Originally a theater performer for 25 years, Dion Walton has been writing for the past ten. He's a published writer (Our Legacies: Writings from Chicago's Older Gay Men), a singer, and an artist who has presented work in galleries in the Chicago area.

At present he is writing his autobiography, The Happening, and also writing and performing with The Goodman Theater. Follow him on Facebook at his page "Where is Dion Now?"

Please join Dion and all our outstanding readers on Tuesday, May 7th, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older-only event is free.

At our April 2nd edition, Mary Robinette Kowal brought us this magical excerpt from her new novel Without a Summer. And you'll want to watch all the way to the end because she brought shadow puppets too!

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Suzanne Clores, Mary Beth Hoerner, Robert McDonald, Dion Walton, and former co-host Sara Ross Witt. Don't miss it!

Sara Ross Witt is the former 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.

Her writing has appeared in Arch City Chronicle and Parent to Parent. For more information on Sara's thoughts on pregnancy, motherhood, and the movie Aliens, visit her site Pregphobic and Pregnant.

Sara lives with her husband, their 18-month old son, and two cats in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood.

Please join Sara and all our outstanding readers on Tuesday, May 7th, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older-only event is free.

At our April 2nd edition, co-host William Shunn gave his short-short story "What Changed?" (originally written for 20x2 in Austin) its Chicago debut, and it went a little like this...

If you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Suzanne Clores, Mary Beth Hoerner, Robert McDonald, Dion Walton, and former co-host Sara Ross Witt. Don't miss it!

Robert McDonald's prose and poetry have appeared in a wide variety of print and online journals, including Sentence, The New York Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, and The Prose-Poem Project. He lives in Andersonville, works at in independent bookstore, and blogs about poetry and other things at Lives of the Spiders. With Kathie Bergquist, he is the author of A Field Guide to Gay & Lesbian Chicago.

Please join Robert and all our outstanding readers on Tuesday, May 7th, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older-only event is free.

Suzanne Clores is an author of narrative nonfiction, and is working on her second book, titled Invisible: How I Came to Accept the Extraordinary. She has written for The Huffington Post, Smith, The Nervous Breakdown, Next Avenue, Natural Health, Martha Stewart Living, and Shambhala Sun, among other publications. She was once hired to write and produce a documentary for MSNBC on the neo-pagan movement, which, strangely, never aired. Her essays have run on Chicago Public Radio. She learned to take storytelling seriously both from her Italian grandfather and while working with David Isay a million years ago on several pieces for All Things Considered.

Suzanne's work often revolves around the American psycho-spiritual movement, a category into which her piece for May 7th also falls. Please join her and all our outstanding readers upstairs at Hopleaf that night at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older-only event is free.

There was a lot of luring going on at our April 2nd edition! When Wesley Chu stepped to the mike to read us an chapter from his forthcoming novel The Lives of Tao, it went a little like this...

If you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Suzanne Clores, Mary Beth Hoerner, Robert McDonald, Dion Walton, and former co-host Sara Ross Witt. Don't miss it!

At our April 2nd edition, Reagan Keeter spun us his horrifying tale "Out of the Well," and it went a little like this...

If you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Suzanne Clores, Mary Beth Hoerner, Robert McDonald, Dion Walton, and former co-host Sara Ross Witt. Don't miss it!

Attention, Funkers! Our longtime co-host William Shunn will be appearing next week in not one but two of Chicago's most thrilling other reading series. They'll be on consecutive nights, no less, so please block out Tuesday and Wednesday evenings on your calendar!

First comes WRITE CLUB, on Tuesday, April 16th, at The Hideout. In this bare-knuckle series, three pairs of writers square off with essays on opposing topics. The audience decides who wins, with all proceeds going to charities of the winners' choice. Bill will be defending GOD over DEVIL, for the One Tail at a Time dog rescue organization. Tickets are $10 cash at the door. Arrive early!

And the following night, Wednesday, April 17th, Bill will be part of CHIRP Radio's THE FIRST TIME at Second City's new UP Comedy Club. This monthly series assembles seven or so writers to reminisce about an important "first" from their lives, backed with specially chosen songs by The First Time Three. For April the topic will be "First Crime." Tickets are $10, and buying in advance is strongly recommended. (And get preferred seating with a dinner reservation!)

To recap...

We hope you'll come out to one or both of these events and help support the amazing and vibrant "live lit" scene in Chicago. And if you run into Bill, say hello and tell him Tuesday Funk sent you!

At our April 2nd edition last week, we welcomed new co-host Andrew Huff and introduced a new monthly feature of Tuesday Funk—Haiku by Andrew! For his debut appearance, Andrew dropped these spring verses on us:

"March Madness" for some
means college football games.
Others, bitter cold.

The lion is drunk
on green beer, shots, and snowfall.
The lamb may be late.

April showers in
cold spring, tucks wet hair under
an Easter bonnet

Chicago spring is
an act of faith that all will
be warm soon enough.

If you enjoyed that, we'll have more video from the evening coming up in the next few weeks. And please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Suzanne Clores, Mary Beth Hoerner, Robert McDonald, Dion Walton, and former co-host Sara Ross Witt. Don't miss it!