Ryan Varadi is a midwestern poet living in Chicago, where he writes on the train on the way to work his retail job. He holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a BA in English from Northwestern University. He served as editorial staff for Ecotone and Chautauqua and as an intern for RHINO Poetry. He currently teaches online workshops with The Porch. He is the recent winner of Frontier Poetry’s 2023 Ekphrastic Prize. His poems appear in Poetry Northwest, River Heron Review, and The Shore, among others. You can find him on Instagram at @ryanvaradi, where he sometimes shares niche playlists and brags too much about being good at bar trivia.

Please join Ryan and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

An educator-turned storyteller, creator, and producer, Dr. Ada Cheng has utilized storytelling to illustrate structural inequities, raise critical awareness, and build intimate communities. Committed to amplifying and uplifting marginalized voices, she has created numerous storytelling platforms for BIPOC and LGBTQIA community members to tell difficult and vulnerable stories. Dr. Cheng has been a speaker for Illinois Humanities Road Scholars Speakers Bureau since 2019. She was named 2023-24 Lund-Gill Chair at Dominican University. She is one of the Illinois Humanities Public Humanities Award honorees in 2024. Her interests encompass academia, storytelling/performance, and advocacy. Learn more at renegadeadacheng.com.

Please join Ada and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

See you... in September... at Tuesday Funk! Chicago's favorite eclectic reading series returns to the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf on Tuesday, Sept. 3. Cohost Andrew Huff will be missing due to an out-of-town wedding, but Erin Watson will be there with a toast and intros to all our readers: Kemi Alabi, Ada Cheng, Kate Harding, Hallie Palladino and Ryan Varadi.

Admission to Tuesday Funk is always free, but you must be 21 to attend. Doors open at 7pm sharp (tables tend to fill up fast, so don't be late!) and the show will start at 7:30pm. Please RSVP on Facebook, and while you're there, go ahead like and follow us so you get our announcements in your news stream.

Our August show was lively and fun. If you didn't make it, here's what you missed!

Kelly Swails led us off with an essay about exploring the city through visits to dive bars. Next, Rosamund Lannin read a portion of a short story that will be published soon.

We took a break to refresh our drinks, after which cohost Andrew Huff shared a couple of his topical haikus and introduced Jitesh Jaggi, who read some experimental fiction about oracles in department stores. Then cohost Erin Watson led us all in a toast, and Lauren Emily Whalen read part of an autofiction piece about performing burlesque in Chicago.

Unfortunately Sondra Morin was unable to join us due to COVID, but she's on the mend and will read at our October 1 show instead. You should join us, too — and come to our next show on Tuesday, Sept. 3, when we'll have readings by Kate Harding, Ada Cheng, Hallie Palladino, Ryan Varadi and Kemi Alabi. Hope to see you then!

Jitesh Jaggi ended his career in finance one day when he lost all his data that he forgot to save on an Excel sheet and realized that he just didn’t care. That tipping point led to him becoming a storyteller. He is a four-time The Moth StorySlam winner and his stories were recently featured on NPR where they butchered his name but he swears that was him. Jitesh has read his poems in Mumbai, Paris, and Chicago, including one time at the seedy Logan Square Skate Park — under the highway — in between punk bands setting up equipment. He loves writing bios because he can refer to himself in the third person. Ask Jitesh about his one-man show Suitcase Stories returning in Fall 2024.

Please join Jitesh and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, August 6, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Rosamund Lannin reads and writes in Chicago. Her work has appeared in places like Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Tor.com, and Vice. She's currently querying a novel about live action roleplaying and the nature of fantasy. If you're an agent, she'd love to talk. If you're not, she'd probably love to talk to you anyway.

Please join Rosamund and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, August 6, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Kelly Swails is a childless cat lady who works in academic publishing. She's published several short stories, novels, and comic books in the speculative fiction space and has also dipped her toes into the world of the personal essay. In her free time she watches movies and hangs out with friends in various and sundry bars around Chicago. You can find her at kellyswails.com and various social media outlets. But not twitter. Twitter can suck a bag of dicks.

Please join Kelly and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, August 6, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Writer. Poet. Bicyclist. New Englander by Trade. Sondra Morin is an alumna of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Juniper Writing Institute. She is published in The Rumpus, vis a tergo, SIMILAR : PEAKS ::, Curbside Splendor, among others, and is an Uptown Poetry Slam Champion. She has a poetry chapbook, Inviting the Expanse, published under Radical Snail Press. She has performed with The Neo-Futurists and at live lit readings throughout Chicago, including Write Club, Story Lab, and The First Time. Moonlighting as The Audible Snail, she DJs Wednesday nights on CHIRP Radio. You can read her prose at radicalsnail.com.

Please join Sondra and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, August 6, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Lauren Emily Whalen is the author of I Heart Jennifer Coolidge: A Celebration of Your Favorite Pop Culture Icon, as well as the novels Tomorrow & Tomorrow (a scary-sexy Macbeth retelling co-written with Lillah Lawson), Take Her Down, Two Winters and Satellite, and the nonfiction books Dealing with Drama and Celebrity Bios: Margot Robbie. She is a contributor to GO Magazine, Queerty and BookPage. Lauren’s creative nonfiction has appeared in several publications, including Write or Die, Blue Mesa Review and the Querencia Press Spring 2023 Anthology. She lives in Chicago with her black cat, Rosaline.

Please join Lauren and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, August 6, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

A hundred and fifty shows!? That's exciting! Although less so because there was some slight misnumbering at one point so it's probably not actually #150. Who cares? Math is hard, that's why we deal in words.

Anyway, join us for the August edition of Tuesday Funk, featuring readings by Jitesh Jaggi, Rosamund Lannin, Sondra Morin, Kelly Swails and Lauren Whalen! It'll be a great show, and you won't have to count anything unless you want to.

Admission to Tuesday Funk is always free, but you must be 21 to attend. Doors open at 7pm sharp (tables tend to fill up fast, so don't be late!) and the show will start at 7:30pm. Please RSVP on Facebook, and while you're there, go ahead like and follow us so you get our announcements in your news stream.