Tracy Harford-Porter was born in Brooklyn, NY and now resides in the Chicago suburbs. She has worked for Essence Communications as a photo editor, the Harlem Children's Zone as the managing editor of Harlem Overheard, StoryCorps as a facilitator coordinator, and Goldman Sachs as a long-term administrative temp/secret ethnographer. Tracy is a 2008 graduate of Clarion West and proud alum of Columbia University School of General Studies, majoring in anthropology. She is currently reworking a NaNoWriMo project into a novel and a screenplay because she is a masochist.

Please join Tracy and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 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.

Kelly Swails is a writer, editor, and all-around geek. Her work has appeared in several anthologies as well as Shondaland.com. Currently, she's the Co-Director of the Writer's Symposium at Gen Con, a con-within-a-con for science fiction and fantasy writers. You can stalk her on twitter at @kellyswails or her website at, you guessed it, kellyswails.com.

Please join Kelly and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 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.

Robbie Q. Telfer has performed and taught in hundreds of venues and institutions around the world. A co-founder of the Encyclopedia Show, he's been an individual finalist at the National Poetry Slam and has a collection of poetry from Write Bloody Publishing. A member of the internationally-renowned teaching artist collective Project VOICE, he is currently an environmental educator at the Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago.

Please join Robbie and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 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.

Faisal Mohyuddin is the author of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children (Eyewear 2018), which won of the 2017 Sexton Prize for Poetry, was selected as a 2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society, and named a "highly commended" collection by the Forward Arts Foundation. Also the author of the chapbook The Riddle of Longing (Backbone 2017), he serves as an educator adviser for the global not-for-profit Narrative 4.

Please join Faisal and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 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.

Lindsay Eanet (rhymes with "Senate") can be seen reading around Chicago at shows like OUTSpoken, You're Being Ridiculous, Story Jam and this one, and next to you at your favorite bar, skipping over all your songs on the jukebox. She has a weakness for reality competition shows and cries an average of four times during every episode of American Ninja Warrior. But enough about her, let's talk about you.

Please join Lindsay and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 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.

Recent extreme weather was on cohost Andrew Huff's mind as he wrote his haiku for our February 5, 2019 show.

Thank you for coming
despite both an ice storm and
State of the Union.

Do cold toilet seats
sting less if your butt
is already cold?

Seventy degrees
from Thursday to Saturday.
Thanks, global warming.

He also shared a poem written with the assistance of Haikubes:

Our parallel dilemma:
What if we are following
behind the wrong one?

Chicago's favorite eclectic monthly reading series will be roaring into March like a lion! Join us on Tuesday, March 5 in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf for readings by Kelly Swails, Lindsay Eanet, Robbie Q. Telfer, Tracy Harford-Porter and Faisal Mohyuddin!

As always, admission to Tuesday Funk is free, but you must be 21 to attend. Doors open at 7pm sharp (don't dilly-dally if you want a seat!) and the show will start at 7:30pm. Please RSVP on Facebook -- and don't forget to like and follow our page so you get our announcements right in your stream.

February showed its teeth on the night of the first Tuesday Funk in 2019 (we took January off because the first Tuesday of the month was the first of the year, remember?), with a warning of freezing rain rattling the city. The freezing rain didn't arrive in Andersonville that night, and plenty of intrepid folks made it to Hopleaf to see their favorite eclectic monthly reading series.

We started the night with Mike Puican, whose insightful and often funny poems put is in the right mood. Next, Jasmine Davila shared an essay connecting celebrity crushes and personal illness. Then cohost Eden Robins read an excerpt from her unpublished novel.

We took a minute to drink it all in and refill our glasses with Leah behind the bar.

Unfortunately, the weather was worse in the suburbs, which resulted in reader Sahar Mustafah having to cancel, but cohost Andrew Huff gamely stepped in to read a short piece of fiction instead, in addition to a couple of topical haiku. (We'll be seeing Sahar later in the year instead.) And last but not least, Molia Dumbleton shared two short pieces selected by her teenage daughter.

If the weather warnings scared you away, you'll have another chance to see Tuesday Funk on March 5, when we'll feature readings by Kelly Swails, Lindsay Eanet, Robbie Q Telfer, Tracy Harford-Porter and Faisal Mohyuddin. Hope to see you there!

Jasmine Davila has appeared in venues both small and medium sized, reading in live lit shows such as Essay Fiesta, The Skewer, and 20x2. She currently co-produces and co-hosts lady live lit show Miss Spoken, which can be found at The Gallery Cabaret on the last Wednesday of the month. She tweets, instas, and tumbls as @jasmined.

Please join Jasmine and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 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.

Molia Dumbleton's fiction has been awarded the Columbia Journal Fiction Prize, Sean O'Faolain Story Prize, Dromineer Flash Fiction Prize, and Kelly Barnhill Microfiction Prize. She has been a Finalist or Runner-Up for The Iowa Short Fiction Award, SmokeLong Quarterly Award, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Indiana Review Half-K Prize, Bridport Prize, and Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, and her work has appeared in an assortment of literary journals, including The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and others, and she is grateful to every one of them. Tuesday Funk is her very favorite place to read, and she's so happy to be back.

Please join Molia and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 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.