James Kennedy is the author of The Order of Odd-Fish, a young adult fantasy that was named one of the Smithsonian's Notable Books for Children. Booklist praised Odd-Fish as "hilarious," and Time Out Chicago described it as "a work of mischievous imagination and outrageous invention."

He is also the founder and curator of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, in which kid filmmakers are challenged to create movies that tell the story of Newbery award winning books in 90 seconds or less, screening annually in New York, Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco.

James lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters. He is at work on a new novel and a collection of short stories. You can visit him at www.jameskennedy.com and learn more about the 90-Second Newbery at www.90secondnewbery.com.

Please join James and the rest of our glittery readers on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013, for an unforgettable evening of Glitter & Mayhem! The needle drops upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

We hope you're looking forward to October 1st's special Glitter & Mayhem Edition of Tuesday Funk!

That's the night when we'll be celebrating the recent release of Apex Publications' new Glitter & Mayhem anthology, a collection of original speculative-fiction stories set in the night clubs and roller discos of the '70s and '80s.

With tales by the glittery likes of Seanan McGuire, Christopher Barzak, Rachel Swirsky, and Daryl Gregory, Glitter & Mayhem is unlike anything you've read before. You can purchase your very own copy here, in physical or electronic form.

The anthology features "Subterraneans," a story by our own William Shunn and Laura Chavoen set largely at Medusa's, a Chicago club many of our audience members may recall fondly.

To set the tone for our upcoming reading, Bill and Laura have created a Spotify playlist to accompany their story—a "Subterraneans" soundtrack, more or less.

We hope you dig it, and we look forward to seeing you upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm on October 1st!

At our September 3rd edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host William Shunn read still another poem about his dog, this time in a valiant attempt to make up for that last poem...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening of Glitter & Mayhem with James Kennedy, Noël Jones, Holly McDowell, Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. Johnson, and William Shunn & Laura Chavoen.

At our August 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host William Shunn read yet another poem about his dog, and it went quite a bit like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening of Glitter & Mayhem with James Kennedy, Noël Jones, Holly McDowell, Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. Johnson, and William Shunn & Laura Chavoen.

At our September 3rd edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host Andrew Huff delivered another fistful of his signature topical haiku:

Fifty years later
King's dream is still unfulfilled.
Does freedom yet ring?

Here's to long weekends!
Reminding us that life is
not just about work.

Finally arrived:
Summer's sweat, hot and humid
on the city's neck.

Sitting in the car,
Labor Day traffic crawls on.
Vacation delayed.

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening of Glitter & Mayhem with James Kennedy, Noël Jones, Holly McDowell, Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. Johnson, and William Shunn & Laura Chavoen.

We have a hell of a 62nd episode coming up for you on October 1st. Lace up your disco skates and powder your nose, because nothing goes better with a little Funk than a whole lot of Glitter & Mayhem!

The first half of our wild and crazy program will feature Noël Jones, Holly McDowell, and Order of Odd-Fish author James Kennedy. Since this is the guy who once challenged Neil Gaiman to a fight for the Newbery Medal, anything could happen—and probably will!

Then the second half of our dance card will be filled up with authors and editors from the new, Kickstarter-funded, speculative nightclub anthology Glitter & Mayhem! Maurice Broaddus, Kyle S. Johnson, William Shunn, and Laura Chavoen will be on hand for a multimedia spectacle bringing all the fabulous madness and debauchery of classic clubland to life.

Throw in one of our patented Poems by Bill, a fistful of Haiku by Andrew, and your pick of cold beers from around the world, and you've got all the ingredients for a night you might regret—if you can even remember it the next morning.

The needle drops at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013, with your DJs D-Billy and Huffmaster, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. We start seating at 7:00 pm and no earlier. Admission is always free, but you must be 21 or older.

Please bring plenty of friends, and become a fan of Tuesday Funk on Facebook so you never miss an invitation to one of our readings. See you there!

Illustration by Galen Dara. Used by permission.

It was a packed house for this week's edition of Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf. If you weren't able to be there, here's what our wonderful and fortunate audience saw.

We kicked things off with Virginia Konchan, who navigated a tricky tale of religious faith and domestic violence. Norman Doucet then took us from his upbringing as the whitest black kid in South Carolina and into a crisis of racial identity in the Marine Corps. We followed that up with a Poem by Bill that attempted to do penance for last month's poem. And Lania Knight brought us a powerful and lyrical tale of life and pain and birth.

After a break for beer and a handful of season-appropriate Haiku by Andrew, co-host William Shunn at long last shared with us the reason he's not permitted to enter Canada. And finally, MacArthur Genius and Guggenheim Fellow Aleksandar Hemon read us an excerpt from his current work-in-progress which had our audience practically peeing themselves. (Er, that's an inside joke.)

All in all, it was an delightful night, but if you couldn't be there, don't despair. We'll bring you plenty of video excerpts in the weeks to come, and then we'll be back on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013, for an evening of Glitter & Mayhem with James Kennedy, Noël Jones, Holly McDowell, Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. Johnson, and William Shunn & Laura Chavoen. If you don't show up, then Tinker Bell will die!

Don't forget—tonight is Tuesday Funk's 61st episode, featuring Aleksandar Hemon, Virginia Konchan, Lania Knight, Norman Doucet, and William Shunn. Don't miss it!

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!

At our August 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, Maggie Jenkins told us what she did for her summer vacation, and it went a little bit like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with William Shunn, Virginia Konchan, Norman Doucet, Lania Knight, and MacArthur Fellow Aleksandar Hemon. Hey, that's tomorrow night! You won't want to miss it.

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, as well as The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, Love and Obstacles and The Book of My Lives.

He has worked as a waiter, canvasser, bookseller, bike messenger, as well as a supervisor at a literacy center, a writer for Radio-Sarajevo Youth Program and a teacher of English as a second language. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Esquire, Granta, The New York Times, Playboy, McSweeney's, TriQuarterly, The Baffler, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, Ploughshares and The Paris Review, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation, the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, the PEN/ W.G. Sebald Award, and, most recently, a 2012 USA Fellowship. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughters.

Please join Sasha and all our accomplished readers on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.