Please join us on Tuesday, March 2nd for the third Tuesday Funk Reading of 2010.
Hopleaf Bar at 5148 N. Clark Street
Reading starts 7:30 PM.
Upstairs room opens 7:00 PM.
Come early to get a good seat.
Cash only at the bar upstairs.

You can bring yours, too!  Wear one, bring a photo of your favorite(s), or just come to talk about them.  Talk about St. Valentine, black history, rotten weather, or the Olympic Games, too (if you think we are ready for that,) as long as a moustache comes into play.

National Address
Thursday, February 18, 7-9pm
Barista Coffee House, 852 N Damen Ave.
RSVP on Facebook

National Address is the Gothic Funk Nation’s official reading circle, a safe and friendly place to informally workshop works-in-progress. Consisting of readings and round table discussions, the National Address aims to provide a forum for writers of all Gothicly Funky stripes and a voice for the Gothic Funk Nation. Attendance is open and participants are welcome to bring unsolicited material.

Liza Ann Acosta teaches Comparative Literature at North Park University and is an artistic associate of Chicago’s only all-Latina theater company, Teatro Luna.

Mary-Terese Cozzola is a writer and filmmaker. Her prose and poetry have been published in Crawdad, After Hours, and Swivel, and her films have screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago Short Comedy Video & Film Festival, and the Midwest Independent Film Festival. She has performed solo pieces at the Stockyards Theatre Women’s Performance Art Festival and SpeakEasy/SpeakHard: the Malinowski salon. You can learn more about her work at www.mtcozzola.com. She lives in and loves Chicago.

Ryan Philip Kulefsky lives in Chicago, IL and holds an MFA from Bard College. His chapbook, DEAD TWINS, published by Bathroom Reading Materials (2010), is comprised of contributions to an email listserv during the fall of 2009. He teaches writing and rhetoric and American literature at Columbia College.

Brian Russell earned his MFA from the University of Houston, where he served as poetry editor of Gulf Coast. His poems have appeared or will in Mid-American Review; Epoch; Quarterly West; LIT; and Forklift, Ohio; among others. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the past three years.

Steve Timm is a poet and author of ’n’altra storio, Disparity, and the chapbooks Stragetics and Averrage. He was the performer in A Poem by Steve Timm, a video by Ya-Ling Tsai chosen for the 2004 Wisconsin Film Festival. He teaches English as a second language at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The mainstream media, focusing on the enormity of the catastrophe, has neglected to acquaint Americans with the remarkable and often tragic history of this near neighbor.  With a population of over ten million, Haiti is one of the most densely populated nations in the world.    The arrival of Columbus marks Haiti’s entrance into modern history.  He brought with him European policy tantamount to genocide and diseases that sparked epidemics in the native population.

In 1791, responding in part to the rhetoric of freedom espoused by revolutions creating the (slavery-promoting) republics of France and the United States, slaves in Saint-Domingue, Hispanola, rose up in rebellion.  The movement later expanded throughout the island and successfully rebuffed takeover attempts by the British, the Spaniards, and the French.  Haiti, whose name is taken from its indigenous Taíno inhabitants, became (and remains) the only nation in the world to have been established through a slave revolution.  The history of Haiti has involved frequent intervention and occupation by major world powers, including the United States, as well as dictatorships, extreme poverty, and frequent natural disasters.

However, Haiti has also given the world a unique and special perspective which is enduring and valuable to the Gothic Funk Nation specifically.  Half of our ideas, “funk,” are derived from the French usage of the word fumus, or “smoke.”  This complex and ancient word acquired many of its present connotations (aesthetic, sensory, and sexual) through the work of musicians like James Brown and Little Richard.  The traditions of the African Diaspora, as carried over to Caribbean and American slave communities, inspired these artists.  Faith traditions such as Vodou and Santería are highly developed in Haiti and the scope of their influence cannot be denied.  These traditions not only form the dynamic foundations of American funk, but their affinity for the uncanny and the organic has impacted two centuries of southern gothic stylings.

The best conversations about Gothic Funk talk about a convergence between the spiritual and physical worlds, the possibility of progress through faith and ambitious humility, the paradox of human existence, and the preciousness and fragility of a living community.  Our collective and cultural debt to Haiti should never be underestimated.

It is with all seriousness that we encourage you, once more, to make a donation to relief efforts in Haiti.

Your donation may be paid to the American Red Cross:
http://www.redcross.org/en/

Thank you for your consideration.

