J.H. Palmer is a secret writer who has lived in Chicago since pretty much forever. Her writing has appeared in Gapers Block, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, Babble, and Christopher Street.  Her superpowers include the ability to name any song that aired on WPLJ between 1980-1989 in three notes or less, the ability to smoke just one cigarette and not want more, and the ability to converse with housecats.

She appeared at Story Lab in January, won the February Moth StorySlam with a piece that she premiered at Story Club, and will be appearing at Essay Fiesta in April.  You can keep up with her on her blog, Buttered Noodles.

Join Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear J.H. Palmer and our crew of talented readers on April 5th, 7:30 p.m.

Robert K. Elder is a journalist, author, film columnist and a regional editor of AOL's Patch.com in Chicago.

Pulitzer-winner Studs Terkel calls Elder "a journalist in the noblest tradition" in his introduction to Elder's book, Last Words of the Executed. Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean called it, "a dangerous book." Last Words of the Executed received rave reviews in The Economist, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Review of Books, among many other outlets. The New Yorker called it, "...A harrowing portrait of our justice system."

Praise for Elder's 2011 book The Film That Changed My Life came from the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips, who called the book, "A great and provocative read...it's addictive." Film critic Leonard Maltin also said, "You'll have a hard time putting this book down."

Elder's work has appeared in The New York Times, MSNBC.com, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Salon.com, The Oregonian and many other publications. For more than a decade, he served as a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune.

In June of 2009, Elder founded the Web 2.0 company Odd Hours Media LLC, which launched the user-generated sites ItWasOverWhen.com: Tales of Romantic Dead Ends and ItWasLoveWhen.com: Tales from the Beginning of Love. Both sites went viral very quickly, attracting more than 1 million hits within a few months. In late 2009, Sourcebooks signed the sites to a two-book deal.

Elder is also the editor of "John Woo: Interviews," the first authoritative chronicle of the filmmaker's life, legacy and career. He has also contributed to books on poker, comic books and film design. A former member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Elder has taught film classes at Facets Film School.

He currently teaches journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School.

A Montana native and graduate of the University of Oregon, Elder lives and writes in Chicagoland.

He has been known to carry a digital voice recorder.

Join Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Robert and our cadre of talented readers April 5th, 7:30 p.m.

Lisa Chalem has loved writing since childhood when she and her best friend wrote a three page screenplay about two friends who realize fame and fortune as world renowned disco dancers.

Her blog, Feel the Love. Eat the Food, chronicles how she turned her twisted relationship with food into a healthy one, and features recipes designed to lure the cooking phobic off the phone with the pizza guy and into the kitchen.

Lisa is a member of the Writers Workspace of Chicago and lives in Lakeview with her husband and two sons. She's thrilled to be reading at Tuesday Funk.

Join Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Lisa and our talented group of readers on April 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Hey, Funkers, we're delighted to welcome author and journalist Robert K. Elder to our April 5th lineup. Rob's upcoming book is It Was Over When...: True Tales of Romantic Dead Ends. He discussed his previous effort, The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark, recently on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly:

Watch this space for more on Rob and all our upcoming readers, and be sure to join us upstairs at Hopleaf on April 5th, 7:30 pm! You'll be glad you did.

Laura Peterson is one of the most innovative choreographers at work in New York City, or anywhere for that matter. Her choreography is always supremely logical, whether rooted in organic forms or technological ideas or a hybrid of both, and devoid of the hackneyed vocabulary much of modern dance seems to comprise.

Want to see Laura Peterson Choreography perform in Chicago? They've been invited to participate in an exciting throwdown at Links Hall called collision_theory, but they need your assistance to do it. They're trying to raise $1,700 for production expenses in just 30 days with a kickass Kickstarter campaign. Won't you please help, Chicago?

Do it for the dancers.

See more of Laura's videos here, here and here. And here's a past favorite of ours, just because:

By the way, did we remember to mention that the February reading was legendary? Believe.

If you missed our March 1st reading, Joe Weintraub has kindly allowed us to post a video excerpt from the excerpt of his performance piece "An Investigation into the Life of the Screenwriter, Henry Frank" from which he read that night. As we join the story, already in progress, the narrator is interviewing the aged titular screenwriter about his career in Hollywood's heyday...

If you enjoyed this and want to continue seeing video from our readings, please let us know. And don't miss our upcoming reading on April 5th at Hopleaf!

Is winter really over? In Chicago it's always hard to tell. But whether or not there's still snow on the ground, we at Tuesday Funk will be bringing you a veritable spring runoff of talent in April from the likes of Robert K. Elder, Ian Belknap, J.H. Palmer, Lisa Chalem, and William Shunn. Oh, and the beer, the beer—eighty varieties of it upstairs alone! You'll want to be sure and wear your hip waders.

Tuesday Funk convenes Tuesday, April 5, 2011, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early, stake out a table in the upper room, and grab a beer from John at the cash-only bar. We start seating at 7:00 pm and no earlier. Admission is always free, but you must be 21 or older. And come early or stay afterward for some great Belgian-style food downstairs.

Please bring plenty of friends, and become a fan of Tuesday Funk on Facebook so you never miss an invitation to our readings, which in future months will feature the likes of Paul McComas, Tim W. Brown, Brooke Wonders, Scott Smith, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Eden M. Robins, Jerry Schwartz, Brenda Cooper, Sarah K. Castle, and more. Our cup runneth over!

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Please note that this post has been updated to reflect a change in our lineup of readers. Robert K. Elder will appear April 5th in place of Tegan Jones, whom we hope to have back later this spring or summer.

We at Tuesday Funk are thrilled by the literary firepower converging on Chicago over the coming week, as Columbia College presents its 15th annual Story Week. This festival of writers takes place March 13-18, with various free events around town featuring such talents as Irvine Welsh, Audrey Niffenegger, Sam Weller, Jonathan Messinger, Dan Sinker, and Tuesday Funk alumnus Gina Frangello.

Story Week kicks off this Sunday night with a special free 2nd Story reading at Martyr's, 3855 N. Lincoln Ave., featuring Eric May, Lott Hill, Patricia McNair, and April Newman. Doors open 6:30 pm. See you there!

We at Tuesday Funk were delighted last week, delighted, to see our wonderful audience rebound after February's blizzard, once again giving us a standing-room-only event in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf. What's all the fuss about? Let us fill you in on the sorts of things you're missing out on if you're not coming out to our readings on the first Tuesday of every month.

Maggie Kast took us back to Roaring '20s Chicago with an excerpt from her in-progress novel. Jenny Seay, continuing an unofficial Tuesday Funk leitmotif, invited us inside the world of professional female wrestling in an excerpt from her novel. And anchoring the first half, Essay Fiesta's Keith Ecker shared a poweful personal account of family and acceptance.

After a break to let everyone grab a beer, co-host William Shunn read his poem "Passing." Steven H Silver regaled us with a hilarious example of what we can only call "hard-boiled Cthulhu noir." And the extraordinary Joe Weintraub dazzled us with an extract from his performance piece "An Investigation into the Life of the Screenwriter, Henry Frank."

And there was also beer, plenty of it, brought to you by our friendly bartender Johnny.

So that's what you missed at the last Tuesday Funk. The good news is, we'll be back at Hopleaf on Tuesday, April 5 with an all-new evening of readings from Ian Belknap, J.H. Palmer, Lisa Chalem, and Tegan Jones, plus an all-new memoir excerpt from William Shunn. Mark your calendars now, and we'll see you when spring has sprung.