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.

April showers bring May readers? That's probably not how it works, but join us anyway on Tuesday, May 7 for the 147th edition of Tuesday Funk! The evening will feature readings by Carmen Aiken, Connor Coyne, Ananda Lima, Gina Twardosz, and Holly M. Wendt. 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!

Lillian Stone is a reporter, humor writer, and the author of Everybody's Favorite, a funny and disgusting essay collection published in 2023. She’s a frequent contributor to outlets including Slate, BBC Worklife, and GQ. On the humor side, she's a headline and features contributor for The Onion and a regular ol’ contributor for outlets like The New Yorker and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. She lives in Ukrainian Village with her poorly-behaved pets and recently joined the proud alliance of Chicago elementary school crossing guards. (Thanks, Eden!) You can find her on Instagram at @originalspinstr or on Substack, where she writes a weekly newsletter called The Big One.

Please join Lillian and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 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.

Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His latest novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover rave review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, and is a LA Times Book Prize Finalist. With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. His also cowrote The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards, and more.

Please join Daniel and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 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.

Jennifer Schaefer is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in: North American Review, Chicago Tribune, Barstow & Grand, Curbside Splendor, The Matador Review, Zouch Magazine, Akashic Books' flash fiction series, and Tortoise Books' anthology. She also received an Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train and a Special Mention from Fabula Press. She is currently seeking publication of two magical realism novels, one set in 1990s London, the other in a cultish Renaissance fair. She currently lives in Skokie with her British husband and their two daughters, two cats, and one very neurotic dog.

Please join Jennifer and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 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.