Ryan P. C. Trimble is a Chicago-based comic and writer. Originally from North Carolina by way of Long Island (or is it the other way around? There's actually no way to know!), he has made his mark in the Chicago comedy scene as part of VOILÀ: THE IMPROVISED MUSICAL and MALARKEY HOUSE TEAMS at iO, as well as FROGPROV, Chicago's only bilingual French-English improv team, at the Bughouse. His solo musical comedy has been seen on stages such as The Lincoln Lodge, the Annoyance, iO, and from the seat of his moped on the way to work. He is 8'10" tall. Find him on social media @Ryntern, but be nice because otherwise he WILL cry.

Please join Ryan and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, June 4, 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.

Lina Chern is the author of Play the Fool, winner of the 2024 Mary Higgins Clark Award and nominee for the 2024 Lefty and Anthony Awards. A sequel, Tricks of Fortune, is forthcoming in 2025. Other work has appeared in The Marlboro Review, The Bellingham Review, Rhino, The Collagist, and Black Fox Literary Magazine. Lina has also written trivia questions, word puzzles for a TV game show, paranormal romances, dialogue for your favorite comic book characters, award-winning movie reviews, and poems that have been published and read by up to dozens of people. Find her at www.linachern.com, on Instagram at @linachernwrites, or Twitter at @ChernLina.

Please join Lina and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, June 4, 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.

Erin J. Watson is a Southern queer person living in Chicago. She makes zines, reads poems, rides bikes, and works in nonprofits. Her recent zines include Things We Bought at Harvestime and Extremely Gay for the Moon and the Lake, and she's thrilled to take the torch from the venerable Eden Robins and step up as cohost of Tuesday Funk starting in July 2024.

Please join Erin and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, June 4, 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.

Will the scream of cicadas drown out the readers at our next show? Find out when Tuesday Funk returns on Tuesday, June 4 to the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf! The evening will feature readings by Lina Chern, Eden Robins, Chrisopher Sweet, Ryan Trimble, and Erin Watson. Andrew Huff and Eden Robins cohost.

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.

Hope to see you there!

The 147th edition of Tuesday Funk seesawed from personal stories to pure fiction as our readers held their audience rapt in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf.

Tuesday Funk founder Connor Coyne led things off with an excerpt from his novella Hollywood. Then Carmen Aiken read an essay about a summer spent waiting tables at the Chicago Yacht Club. Next, Holly M. Wendt read from their gay hockey novel Heading North. After the break, Gina Twardosz told a tale of a surreal CTA ride, Andrew shared a couple of his topical haiku, and Ananda Lima closed the night out with an excerpt from her forthcoming novel, Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil.

If you missed it, you missed out. But fear not! Your favorite eclectic monthly reading series returns to the Hopleaf on Tuesday, June 4, with readings by Lina Chern, Eden Robins, Chris Sweet, Ryan Trimble, and Erin Watson. Hope to see you then!  

Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil (forthcoming with Tor Books in June 2024), and Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021, winner of the Hudson Prize). Her work has appeared in four chapbooks, including Amblyopia (Bull City Press), and publications such as The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Witness, and elsewhere. She has served as a mentor at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program and currently serves as a contributing editor for Poets & Writers. Her voice was praised as “singular and wise” by Cathy Park Hong. Craft, her fiction debut, has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, which described it as “one of the most original and unforgettable reads of the year.” Originally from Brazil, she lives in Chicago.

Please join Ananda and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, May 7, 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.

Carmen Aiken is a certified forklift driver, non-profit exile, sometimes farmhand, bike dirtbag, and writer. Their work has been published in The Best American Experimental Writing, them magazine, and performed for Vocalo.org's Lovefound series. Their hybrid work-in-progress, hotspur, was longlisted for PANK's big book prize. Carmen spent the past few years crossing the continent a few times and landed back on the near South Side, where they spend too much time missing the Good Internet and defunct dance parties.

Please join Carmen and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, May 7, 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.

Connor Coyne (he/him) is a writer living and working in Flint, Michigan. Connor has published several novels and a short story collection, including the magical serial novel Urbantasm, and his novella Hollywood. His work has been featured in Vox.com, Belt Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the director of the Flint-based Gothic Funk Press and is facilitator for the Gloria Coles Flint Public Library‘s writing workshops. Connor is a graduate of the University of Chicago and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. Today, he lives with his wife and two daughters in Flint’s College Cultural Neighborhood (aka the East Village), less than a mile from the house where he grew up.

Please join Connor and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, May 7, 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.

Gina Twardosz's work is exceedingly personal, often satirical, and with an eye cast to the side for the strange or whimsical. She often writes about herself to reach other people, mining her trauma to create a robust emotional vocabulary that others may use to process their own emotional trauma. She writes across genres, melding them, with a body of work that boasts CNF, poetry, flash, and hybrid pieces. Her work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.

Please join Gina and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, May 7, 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.

Holly M. Wendt is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lebanon Valley College and the author of Heading North (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023). Wendt is a recipient of the Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowship for Creative and Performing Artists from the American Antiquarian Society and fellowships from the Jentel Foundation and Hambidge Center. They have served as a Peter Taylor Fellow in fiction at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Their work has appeared in Passages North, Shenandoah, Barrelhouse, Ploughshares blog, and elsewhere. Holly is a former Baseball Prospectus contributor and contributing editor for The Classical. Their sports-based nonfiction has also appeared in Bodies Built for Game: The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Sports Writing, The Rumpus, and Sport Literate. Find Holly on Bluesky and Instagram at @hmwendt.

Please join Holly and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, May 7, 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.