The Gothic Funk Nation Steering Committee

The last year has been a busy one for the Gothic Funk Nation.

• We’ve seen two changes in venue (to Andersonville’s “Hopleaf”) for our Tuesday Funk reading series as it’s gotten bigger and better, and now averages about fifty attendees per reading.  The last installment featured Marlon Carey, J-L Deher-Lesaint, Kristin Lueke, Arlene Malinowski, and Megan Stielstra.
• The creation and launch of our arts journal, The Paramanu Pentaquark (Issue #3 in production) has been featured in publications such as the Chicago Sun-Times, Centerstage Chicago, and Papua New Guinea Gossip, and has published dozens of musicians, writers, and artists from Hawaii to Manchester.
• A change in venue for the National Address reading circle / workshop to the Barista in Wicker Park.  Several artists have brought their novels-, songs-, poems-, and ideas-in-progress to these welcoming and constructive sessions.
• We’ve thrown a variety of successful parties, from an absinthy magazine launch last February, to our lakeside Mutiny on the Bounty last August, to the more recent mystery of the Kaleidoscope (complete with midnight cemetery damps).
• While there’s been heavy involvement by longtime members, we’ve seen some new faces as well.  Dion Mindykowski made the long trek from Michigan to read at the journal launch, Maggie Kast, William Shunn and others have become regular and eagerly anticipated readers at Tuesday Funk, and Richard Whaling and Elizabeth Moylan have upped their involvement, giving us a much needed adrenaline boost just as we’ve lost several active members to parenthood and the magnetism of foreign capitals.

Because we’ve been more busy of late, and because many leaders in this group have been going through major life changes (from having a child to purchasing a house) we’re taking a look at what can stay the same and what has to change.  We ultimately decided to form a steering committee of five members who will:
- ensure that Gothic Funk projects are in communication with each other
- so far as is desirable, set agendas for the Nation as a whole and articulate this
- coordinate efforts to throw parties and cross-promote across different projects
- keep open lines of communication between participants and attendees
- explore and pursue a rigorous understanding of the words “gothic funk” in a contemporary context

I am happy to announce that we have finished assembling this committee as follows:

CONNOR COYNE, representative from The Paramanu Pentaquark arts journal
SKYLAR MORAN, representative from National Address reading circle
ELIZABETH MOYLAN, member-at-large
AMBER STAAB, member-at-large
REINHARDT SUAREZ, representative from Tuesday Funk reading series

We will send you updates from time to time about the choices we make and developments in the Nation, and will also be resuming monthly Announcement emails starting this February.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write me at: connor@gothicfunk.org

Best wishes,

Connor Coyne
and
The Gothic Funk Nation Steering Committee

National Address is the Gothic Funk Nation’s official reading circle, a safe and friendly place to informally workshop works-in-progress. Consisting of readings and round table discussions, the National Address aims to provide a forum for writers of all Gothicly Funky stripes and a voice for the Gothic Funk Nation. Attendance is open and participants are welcome to bring unsolicited material.

National Address
Thursday, January 21, 2010
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Barista Coffee House
852 N Damen Ave

RSVP on Facebook

Please join us on Tuesday, January 5th for the first Tuesday Funk of 2010.
Hopleaf Bar at 5148 N. Clark Street
Reading starts 7:30 PM.
Upstairs room opens 7:00 PM.
Come early to get a good seat.
Cash only at the bar upstairs.

J-L DEHER-LESAINT was born and raised in Guadeloupe (French West Indies) and moved to the United States in 1995 where he earned degrees from Harold Washington College, Loyola University Chicago, and the University of Virginia. He is an English professor at Harold Washington College.

KRISTIN LUEKE received her MA in Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she completed a chapbook called The Troubadour Detours. Her work has appeared in decomP Magazine.

As actor, educator, and writer ARLENE MALINOWSKI views solo work as an artistic extension of the social justice work she has been doing for the last twenty five years. Her five solo plays including What Does the Sun Sound Like and Aiming for Sainthood have been produced and performed in venues nationwide including St Louis Center of Contemporary Art; 16th Street Theater, Chicago; Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival; HBO Workspace; NoHo Theatre Festival; Ojai Solo Series; National Center on Deafness; West Coast Ensemble; and Blue Sphere Alliance, as well as at numerous colleges throughout the country. Most recently she performed a new piece which was named one of the five best solo shows by Windy City Times. Her solo work has been honored with an LA Garland Award and nominations for the LA Weekly Award and the Los Angeles Theatre Ovation Award. As an actor she has appeared in numerous theater productions including the world premiere of By the Music of the Spheres at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Other favorite roles include Lovers and Other Strangers, Labor Pains, Chapter Two, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Deaf West, the critically acclaimed In A Different Voice and Faith, Hope and Clarity.

