Andrew Huff

Participants Reading #162

Meet the Readers: Caitlin Brecht

Cate Brecht is a recovering Floridian who’s been calling Chicago home for over a decade. She’s worked plenty of odd jobs to make rent and now finds herself in insurance—which pays the mortgage. She’s shared stories about her wonderfully messy brain across the city at spoken

Participants Reading #162

Meet the Readers: Cean Gamalinda

Cean Gamalinda is a Rogers Park Swagapino Taurus with suburban characteristics. They write poetry and emails. Please join Cean and our other excellent readers on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free,

Participants Reading #162

Meet the Readers: Howard Friedman

Howard Friedman is a writer living in Chicago. He has had poetry published in Pioneertown, Catch, Cellar Door, Combat!, Roots and Reverence, The Desperate Reader and Dissent: An Anthology To End War And Capitalism. He currently works as a Chicago Public School teacher helping kids learn to read, perform complicated

Participants Reading #162

Meet the Readers: Susan Buttenweiser

Susan Buttenwieser is the author of Junction of Earth and Sky, her debut novel, which was just published, and the short story collection, We Were Lucky With the Rain. Her writing has appeared in literary magazines as well as Women's Media Center, Rewire News Group and other publications.

Participants Reading #162

Meet the Readers: eri lucia kapling

eri lucia kapling (it/its) is a transfeminine writer, deer, reluctant bartender, and mother in Chicago. Its poems and short stories have been published in New Session and The Pill, and in the acclaimed zines THIS DISH CANNOT BE FOUND and HURT///LOVE, among others. When eri isn’t working

Readings Reading #162

Tuesday Funk #162 - Sept. 2, 2025

See you in September... for Chicago's favorite eclectic reading series! Join us in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf on Tuesday, Sept. 2 for readings by Caitlin Brecht, Susan Buttenweiser, Howard Friedman, Cean Gamalinda, and eri lucia kapling! Admission to Tuesday Funk is always free, but you must be

Debriefings Reading #161

August 2025 Debrief

It feels like this summer has been flying by! Fortunately we have the rhythm of Tuesday Funk to help mark the time. Our show August 5 was standing room only, demonstrating just how much Chicago loves live lit! Courtney Justus got the evening started with a tale of dancing and

Participants Reading #161

Meet the Readers: Dan Baron

Dan Baron is a storyteller and a communications professional who writes about social issues for nonprofits, universities, and other organizations. He has an identical twin, but for some reason insists that there’s nobody like him. He’s also a dad, a son, and a friend. He claims to have

Participants Reading #161

Meet the Readers: Courtney Justus

Courtney Justus was born in Houston, Texas, raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina and now lives in Chicago. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she received the Jason Alexander Bradford Award. She is a Tin House YA Workshop alumna, a Best of

Participants Reading #161

Meet the Readers: Scott Smith

Scott Smith works in local government and lives on the South Side with his wife and daughter. He hosts and produces the live lit show The Frunchroom, featuring stories of, by, and about the many neighborhoods, viewpoints, and people on the South Side. You can learn more about it by

Participants Reading #161

Meet the Readers: Elizabeth Joy Levinson

Elizabeth Joy Levinson is an accidental high school biology teacher in Chicago. She is supposed to be an English teacher, but if she's being honest, she's just as happy discussing insects as she is poetry. Her work has appeared in Whale Road Review, SWWIM, One Art,

Participants Reading #161

Meet the Readers: Eiren Caffall

Eiren Caffal is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Guernica, The LA Review of Books, Al Jazeera, and the anthology Elementals. She has received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and a 3Arts Make a

Readings Reading #161

Tuesday Funk #161: August 5, 2025

Chicago's favorite eclectic reading series makes its triumphant monthly return! Join us in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf on Tuesday, Aug. 5 for readings by Dan Baron, Eiren Caffall, Elizabeth Joy Levinson, Courtney Justus, and Scott Smith! Admission to Tuesday Funk is always free, but you must be

Debriefings Reading #160

July 2025 Debrief

It was downright hot on the first of July, but we stayed nice and cool in the upstairs lounge of Hopleaf, ready for the 160th edition of Tuesday Funk! Victoria Montalbano got things started with a funny story about being an in-store shopper for a now wildly successful college classmate.

