Joe O'Sullivan is a retired cop and former blogger. He has one published essay, and the former ChicagoNow blog Arresting Tales to his credit. He enjoys making stuff up for family and friends, and is fascinated by oddballs, alligators, and roadside attractions. He hopes someday to have a cool nickname like Turbo Dog and live in the country raising chickens and honeybees. Right now he's considering work life in the cubicle farm, and considering his next move.

Please join Turbo Dog and all our would-be-homesteaders on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Laura Adamczyk was born and raised and still lives in Illinois. Her writing has won awards from the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation of Chicago and has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, PANK, Passages North, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and currently reads submissions for the journal Creative Nonfiction.

Please join Laura and all our award-winning readers on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Wendy McClure is the author of several books, including The Wilder Life: My Adventures of the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie. The first novel in her kids' series, Wanderville, came out in January and the second book will be out this fall. Wendy is a columnist for BUST magazine and has contributed to The New York Times Magazine and This American Life. She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, received an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and now lives in Chicago with her husband.

Please join Wendy and all our first-rate, Laura Ingalls Wilder-lovin' readers on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Naomi Buck Palagi grew up in the woods of Kentucky. She works and lives in NW Indiana with her husband and two lively little kids, but once upon a time lived down the street from Hopleaf. She has work published in journals such as Spoon River Review, Otoliths, Moria, Eleven Eleven, Blue Fifth Review, and Requited. Additionally, she has two chapbooks, Silver Roof Tantrum (dancing girl press, 2010), and Darkness in the Tent (Dusie Kollectiv 5, 2011).

Please join Naomi and all our other Hopleaf-lovin' readers on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Get down and get funky at a special Mardi Gras edition of Tuesday Funk in March. While we won't have any floats, we will have readings by Wendy McClure, Joe O'Sullivan, Naomi Buck Palagi, Laura Adamczyk and Eden Robins. OK, and maybe some beads. Eden also co-hosts with with your hosts Andrew Huff.

The evening gets underway on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014, at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Doors open at 7:00 pm sharp, no earlier -- arrive early for a table and grab a beer from Mark at the bar. As always, admission is free, but you must be 21 or older. And come early or stay late after for some great Belgian-style food downstairs.

RSVP on Facebook and bring a friend. And hey, become a fan of Tuesday Funk on Facebook so you never miss an invitation to one of our readings. See you there!

Co-host Andrew Huff talked tech in his patented topical haiku at the February 7 edition of Tuesday Funk.

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow.
Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow.
Sweet lord, no more snow.

Remember dial-up?
Ten weird seconds of static
and then, "You've got mail."

The web makes all things
possible -- and probable,
given enough time.

Be socially safe!
Don't drink from the firehose of
Twitter and Facebook.

Heads down, we travel
alone among crowds, but joined
by our friends online.

Big data knows you,
your friends, your online habits.
Big data knows all.

You are not alone.
Big Brother is watching you.
There, in your pocket.

As co-host Andrew Huff said in this poignant haiku:

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow,
Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow.
Sweet lord, no more snow.

Surprise! It snowed. But that didn't keep our intrepid literature and beer lovers away from Tuesday Funk! It was standing-room only... packed to the gills in our warm little room, and Mark hustled to and fro, granting our every boozy wish.

Mare Swallow set the bar high with her rousing (and arousing) tale of a rebound love affair with Billy Crystal's stunt double. Then Cameron McGill stepped up to the mic and stunned us with his evocative and lyrical poems about illness, love, and avocadoes. Co-host Eden Robins reassured us all with her micro-essay about how our weird sexual fantasies are actually what make us normal. And Tom Underberg delivered a knock-out with a dark fantasy story about the legendary tree-punchers of northern Wisconsin.

Then it was time for more beer.

Andrew pulled us back in with his snow-related gallows humor and a few other haiku about the perils of technology. Chuck Sudo followed with a humorous and touching tale about learning to ice skate as a grown-up. And Amelia Beamer finished us off right with an excerpt from her book about... what else... horny zombies.

And then it was over. We cried, we wrote "K.I.T" in each others' yearbooks, even though we knew there was no way to recreate what we had that fateful Tuesday night. But don't worry! We're doing it all over again on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014, with fabulous readers Joseph O'Sullivan, Naomi Buck Palagi, Nikki Pill, Wendy McClure, and Laura Adamczyk. Don't miss it!

Don't forget--tonight is Tuesday Funk's 66th episode, featuring Mare Swallow, Cameron McGill, Tom Underberg, Chuck Sudo, and Amelia Beamer! We're like the birds returning to the trees... the mucky slush flooding the streets... the first hint of spring thaw bringing an end to this endless winter!

Our readings take place at Hopleaf Bar, 5148 N. Clark St. in Chicago. We get started promptly at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge. Arrive early if you want a seat--but no earlier than 7:00 pm. Our readings are free, but only those 21 and over will be admitted. No food can be brought in from the restaurant. See you there!

Amelia Beamer writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels & stories and has spent the past few years in the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany, Ireland, and Iceland. She is the author of The Loving Dead, the number two zombie novel of the past decade according to Barnes & Noble. Her most recent short fiction appears in Psychos: Serial Killers, Depraved Madmen, and the Criminally Insane, and Zombies vs Robots: Women on War! Amelia works as an editor for Shueisha English Edition, a new general imprint of popular Japanese titles translated into English, available from the Sony Reader Store.

Please join Amelia and all our first-rate, zombie-loving readers on Tuesday, February 4th, 2014, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Born and raised on Chicago's Northwest side, Chuck Sudo has called Bridgeport home for nearly 15 years and has written for the popular local website Chicagoist for nearly nine years--the last three-plus as editor-in-chief. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Time Out Chicago, Chicago magazine, Centerstage and Playboy.com. Chuck has read onstage at The Paper Machete and CHIRP Radio's "The First Time" series. He'd read onstage more but he's getting older and tires easily, despite staying in good shape for his age.

Please join Chuck and all our amazing, physically fit readers on Tuesday, February 4th, 2014, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.