And please don't miss our next event, which takes place Tuesday, January 3, 2012, and includes readings from Stephen Markley, Lawrence Santoro, Holly McDowell, Christopher Sweet, and William Shunn!
This charitable monthly reading series benefits 826CHI, a Chicago non-profit writing and tutoring program. Please bring a bit of money for a donation or for the raffle, and arrive nice and early for a seat. See you there!
Strap on your snowshoes this January because Tuesday Funk is taking you on a wild winter trek. For our 41st episode you'll join us in tracking down the talents of Stephen Markley, Lawrence Santoro, Christopher Sweet, Holly McDowell, and William Shunn. And your reward? Dozens of varieties of cold beer in our warm, cozy environs, and an evening of prime entertainment.
The hunt gets underway Tuesday, January 3, 2012, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early, carve yourself out some space in the upper room, 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. Mush!
We just want to give you a quick heads-up that your Tuesday Funk co-host William Shunn will be appearing as part of the Essay Fiesta reading series at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square this coming Monday, December 19th, at 7:00 pm.
It'll be Bill's third time reading at Essay Fiesta, a monthly charitable reading series that benefits 826CHI, a non-profit writing and tutoring program here in Chicago, and he's very excited to be asked back. Hosts Alyson Lyon and Keith Ecker (both of whom have read for us at the Funk) do a fantastic job of putting together a great program every month. Also appearing on Monday will be Dana Norris, J.H. Palmer, Jennifer Bosworth, and Eric Bjorlin. Please turn out and support the whole gang.
The Book Cellar, we should mention, is a wonderful place for a reading. It's a lovely independent bookstore and café, with beer, wine, and coffee available during their events. The reading itself is free, with fun prizes raffled and donation accepted on behalf of 826CHI. Show up early to be sure of a seat.
Last time Bill read at Essay Fiesta, back in April 2010, it looked and sounded something like this:
This past December 6th, Emile Ferris kicked off Tuesday Funk in a big way with her poem "My Mother Is 1968 Chicago." We wish technical difficulties didn't prevent us from showing you the full work, but check out this powerful, powerful excerpt from it:
And if you liked that, please don't miss our next event which takes place Tuesday, January 3, 2012, and includes readings from Stephen Markley, Lawrence Santoro, Holly McDowell, Christopher Sweet, and William Shunn!
Hey, Funkers, there's still time to bid in the auction we told you about yesterday afternoon. You have a little over eight hours left to get a bid in if you want to be one of the first by far to own a physical copy of my memoir The Accidental Terrorist. Two of the three books have definitely sold so far, and the third could possibly be yours for a minimum bid of just $100!
If you still want to learn more about The Accidental Terrorist, the indefatigable Dave Slusher interviewed me about it way back when for his Reality Break podcast. Take a listen:
Hi, generous Tuesday Funk fans! You may not be familiar with the name Terri Windling, but she is a major figure in the fantasy publishing world, as an author, illustrator, and especially editor. Health and legal issues have drained the Terri and her family of all financial resources, so the SF/fantasy community is doing what the SF/fantasy community does—banding together to help.
And they're helping by raising money with an online auction called Magick 4 Terri. Literally dozens of publishing professionals—people like Jane Yolen, Cory Doctorow, Holly Black, Ellen Kushner, Charles Vess, Barry Goldblatt—have contributed rare goods and services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Your humble Tuesday Funk co-host has a slate of items up for auction, too—three signed, privately printed copies of my not-yet-published memoir The Accidental Terrorist. You might have heard me read from it on several occasions at past Funk episodes. The manuscript is making the rounds of editors' desks as we speak, but there's a way you, generous Funker, can lay hands on a copy well before anyone else.
The bidding starts at $100. The three highest bidders walk away with the books, and will also be mentioned the acknowledgment when a commercial edition finally comes out. The bidding has already begun, so what are you waiting for?
Oh, one more thing. The auction closes at 5:00 pm PST on Thursday, December 15th. That gives you just a little over 24 hours to get your bids in. Help Terri Windling, and don't delay. Bid now!
If you're curious to know more about The Accidental Terrorist, I did an interview about it on Air America back in 2009, when I was serializing an earlier draft as a weekly podcast. Listen to both segments of the interview below:
Chicago may be enjoying a brief respite from the bitter cold this week, but somehow we here at Tuesday Funk still seem to want to escape to Paris. We recently shared video of Suzanne Clores's adventures in the modern-day City of Light; now we're pleased to let Holly McDowell carry you away to the Paris of the 1830s in this long-lost segment from our June 21st reading...
And if you want to accompany us through time and space for more great adventures like this one, be sure to join us on Tuesday, January 3rd, when we present Stephen Markley, Lawrence Santoro, Christopher Sweet, and more!
It was a gale-force wind that struck Hopleaf this past Tuesday night. At least, that's what I gather from the way audience members kept telling us they were blown away. We never know quite how any given evening is going to go, but we're happy to report that this latest Tuesday Funk maintained the high quality we've come to expect over the past year. At least in this co-host's humble opinion. If you weren't there, let us tell you a little about what you missed.
Things started strong right out of the gate as Emile Ferris blew us away with a fierce primal scream of a poem. John Klima maintained the buzz as he led us on a trippy journey through three related dreams. And to round out the first half of the show, Hanna Martine raised temperatures with a teaser from her extraordinary paranormal erotica.
After a break for beer and a poem about Bill's trench coat came a high school reunion of sorts. After a powerful excerpt from Patricia Ann McNair's acclaimed new story collection, her former classmate Jody Lynn Nye led us on a funny and thrilling romp through the dark terrain of lycanthropy.
The fact that Patty and Jody go back so far was a synchronicity we didn't discover until after we'd scheduled them on the same bill, which is only one of the many great synchronicities that emerge from any given evening at Tuesday Funk.
But don't worry if you weren't there! We'll be posting video of everyone's performances over the coming days and weeks, so watch this space. And of course Tuesday Funk will continue bringing great readers together throughout 2012, starting January 3rd with strong work from Stephen Markley, Lawrence Santoro, Christopher Sweet, and more, plus another probable Poem By Bill. Mark your calendar now, because the new year won't properly begin until you've been Funk'd.
This morning on WBEZ, Alison Cuddy of "Eight Forty-Eight" welcomed Patricia Ann McNair as one her guests. Patty talked about her new story collection The Temple of Air. Listen at the link below...
...and then be sure to join us tonight at 7:30 pm upstairs at Hopleaf to hear her read, along with our other guests Jody Lynn Nye, Hanna Martine, John Klima, and Emile Ferris. It's free!
Tuesday Funk is an eclectic monthly reading series showcasing a mix of fiction, poetry and essays. Join us at Hopleaf the first Tuesday of every month.
