Our celebration of love both pure and profane kicked off with Gina Frangello, who pitted Intelligent Woman against Beautiful Woman in her story "What You See," from The Beautiful Anthology. Mary Pat Bohan raised the stakes with a catalog of all the baggage she brings to romantic relationships, and why there's no room for more. And Patricia Ann McNair rounded out the first half with her affecting true story of parental love and loss, "Return Trip," from the 2nd Story anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck.
After a break for beer, and a couple of super-secret announcements we'll be telling you more about in the weeks to come, co-host William Shunn brought us our monthly Poem by Bill, a sonnet for his wife entitled "14 Februarys." Hanna Martine upped the ante for the second half of the program with a spicy excerpt from her novel A Taste of Ice that caused at least one audience member to issue a hoarse "Thank you!" And finally, John Everson shattered all bounds of propriety and stomped the shards into the ground with his enthusiastic reading of his short story "Cheerleader for the Labia."
We're still mulling over exactly how much of the video we shot that evening we can offer here on the site. Keep your eyes open. But in the meantime, if you couldn't be there don't despair. We'll be back Tuesday, March 5, 2013, with a program featuring Mairead Case, CP Chang, Lania Knight, Dana Norris, and Zoe Zolbrod.
Until then, dear Funkers, won't you be our Valentine?
John Everson is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant, as well as the novels Sacrifice, The 13th, Siren and The Pumpkin Man, all released in paperback from Dorchester/Leisure Books and now available in e-book via 47North. His sixth novel, an erotic horror descent into dark desire centered around a mysterious adult club called NightWhere was released by Samhain Publishing in 2012. He has had several short fiction collections issued by independent presses, including Creeptych, Deadly Nightlusts, Needles & Sins, Vigilantes of Love and Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions. Over the past 20 years, his short stories have appeared in more than 75 magazines and anthologies. His work has been translated into Polish, Italian, Turkish and French, and optioned for potential film production. He is also the founder and publisher of the independent press 
Gina Frangello is the author of 3 books of fiction: A Life in Men (forthcoming from Algonquin in 2014), Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010) and My Sister's Continent (Chiasmus 2006). The longtime editor of Other Voices magazine, she co-founded its book imprint, Other Voices Books, in 2004 and continues to serve as the Executive Editor. She is also the Sunday Editor of The Rumpus and the Fiction Editor of The Nervous Breakdown. Her short fiction, journalism, interviews and reviews have been published widely in magazines, newspapers and anthologies including Fence, the Chicago Reader, the Huffington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. She often teaches in the Fiction Writing Department of Columbia College Chicago, and recently launched an international writing program in Mexico that will debut this July.
Mary Pat Bohan has been performing stand-up and story telling with The Kates at the Book Cellar for a couple years and has also performed with Beast Women. You may have gotten a taste of MP's material at Essay Fiesta, Guts & Glory, or Story Club. MP strives to perfect the art of turning her pain into comedy. In January MP launched her podcast, which can be found at 
Patricia Ann McNair is the author of 
