Margie Skelly lives in Chicago with her husband, a 22-year-old daughter, two cats and a dog, several fish, and too much seemingly insurmountable clutter.

Her awards for poetry include first place from the Jo-Anne Hirshfield Poetry Memorial Awards, second place from the Niles Public Library Poetry Contest, third place from Tall Grass Writers' Guild/Outrider Press in the anthology Falling in Love Again, and first and second places in the 1990 Poets and Patrons Contest. Her short story awards include second place in the National Organization for Women Fiction Contest in 2000.

In 2010, she was awarded a scholarship to the Rope Walk Writers Conference in New Harmony, Indiana. She was twice a scholarship recipient in Writing and Singing from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for One State: Together in the Arts Conference, co-convened by the Illinois Arts Council and the Illinois Arts Alliance.

Her poetry has been published in Cram 2011, several Tall Grass Writers Guild anthologies put out by Outrider Press, Korone, Rambunctious Review, and Black Maria (where her short story "Bus Fare" was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council Award) while her fiction has been published in Primavera and her creative non-fiction in The Village Rambler.

Other distinctions include Finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Contest through the Guild at the Chopin Theater, Semi-finalist for the 2011 Word Works Washington Prize for a book-length collection of poetry, Contest Judge for the 33rd Evanston only high school contestants for the Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Awards. Her work, "My Father Is Waiting for Me," was taught in an Advanced Placement English class at Buffalo Grove High School.

Her love of singing with the North Shore Choral Society of Evanston, Illinois, in particular Mozart's Requiem, was part of her inspiration for writing the piece in The Village Rambler titled "Listening to Mozart."

She has recently taught poetry writing at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and poetry and fiction writing at the Eisenhower Library in Harwood Heights, Illinois, where she will once again teach fiction writing (with a new twist!) in April 2012. Forthcoming is publication of a poetry chapbook in early 2012 by Puddin'head Press of Chicago.

At our recent January 3rd reading, Chicago author Holly McDowell read us this stunning excerpt from her novel-in-progress Farah Minor:

And if you enjoyed that, please join us for our next event on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, when we'll bring you great readings from Julia Borcherts, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Margie Skelly, Dustin Monk, and Lillian Huang Cummins.

Dustin Monk is a graduate of Clarion Writers' Workshop. His work is forthcoming from or has appeared in Bull Spec, Shimmer, Digital Science Fiction, and Prime Mincer Literary Journal, among others.

On his blog, spiralzine.blogspot.com, he began documenting the adventures of the club-hopping, gin-guzzling orb-weaver that had made his home outside his kitchen window but they had a falling-out, the details of which Dustin does not want to get into though if bought a sour ale may be obliged to divulge one or two juicy bits. Follow him on twitter at @dustinjmonk.

Join us Tuesday, February 7, at 7:30 p.m. at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Dustin read!

Lauryn Allison Lewis writes fiction, essays, interviews, book and bakery reviews, and everything in between. She is a managing editor at Curbside Splendor Press, assistant editor at Barrelhouse Magazine, and co-editor of Literary Chicago. Her novella, Solo Down, will be published this spring by The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, and her debut novel, The Beauties, will be released later this year by Silverthought Press.  

Join us Tuesday, February 7, at 7:30 p.m. at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Lauryn read!

At our recent January 3rd reading, author Stephen Markley shared with us some of the secrets behind, and therefore within, his "premature memoir" Publish This Book: The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote, Sold and Published This Very Book:

And if you enjoyed that, please join us for our next event on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, when we'll bring you great readings from Julia Borcherts, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Margie Skelly, Dustin Monk, and Lillian Huang Cummins.

Julia Borcherts is a co-founder of Reading Under the Influence and The Chicago Way lit series, a fiction writing instructor at Columbia College Chicago, a theater columnist for RedEye and a frequent contributor to Time Out Chicago and the Windy City Times.

She has been a featured reader at Victory Garden's Fresh Squeezed series, 2^nd Story, the Windy City Story Slam, This Much is True, Two with Water RX, the Revolutions reading series, Two Cookie Minimum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Women & Children First bookstore, the Criminal Class Press anti-gala and many other events and venues.

Join us Tuesday, February 7 at 7:30 p.m. at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Julia read!

You may know 42 as the answer to the ultimate question of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But for Tuesday Funk it means the ultimate lineup of Julia Borcherts, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Margie Skelly, Dustin Monk, and Lillian Huang Cummins for our amazing 42nd episode. And if you hitch a ride on our literary starship, you'll have your pick of dozens of varieties of cold beer in our warm, cozy control room as we bring you an unparalleled evening of stellar entertainment.

The voyage gets underway Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early, claim a berth on the upstairs deck, and grab a beer from John 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 afterward 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 our readings. Do you know where your towel is?

Tuesday Funk is proud and excited that the 70th World Science Fiction Convention will be coming to Chicago from August 30 to September 3rd, 2012!

It so happens that our September reading will take place Tuesday, September 4th, 2012, the day after Worldcon ends. We plan to put on an evening of great science fiction readings that night—a veritable Science Fiction Spectacular—which means we need us some great science fiction writers.

If you're a science fiction writer coming to town for Worldcon and you plan to stick around Chicago for an extra day or two afterward, and you'd like to be one of our five readers, please have a look at our guidelines page and drop us a line at tuesdayfunkchicago@gmail.com. We'd love to have you be part of our Speculative Fiction Spectacular. (In fact, today is the day that Worldcon hotel registration opens, so please keep us in mind as you make your plans.)

Please email us by Tuesday, May 22, 2012, to be considered for one of these five September slots. Decisions will be made by Tuesday, June 5, 2012, and announced at the Tuesday Funk reading that evening. In the past we've hosted such names as Jody Lynn Nye, Brenda Cooper, and Steven H Silver, and in the months to come we'll bring you Alex Shakar, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Richard Chwedyk, and more. Want to add your name to that roster? Drop us a line!

And if you're a science fiction fan, please mark September 4th on your calendar. It's going to be a terrific evening!

At our recent January 3rd reading, our guest Lawrence Santoro shared with us this evocative and shocking recipe for "Root Soup, Winter Soup." You may, in fact, be able to hear the gasps from our audience...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us for our next event on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, when we'll bring you great readings from Julia Borcherts, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Margie Skelly, Dustin Monk, and Lillian Huang Cummins.

If you were part of our standing-room crowd at Tuesday Funk this past January 3rd, you probably had not just your socks but your shoes blown off too. It was as strong an evening of readers as we've had at Hopleaf, and we've had some strong ones. (We've also ordered a few strong ones from Johnny at the bar, but that's a different, if simultaneous, story.)

The night started out with a bang as Christopher Sweet took us back to his college days and painted us a funny and discomfiting portrait of "El Amor Brujo." Holly McDowell explored the frustrations of being an ambitious girl in the France of yesteryear, with an excerpt from her novel Farah Minor. And co-host William Shunn showed that he's a "Stand Up" guy with a story about a most unusual comedy performance.

After a break for beer and a poem about Bill's cousin the burglar, we welcomed Lawrence Santoro to the microphone to lead us through a most unsettling recipe for "Root Soup, Winter Soup." Then Stephen Markley finished out the evening by attempting to explain to us (and to his idiot friends) what goes into a book about the process of publishing that book.

But don't worry if you weren't there! We'll be posting video of the evening's performances over the coming days and weeks, so watch this space. And of course Tuesday Funk will be back February 7th with work from Julia Borcherts, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Margie Skelly, Dustin Monk, and Lillian Huang Cummins. Be sure to be there, and strap your shoes on tight.