PJ Gray has been seen storytelling at 2nd Story, Nestor Gomez's 80 Minutes Around the World, Sidetrack's Outspoken, Drinkers with Writing Problems, and Serving the Sentence to name a few. His varied writing career has included cookbook publishing, television writing and low comprehension fiction for struggling readers of all ages. To learn more, go to PJGray.com.

Please join PJ and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Steve Bellinger was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago by a single mom who worked nights for a printing company. She would bring home books and magazines to encourage him to read. This is how he discovered Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and the other masters of classic science fiction. It didn’t take long for him to get the itch to write. Over the years, he’s written everything from newspaper articles, comic strips and radio drama to short stories and fan fiction.

One of the original Trekkies, he and his wife Donna hope to renew their wedding vows one day with a full Star Trek-themed ceremony; he'll wear an admiral's dress uniform, and she will be decked out in a custom-made leather-and-lace Klingon wedding dress. That, Steve says, is the only time he will outrank her.

Please join Steve and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Writer. Poet. Bicyclist. New Englander by Trade. Sondra Morin is an alumna of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Juniper Writing Institute. She is published in The Rumpus, vis a tergo, SIMILAR : PEAKS ::, Curbside Splendor, among others, and is an Uptown Poetry Slam Champion. She has a poetry chapbook, Inviting the Expanse, published under Radical Snail Press. She has performed with The Neo-Futurists and at live lit readings throughout Chicago, including Write Club, Story Lab, and The First Time. Moonlighting as The Audible Snail, she DJs Wednesday nights on CHIRP Radio. You can read her prose at radicalsnail.com.

Please join Sondra and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Get your monthly dose of live lit at Chicago's favorite eclectic reading series! Join us in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf on Tuesday, Oct. 1 where we'll have readings from Steve Bellinger, Faisal Mohyuddin, Laaura Goldstein, PJ Gray, and Sondra Morin.

Admission to Tuesday Funk is always free, but you must be 21 to attend. Doors open at 7pm sharp (tables tend to fill up fast, so don't be late!) and the show will start at 7:30pm. Please RSVP on Facebook, and while you're there, go ahead and like and follow us so you get our announcements in your news stream.

Our September show brought together readers new and old. Dr. Ada Cheng shared a contemplative essay about aging and acceptance, followed by Kemi Alabi reading poems from their acclaimed book Against Heaven. Tuesday Funk co-founder Hallie Palladino read a personal essay about how she fell in love with — and began writing for — the movies.

After the break, first-time reader Ryan Varadi shared poems from a collection in progress. Finally, Kate Harding closed out the night with a fresh list of reasons to open a used bookstore (or come visit her at Jarvis Square Books very soon). Thanks as always to our attentive and supportive audience!

Join us in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf on Tuesday, October 1, when we'll have readings by Steve Bellinger, Laura Goldstein, PJ Gray, Faisal Mohyuddin, and Sondra Morin. Hope to see you there!

Hallie Palladino is playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and original co-founder of Tuesday Funk in 2008. She has written plays about everything from fraudulent tech start-ups to a fictionalized account of the Cambridge Analytica data heist. Her most recent play The Cleanup, was a sex comedy about burnt-out parents hooking up after hours at a crunchy DIY preschool co-op. All of these are part of her "deception series" that ask: how do we rebuild after social trust is shattered? Her short Attachment Disorder is published in the Best New Ten-Minute Plays 2021 (Applause Acting Series). Her writings on theater have appeared in American Theatre Magazine, HowlRound, and Rescripted. Currently she's having a blast with her screenwriting partners, Mike Jann and Michele Jordan, writing a raunchy coming of age story with a climax at a Tijuana brothel. Hallie is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.

Please join Hallie and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

photo credit - Joe Mazza - Brave Lux

Kate Harding is the author of Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and co-editor with Samhita Mukhopadhyay of Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America. She has both an MFA and a PhD she’s not currently using, but she’s taught creative writing at Northwestern University and StoryStudio Chicago, among other places. After being an editor, book publicist, and author, Kate switched over to the bookselling side in 2021, and she is now the owner of Jarvis Square Books, which will open this fall in Rogers Park.

Please join Kate and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Kemi Alabi is the author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award. The collection was a Kate Tufts Discovery Award finalist, Chicago Review of Books Award winner, and one of New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022, among other honors. Alabi’s poems appear widely in journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic, The Nation, Poetry, Boston Review, and Best New Poets. Alabi is coeditor of The Echoing Ida Collection (Feminist Press, 2021), an anthology of Black reproductive justice writing, and the 2024-2025 Feminist-in-Residence at Northwestern University. Born in Wisconsin on a Sunday in July, they now live in Chicago.

Please join Kemi and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Ryan Varadi is a midwestern poet living in Chicago, where he writes on the train on the way to work his retail job. He holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a BA in English from Northwestern University. He served as editorial staff for Ecotone and Chautauqua and as an intern for RHINO Poetry. He currently teaches online workshops with The Porch. He is the recent winner of Frontier Poetry’s 2023 Ekphrastic Prize. His poems appear in Poetry Northwest, River Heron Review, and The Shore, among others. You can find him on Instagram at @ryanvaradi, where he sometimes shares niche playlists and brags too much about being good at bar trivia.

Please join Ryan and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

An educator-turned storyteller, creator, and producer, Dr. Ada Cheng has utilized storytelling to illustrate structural inequities, raise critical awareness, and build intimate communities. Committed to amplifying and uplifting marginalized voices, she has created numerous storytelling platforms for BIPOC and LGBTQIA community members to tell difficult and vulnerable stories. Dr. Cheng has been a speaker for Illinois Humanities Road Scholars Speakers Bureau since 2019. She was named 2023-24 Lund-Gill Chair at Dominican University. She is one of the Illinois Humanities Public Humanities Award honorees in 2024. Her interests encompass academia, storytelling/performance, and advocacy. Learn more at renegadeadacheng.com.

Please join Ada and our other fantastic readers on Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.