Lisa Chalem has loved writing since childhood when she and her best friend wrote a three page screenplay about two friends who realize fame and fortune as world renowned disco dancers.

Her blog, Feel the Love. Eat the Food, chronicles how she turned her twisted relationship with food into a healthy one, and features recipes designed to lure the cooking phobic off the phone with the pizza guy and into the kitchen.

Lisa is a member of the Writers Workspace of Chicago and lives in Lakeview with her husband and two sons. She's thrilled to be reading at Tuesday Funk.

Join Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf's upstairs bar to hear Lisa and our talented group of readers on April 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Hey, Funkers, we're delighted to welcome author and journalist Robert K. Elder to our April 5th lineup. Rob's upcoming book is It Was Over When...: True Tales of Romantic Dead Ends. He discussed his previous effort, The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark, recently on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly:

Watch this space for more on Rob and all our upcoming readers, and be sure to join us upstairs at Hopleaf on April 5th, 7:30 pm! You'll be glad you did.

Laura Peterson is one of the most innovative choreographers at work in New York City, or anywhere for that matter. Her choreography is always supremely logical, whether rooted in organic forms or technological ideas or a hybrid of both, and devoid of the hackneyed vocabulary much of modern dance seems to comprise.

Want to see Laura Peterson Choreography perform in Chicago? They've been invited to participate in an exciting throwdown at Links Hall called collision_theory, but they need your assistance to do it. They're trying to raise $1,700 for production expenses in just 30 days with a kickass Kickstarter campaign. Won't you please help, Chicago?

Do it for the dancers.

See more of Laura's videos here, here and here. And here's a past favorite of ours, just because:

By the way, did we remember to mention that the February reading was legendary? Believe.

If you missed our March 1st reading, Joe Weintraub has kindly allowed us to post a video excerpt from the excerpt of his performance piece "An Investigation into the Life of the Screenwriter, Henry Frank" from which he read that night. As we join the story, already in progress, the narrator is interviewing the aged titular screenwriter about his career in Hollywood's heyday...

If you enjoyed this and want to continue seeing video from our readings, please let us know. And don't miss our upcoming reading on April 5th at Hopleaf!

Is winter really over? In Chicago it's always hard to tell. But whether or not there's still snow on the ground, we at Tuesday Funk will be bringing you a veritable spring runoff of talent in April from the likes of Robert K. Elder, Ian Belknap, J.H. Palmer, Lisa Chalem, and William Shunn. Oh, and the beer, the beer—eighty varieties of it upstairs alone! You'll want to be sure and wear your hip waders.

Tuesday Funk convenes Tuesday, April 5, 2011, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early, stake out a table in the upper room, and grab a beer from John at the cash-only bar. 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 afterward 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 our readings, which in future months will feature the likes of Paul McComas, Tim W. Brown, Brooke Wonders, Scott Smith, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Eden M. Robins, Jerry Schwartz, Brenda Cooper, Sarah K. Castle, and more. Our cup runneth over!

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Please note that this post has been updated to reflect a change in our lineup of readers. Robert K. Elder will appear April 5th in place of Tegan Jones, whom we hope to have back later this spring or summer.

We at Tuesday Funk are thrilled by the literary firepower converging on Chicago over the coming week, as Columbia College presents its 15th annual Story Week. This festival of writers takes place March 13-18, with various free events around town featuring such talents as Irvine Welsh, Audrey Niffenegger, Sam Weller, Jonathan Messinger, Dan Sinker, and Tuesday Funk alumnus Gina Frangello.

Story Week kicks off this Sunday night with a special free 2nd Story reading at Martyr's, 3855 N. Lincoln Ave., featuring Eric May, Lott Hill, Patricia McNair, and April Newman. Doors open 6:30 pm. See you there!

We at Tuesday Funk were delighted last week, delighted, to see our wonderful audience rebound after February's blizzard, once again giving us a standing-room-only event in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf. What's all the fuss about? Let us fill you in on the sorts of things you're missing out on if you're not coming out to our readings on the first Tuesday of every month.

Maggie Kast took us back to Roaring '20s Chicago with an excerpt from her in-progress novel. Jenny Seay, continuing an unofficial Tuesday Funk leitmotif, invited us inside the world of professional female wrestling in an excerpt from her novel. And anchoring the first half, Essay Fiesta's Keith Ecker shared a poweful personal account of family and acceptance.

After a break to let everyone grab a beer, co-host William Shunn read his poem "Passing." Steven H Silver regaled us with a hilarious example of what we can only call "hard-boiled Cthulhu noir." And the extraordinary Joe Weintraub dazzled us with an extract from his performance piece "An Investigation into the Life of the Screenwriter, Henry Frank."

And there was also beer, plenty of it, brought to you by our friendly bartender Johnny.

So that's what you missed at the last Tuesday Funk. The good news is, we'll be back at Hopleaf on Tuesday, April 5 with an all-new evening of readings from Ian Belknap, J.H. Palmer, Lisa Chalem, and Tegan Jones, plus an all-new memoir excerpt from William Shunn. Mark your calendars now, and we'll see you when spring has sprung.

You've survived the Great Chicago Blizzard of '11. You've survived the mayoral campaign. You've survived the coyotes in Winnemac Park. You've even survived your Oscars party. (Okay, scratch that last one. The Oscars were insufferable.)

The point is, you're a survivor, and it's time to reward your endurance with some good writing and good beer. So trek on over to Hopleaf tonight (Tuesday, March 1st) and join your hosts Sara Ross and William Shunn for the 32nd entry in our theoretically infinite Tuesday Funk reading series.

Our hot lineup tonight will include poetry, fiction, essays, and more from the likes of Joe Weintraub, Keith Ecker, Maggie Kast, Steven H Silver, and Jenny Seay.

That's five great readers for the mere price of a beer. Or maybe two because, hey, 2 to the power of 5 equals 32. That's some real mathematics for your ass.

Hopleaf 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 for a seat!

As always, the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf is cash-only and 21 and over. Remember also that no food can be brought in from the restaurant.

For the past thirty or so years, Joe Weintraub has been publishing fiction, essays, translations, and poetry in all sorts of literary reviews and periodicals, from The Massachusetts Review to Modern Philology.

He has had one-act plays produced in New York City and Naperville, and has been an Around-the-Coyote and StoneSong poet as well as a featured author in readings at such Chicago landmarks as the Uptown Writers Space, the Red Lion Pub, the Mix, and the Bourgeois Pig. He is pleased to be adding Hopleaf and Tuesday Funk to that list.

Join Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf’s upstairs bar to hear Joe and our talented group of readers on March 1 at 7:30 p.m.