Greetings from Worldcon in Chicago, where you can meet, among many others, Tuesday Funk veteran Holly McDowell! In fact, at our August reading, Holly read us a powerful and "touching" excerpt from her epic serial fantasy novel King Solomon's Wives, and it went a little like this...

And if you're looking for more thought-provoking speculations, please join us on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012, for our Chicago Post-Worldcon Science Fiction Spectacular featuring Daryl Gregory, Rae Carson, Rajan Khanna, Gregory A. Wilson, and Adam Rakunas. Don't miss it!

At our August Tuesday Funk reading, Stacy Bierlein, author of the collection A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends, chronicled a steamy Hollywood affair backward through time to its origins, and it sounded a little like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012, for our Chicago Post-Worldcon Science Fiction Spectacular featuring Daryl Gregory, Rae Carson, Rajan Khanna, Gregory A. Wilson, and Adam Rakunas. Don't miss it!

Factory towns are dying throughout this great land of ours. At our August Tuesday Funk reading, co-host Sara Ross Witt read us a powerful story about one such factory town, and the cost of keeping it running...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012, for our Chicago Post-Worldcon Science Fiction Spectacular featuring Daryl Gregory, Rae Carson, Rajan Khanna, Gregory A. Wilson, and Adam Rakunas. Don't miss it!

At our August Tuesday Funk reading, author Jesse Jordan read us a captivating excerpt from his new novel Gospel Hollow, and it went a little like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012, for our Chicago Post-Worldcon Science Fiction Spectacular featuring Daryl Gregory, Rae Carson, Rajan Khanna, Gregory A. Wilson, and Adam Rakunas. Don't miss it!

At our August Tuesday Funk reading, co-host William Shunn reminisced about space exploration past and present, and it went a little bit this...

And if you enjoyed that journey through and time, please join us on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012, for our Chicago Post-Worldcon Science Fiction Spectacular featuring Daryl Gregory, Rae Carson, Rajan Khanna, Gregory A. Wilson, and Adam Rakunas. You won't want to miss it!

Every episode of Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf seems to feature some emergent, unintended theme, and Tuesday night's show was no exception. The major theme seemed to be old men, with subthemes of brown liquor and Martian exploration. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Jesse Jordan kicked things off for us with an intriguing and somewhat painful excerpt from his new novel Gospel Hollow. Chicago Magazine's Scott Smith followed that up with a wonderful meditation on growing old, setting the evening's themes in motion (see video below), after which Holly McDowell brought us a poignant and thrilling chapter from her serial novel King Solomon's Wives.

After a break for beer, co-host William Shunn broke with tradition by reading not a poem but instead a brief essay about Curiosity Rover. Next, co-host Sara Ross Witt delivered a powerful short story about a factory town in decline. And Stacy Bierlein brought the old man theme full circle with a wonderfully steamy story from her new collection A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends.

But if you missed out, don't despair. We'll be bringing you more video from the evening over the next few weeks, and then we'll be back on September 4th with our Chicago Post-Worldcon Science Fiction Spectacular featuring Daryl Gregory, Rae Carson, Rajan Khanna, Gregory A. Wilson, and Adam Rakunas. Be sure to join us!

For our 47th amazing episode tonight at Hopleaf, your friends at Tuesday Funk are bringing you layer upon layer of the best writers Chicago has to offer.

This stellar evening will feature Scott Smith, Holly McDowell, Jesse Jordan, Sara Ross Witt, A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends author Stacy Bierlein, and one of our patented Poems By Bill.

So "like" us today on Facebook, grab one of dozens of varieties of beer from the bar, and get set for an evening of entertaining and provocative live literature with your hosts Sara Ross Witt and William Shunn. You'll be glad you leveled up.

Hopleaf Bar is at 5148 N. Clark St. in Chicago. The reading begins at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge. The lounge opens at 7:00 pm. Arrive early if you want a seat.

As always, the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf is cash-only and 21 and over. Remember also that no food can be brought in from the restaurant.

Jesse Jordan is a writer and editor currently living in the suburbs of Chicago. He is an MFA graduate of Columbia College and a member of Reading Under the Influence (a monthly series which you can see tonight at Sheffield's). Gospel Hollow is his first novel.

Please join Jesse and the rest of our crew of excellent readers in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf on August 7th. The fun gets underway at 7:30 pm.

Stacy Bierlein is the author of the vibrant new story collection A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends. She is the editor of the award-winning anthology A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross Cultural Collision and Connection (May 2008), and a coeditor of Men Undressed: Women Writers and the Male Sexual Experience (October 2011).

A longtime contributing editor to Other Voices Magazine, in 2005 Stacy joined Gina Frangello in founding the independent press Other Voices Books, and later the Morgan Street International Novel Series. She has been a visiting lecturer at Whittier College, UC Riverside at Palm Desert, and Columbia College. She contributes to various websites including The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown.

Her current book tour is taking her to ten cities. She rather likes being on the road and wishes she was in a rock band. If only someone had convinced teenaged Stacy to trade in her oboe for an electric guitar...

Please join Stacy and the rest of our crew of excellent readers in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf on August 7th. The fun gets underway at 7:30 pm.

Sara Ross Witt is a co-producer and co-host of Tuesday Funk and a graduate of The New School MFA in Creative Writing Program. She was raised in Ohio as a psychic by her biological mother, a detail she writes about in some of her short stories. Since leaving Ohio, she has lived in New York City, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis and has pursued a very non-psychic career as a technical writer for the United States Government, which included writing for the Office of the President. During her pregnancy, she authored Pregphobic and Pregnant, a blog mostly about pregnancy, some crafting, and the occasional reference to the movie Alien.

Sara lives with her husband, their 8-month old son, and two cats in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood.

Please join Sara and the rest of our crew of excellent readers in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf on August 7th. The fun gets underway at 7:30 pm.