like" us today on Facebook, grab one of dozens of varieties of beer from the bar, and get set for an evening of entertaining and provocative live literature. You'll be glad you did.

Hopleaf Bar is at 5148 N. Clark St. in Chicago. The reading begins at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge. The lounge opens at 7:00 pm. Arrive early if you want a seat.

As always, the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf is cash-only and 21 and over. Remember also that no food can be brought in from the restaurant.

At our March Tuesday Funk reading, co-host William Shunn continued his theoretically infinite series of poems with this offering, "La Sagrada Tarea," inspired by the work of Robert A. Caro...

And if you enjoyed that, you'll get another new Poem by Bill at our very next Tuesday Funk, tomorrow night, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, which will also feature great readings from Mary Anne Mohanraj, J.H. Palmer, Charlotte Hart, Mare Swallow, and Nebula Award winner Richard Chwedyk. Be there!

Mary Anne Mohanraj is author of Bodies in Motion (HarperCollins) and nine other titles. Bodies in Motion was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards, a USA Today Notable Book, and has been translated into six languages.

Previous titles include Aqua Erotica and Wet (two erotica anthologies edited for Random House), Kathryn in the City and The Classics Professor (two erotic
choose-your-own-adventure novels, Penguin), and The Best of Strange Horizons. Mohanraj founded the World Fantasy Award-winning and Hugo-nominated magazine Strange Horizons. She was Guest of Honor at WisCon 2010, received a Breaking Barriers Award from the Chicago Foundation for Women for her work in Asian American arts organizing,and won an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose.

Mohanraj has taught at the Clarion SF/F workshop, and is now Clinical Assistant Professor of fiction and literature and Associate Director of Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She serves as Executive Director of both DesiLit (www.desilit.org) and the Speculative Literature Foundation (www.speclit.org).

Recent publications include "Talking to Elephants" (Abyss & Apex) and "Jump Space" (Thoughtcrime Experiments). She lives in a creaky old Victorian in Oak Park, just outside Chicago, with her partner, Kevin, two small children, and a sweet dog.

Join Tuesday Funk April 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Mary Anne read!