Participants Reading #160

Meet the Readers: Ursa Miles

Ursa Miles is an Ozark-born and Chicago-based storyteller. She spent her early years playing on the dusty floors of her grandparents’ boat shop taking in the tall tales of fishermen and boat builders. Her love of stories led her to pursue a degree in theatre and speech education followed by

Participants Reading #160

Meet the Readers: Chris Gleason

Chris Gleason is a queer designer, artist, and exuberant Chicago transplant. They make zines and art about poetry, birds, museums, media, nostalgia, and The Queer Experience. They spent their college years writing poetry, and this is the first time they’ve done live lit since getting their writing degree in

Participants Reading #160

Meet the Readers: Victoria Montalbano

Victoria Montalbano is an actress, solo performer, and recovering improvisor. She has made appearances at storytelling shows across the Chicagoland area, and spends part of the year touring her one-person-shows. Her award-winning show, The Princess Strikes Back: One Woman's Search for the Space Cowboy of her Dreams is

Participants Reading #160

Meet the Readers: Chris Corlew

Chris Corlew is a writer and musician living in Chicago. His poems, short stories, and articles have been published in Cotton Xenomorph, Moist Poetry Journal, Whisk(e)y Tit, Kicking Your Ass, Cracked.com, and elsewhere. With Bob Sykora, he co-hosts The Line Break, a podcast about poetry and basketball.

Participants Reading #160

Meet the Readers: Martha Bayne

Martha Bayne is a writer and editor in and around Chicago. Currently a senior acquisitions editor at the University of Illinois Press, she has worked in journalism and publishing for 30 years, since she first started publishing a zine in 1995, and recently returned to self-publishing with a Substack newsletter

Readings Reading #160

Tuesday Funk #160: July 1, 2025

July 1 will be the 160th episode of Chicago's favorite eclectic reading series! Join us in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf for readings by Martha Bayne, Chris Corlew, Chris Gleason, Ursa Miles, and Victoria Montalbano. Maybe it will even consistently feel like summer by then! Admission to Tuesday

Debriefings Reading #159

June 2025 Debrief

We had a packed room for our June 3 show — proving once again that Chicagoans love their live lit! And we had a really great show for them, too. Dayna Bateman started things off with a moving abecedarian essay about her indigenous Sámi ancestors to pass for white in the

Participants Reading #159

Meet the Readers: Mary Anne Mohanraj

Mary Anne Mohanraj is author of Bodies in Motion (HarperCollins), The Stars Change (Circlet Press) and ten other titles. Bodies in Motion was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards, a USA Today Notable Book, and has been translated into six languages. The Stars Change is a science fiction

Participants Reading #159

Meet the Readers: Diana Babineau

Diana Babineau is a senior editor and writer for Northwestern Magazine at Northwestern University. She studied poetry at Amherst College and went on to become a managing editor for The Common literary journal, Orion magazine and In These Times magazine. She has edited a wide range of work including investigative

Participants Reading #159

Meet the Readers: Dayna Bateman

Dayna Bateman is a recovering tech worker who received the 2025 American Literary Review Nonfiction Prize for her essay: Deracination, or How to Disappear. A Granta Memoir and Tin House Workshop alum, she was awarded a Storyknife Residency on the strength and promise of her memoir-in-progress about growing up on

Participants Reading #159

Meet the Readers: James Stewart III

James Stewart III is a Black writer and arts organizer from Chicago. His debut novel, Defiant Acts (Acre Books, 2025), has been named one of Chicago Magazine’s “Summer’s Required Reading” picks and was recently featured in the Chicago Reader. He was also named to Newcity’s 2025 Lit