At our November 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host William Shunn read us his 2003 Salon short story "Strong Medicine," and it sounded a little like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, January 1st, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Julie Ganey, Andrew Huff, Sondra Morin, William Shunn, and Christopher Sweet. See you there!

At our November 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, Kelly Swails read us her not-so-light fantasy story "Vanessa MacAvoy's Statement," and it sounded a little like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, January 1st, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Julie Ganey, Andrew Huff, Sondra Morin, William Shunn, and Christopher Sweet!

Good news. Your friends at Tuesday Funk have your New Year's Day hangover cure all figured out! Just order yourself a little hair of the dog, stir in five great readers with a smidgen of fiction, some essays, and a little poetry, and you'll be feeling better in no time.

Oh, you'd like more details? Well, we'll bring you the next in our series of readings from the new 2nd Story anthology, this time featuring the great Julie Ganey. We'll also have Andrew Huff from Gapers Block on hand, together with Sondra Morin, William Shunn, and Christopher Sweet. Throw in one of our patented Poems by Bill, not to mention your pick of cold beers from around the world, and your 2013 will be off to a fantastic start.

The evening gets underway with your co-hosts Sara Ross Witt and William Shunn on Tuesday, January 1st, 2012, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early for a table and grab a beer from Mark at the bar (where credit cards are now accepted!). We start seating at 7:00 pm and no earlier. Admission is always free, but you must be 21 or older. And come early or stay late after for some great Belgian-style food downstairs.

Please bring plenty of friends, and become a fan of Tuesday Funk on Facebook so you never miss an invitation to one of our readings. See you there!

If you were at Tuesday Funk this week, then you know something very special happened. And we're not just talking about that extra closeness you experienced with your neighbors in the jam-packed upstairs lounge at Hopleaf. We're talking about what happened behind the microphone, and sister, was it something.

We started off strong out of the gate with Jodi Eichelberger's tale of being the lone audience member at a solo mime/dance performance in London. Maggie Kast followed that will a powerful novel excerpt about a young Chicago activist arriving in Alabama for the infamous Scottsboro trials of 1931. And Stephen Markley's brought the house down with his gonzo, hallucinogen-assisted reportage from the Republican debate that dashed Rick Perry's presidential hopes.

After a break for beer, co-host William Shunn busted out this month's Poem by Bill, "Like Writing a Bicycle." Then we rounded out the evening with two remarkable selections from the new 2nd Story anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck. There was not a dry eye in the house as co-editor Andrew Reilly wrapped up his story of a vacation romance in India, and every knuckle in the place was white while Julia Borcherts explained what brought her and her infant daughter to the scene of a gruesome late-night murder in 1981.

Funk #52 was truly the Funk by which all future Funks will be judged.

But if you weren't there, don't despair. We'll be bringing you video clips from the evening over the days to come, after which we'll be back January 1st, New Year's Day, with a great lineup featuring Julie Ganey, Sondra Morin, Christopher Sweet, William Shunn, and more. Don't miss it!

It our 52nd big episode, and we're pleased to present the first in a series of readings featuring authors from the new 2nd Story essay anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck. Julia Borcherts and Andrew Reilly will be on hand to read their contributions, and we'll also have Jodi Eichelberger, Maggie Kast, and Stephen Markley with us. Throw in one of our patented Poems by Bill, not to mention your pick of cold beers from around the world, and you have the recipe for a fantastic hour or two of live literature.

So "like" us today on Facebook and get set to pour out some holiday cheer with hosts Sara Ross Witt and William Shunn.

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 21 and over only. Remember also that no food can be brought in from the restaurant.

At our November 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, B. E. Pinkham brought us a funny and heartfelt chapter from her memoir Let Me Look at You, and it sounded a little like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on December 4th, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Julia Borcherts, Jodi Eichelberger, Maggie Kast, Stephen Markley, and Andrew Reilly. See you there!

Maggie Kast is the author of The Crack Between the Worlds: A Dancer's Memoir. Her stories have appeared in The Sun, Nimrod, Rosebud, and others, and essays in America, Writers Chronicle, and Image. She's currently at work on a novel, I Never Knew You Had a Girl, an excerpt from which, "Sleeping with Men," has just been published by Red Claw Press as part of an anthology on sleep, Seek It: Writers and Artists Do Sleep. Her essay "Symbols: Forest of Ambiguity" is forthcoming in the online magazine, Numéro Cinq: A Warm Place on a Cruel Web.

Hear Maggie and the rest of our outstanding readers on Tuesday, December 4, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf.

At our November 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, Mary Zemaitis bravely confessed her past as a teenage "Jesus Freak," and it sounded a little like this...

And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on December 4th, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Julia Borcherts, Jodi Eichelberger, Maggie Kast, Stephen Markley, and Andrew Reilly. See you there!

Stephen Markley, author of Publish This Book: The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote, Sold, and Published This Very Book, will be reading from a new essay, available on Kindle and iBooks, called The Great Dysmorphia: An Epistemological View of Ingesting Hallucinogenic Mushrooms at a 2012 Republican Presidential Debate. His blog, Off the Markley, appears regularly at the RedEye's web site, and you can visit him online at StephenMarkley.com.

Hear Stephen and the rest of our outstanding readers on Tuesday, December 4, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf.

At our November 6th edition of Tuesday Funk, co-host William Shunn read us some "Tasting Notes" straight from the Hopleaf beer menu...

And if you found that tasty, you'll get another Poem by Bill at our December 4th reading, which will also feature Julia Borcherts, Jodi Eichelberger, Maggie Kast, Stephen Markley, and Andrew Reilly. See you there!