Ursa Miles is an Ozark-born and Chicago-based storyteller. She spent her early years playing on the dusty floors of her grandparents’ boat shop taking in the tall tales of fishermen and boat builders. Her love of stories led her to...  read

Chris Gleason is a queer designer, artist, and exuberant Chicago transplant. They make zines and art about poetry, birds, museums, media, nostalgia, and The Queer Experience. They spent their college years writing poetry, and this is the first time they’ve...  read

Victoria Montalbano is an actress, solo performer, and recovering improvisor. She has made appearances at storytelling shows across the Chicagoland area, and spends part of the year touring her one-person-shows. Her award-winning show, The Princess Strikes Back: One Woman's Search...  read

Chris Corlew is a writer and musician living in Chicago. His poems, short stories, and articles have been published in Cotton Xenomorph, Moist Poetry Journal, Whisk(e)y Tit, Kicking Your Ass, Cracked.com, and elsewhere. With Bob Sykora, he co-hosts The Line...  read

Martha Bayne is a writer and editor in and around Chicago. Currently a senior acquisitions editor at the University of Illinois Press, she has worked in journalism and publishing for 30 years, since she first started publishing a zine in...  read

July 1 will be the 160th episode of Chicago's favorite eclectic reading series! Join us in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf for readings by Martha Bayne, Chris Corlew, Chris Gleason, Ursa Miles, and Victoria Montalbano. Maybe it will even consistently...  read

We had a packed room for our June 3 show — proving once again that Chicagoans love their live lit! And we had a really great show for them, too. Dayna Bateman started things off with a moving abecedarian essay...  read

Mary Anne Mohanraj is author of Bodies in Motion (HarperCollins), The Stars Change (Circlet Press) and ten other titles. Bodies in Motion was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards, a USA Today Notable Book, and has been translated...  read