William Shunn began his professional software development career at WordPerfect in 1991, where he wrote 80x86 assembly language code and helped kill the DOS version of the venerable word processor. Ironically, he still uses WordPerfect for most of his prose writing, which includes more than thirty works of short fiction.

His stories have appeared everywhere from Asimov's to Salon, and have been shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

His podcast memoir "The Accidental Terrorist" details his experiences as a young Mormon missionary running afoul of the law in Canada. "This just may be my favorite true-life amazing-but-true tale," wrote Cory Doctorow of the podcast in Boing Boing. Bill first came to the attention of Tuesday Funk audiences in April 2009, when he presented an early chapter from the work. More appearances and more chapters followed over the subsequent months, until in October 2010 he was invited to join Tuesday Funk as co-producer and co-host.

Bill has appeared around town at such popular live-lit series as Essay Fiesta, The First Time, and Write Club. A past national judge for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, he now serves as a board member for the Chicago Writers Conference. He has lived in New York City since June, which is why he'll reluctantly be stepping down as a Tuesday Funk co-host at the end of 2013.

Please join Bill next week when he compresses the entirety of "The Accidental Terrorist" into eight short minutes. You can hear him and all our accomplished readers on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

At our August 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, Jac Jemc read us her short story of juvenile delinquency, "Filch and Rot," and it sounded a lot 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. You won't want to miss it!

Lania Knight's first book, Three Cubic Feet, is a 2012 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Debut Fiction. Her work has been published or will appear soon in Fourth Genre, New Stories from the Midwest, The Missouri Review, Literary Mama, PANK, Midwestern Gothic, Jabberwock Review, and elsewhere. She lives down-state and teaches at Eastern Illinois University. Read more about her and her recent travels to China at www.laniaknight.com.

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

At our August 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host Andrew Huff brought forth more topical haiku from his fevered brain, and it went just a little 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. You won't want to miss it!

Virginia Konchan's poems have appeared in Best New Poets, The Believer, The New Yorker, and The New Republic, her criticism in Quarterly Conversation, Barzakh Magazine, and Boston Review, and her fiction in StoryQuarterly and Joyland, among other places. Co-founder of Matter, a journal of poetry and political commentary, Virginia is pursuing her Ph.D. in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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

At our August 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, Dmitry Samarov told us what happened to him the night the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, and it sounded a little 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 Aleksandar Hemon, Virginia Konchan, Norman Doucet, Lania Knight, and William Shunn. You won't want to miss it!

At our June 4th edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host Andrew Huff demonstrated his bravery by reading some of his high school poetry in Bill's absence, and it sounded quite a 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 Aleksandar Hemon, Virginia Konchan, Lania Knight, Norman Doucet, and William Shunn.

Brace yourself, because do we have an amazing Tuesday Funk lined up for you! For our 61st episode, we've put together a roster that includes MacArthur Fellowship winner Aleksandar Hemon, whose recent The Book of My Lives has been garnering acclaim around the world.

As if that's not enough, we'll also have Virginia Konchan, Lania Knight, Norman Doucet, and another missionary story from co-host William Shunn. Throw in one of our patented Poems by Bill and a fistful of Haiku by Andrew, not to mention your pick of cold beers from around the world, and you've got all the ingredients for a legendary late-summer evening.

The evening gets underway with your hosts William Shunn and Andrew Huff on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early for a table and grab a beer from Mark at the bar (where credit cards are now accepted!). 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 late after 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 one of our readings. See you there!

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 terrific, attentive audience saw.

We kicked things off with Dmitry Samarov, who walked us through his travails the night the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. Steven H Silver then took us back to Sodom and Gomorrah for an adventure narrated by a decidedly undiabolical demon. Co-host Andrew Huff followed up his monthly haiku with a charmingly dirty tongue-twister he attempted to teach to the crowd. And Maggie Jenkins hilariously replayed for us her summer selling children's study guides door-to-door.

After a break for beer and a Poem by Bill called "Beware of Dog," novelist Jac Jemc read us an evocative story of small-town girls sliding slowly into juvenile delinquency. And finally, epic fantasy writer Bradley P. Beaulieu transported us to Imperial Japan for a tale of funeral rites and surprising intrigue.

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, September 3, 2013, with a program featuring Aleksandar Hemon, William Shunn, Virginia Konchan, Lania Knight, and Norman Doucet. Don't miss it!

Don't forget—tonight is Tuesday Funk's 60th episode, featuring Bradley P. Beaulieu, Jac Jemc, Steven H Silver, Maggie Jenkins, and Dmitry Samarov. 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!