Arlene is also a writer and performer with the nationally touring, multicultural show A Slice of Rice, Frijoles and Greens which was honored with the White House Award for the Initiative on Race. Recent TV credits include CBS Movie Sweet Nothing in My Ear, CSI, ER, The Division, The Practice, The Division, Any Day Now, twelve segments of Fit Spa and Resort and The X Files. She teaches solo writing and performing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, and coaches individual artists. Her numerous solo students have been honored with Garland Awards, special recognition at the Edinburgh Fringe, LA Weekly Awards, FEM Finalists, Windy City Chicago best solo show, and numerous critics pick. She is a contributing writer for the Week Behind and Selling Lemonade for Free and is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists and Artist in Residence at 16th Street Theater. Her newest play Anonymous Donor about sperm banks, technology and mean girls will have a Chicago reading in 2009.

MEGAN STIELSTRA is the Literary Director for 2nd Story, a personal narrative storytelling series held in wine bars where she regularly tells stories to drunk people. She’s performed for the Goodman, the MCA, the Cultural Center, the Neo Futuraium, Story Week, Wordstock, all sorts of bars and conferences, a vineyard, Opium’s Literary Death Match (which she won. Because Literature is a dangerous thing!) and regularly on Chicago Public Radio. She teaches creative writing at Columbia College and The U of C.

I hope everyone is ready for a great N/A tomorrow!  Our new location, Barista Coffee House is an ideal setting for our circle to gather, listen, & chat.  This is your opportunity to bring a piece you would like to share, or simply to find out what others are doing.  We hope you will help us match October’s success with your attendance in November!

National Address
Thursday, November 19, 7-9pm
Barista Coffee House, 852 N Damen Ave.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Connor Coyne, Editor-In-Chief

The Gothic Funk Nation

connor@gothicfunk.org

http://gothicfunk.org

JOURNAL OF THE ARTS CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 4 November, 2009.

The Gothic Funk Nation is accepting submissions for the third issue of its arts journal, The Paramanu Pentaquark. Published biannually online and by CD-ROM, the journal is an eclectic collection of music, painting, photography, poetry, and prose that runs a line from the evocative to the visceral. Selected work exhibits an experimental execution, emotional intensity, and the urgency of communication; this is not a project given to passive pessimism or reluctant daydreams. Issue #2 may be viewed online for free at www.gothicfunk.org.

The new issue will be published this upcoming February, and art in any medium may be submitted online at http://www.gothicfunk.org/parapenta/submissions/. Submissions will be considered as Images, Sounds, or Words, and artists will be notified of our decision within two months. In addition to publication, accepted artists will receive a free copy of a limited print CD-ROM of the third issue, and an invitation to present their work at an official launch event hosted in Chicago.

The Gothic Funk movement was conceived in November 2004 as a series of parties that framed social intimacy as a point of origin for the creative impulse. Subsequent efforts have included public epistles, artistic projects, two monthly reading series, and more parties.

To submit your work, please visit www.gothicfunk.org/parapenta/submissions/.
To peruse the second issue of the Paramanu Pentaquark, please visit www.gothicfunk.org/parapenta/02/.
For more information on the Gothic Funk Nation, please visit www.gothicfunk.org.

Please join us on Tuesday, December 1st for the final Tuesday Funk of 2009.
Hopleaf Bar at 5148 N. Clark Street
Reading starts 7:00 PM.
Upstairs room opens 6:30 PM.
Come early to get a good seat.
Cash only at the bar upstairs.

JOTHAM BURRELLO is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago where he directs the publishing lab, a resource for emerging writers. His writing has appeared in Eleven Eleven, Drunken Boat, Oyez Review, Pennsylvania English, the Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere. He recently completed his novel, Fall River. He’s a former editor of the journal Sport Literate. His multimedia company, Elephant Rock Productions published the anthology All Hands On, The 2nd Hand Reader, and produced instructional DVDs for writers featuring Janet Burroway, Robert Olen Butler, Joe Meno, Rosellen Brown and others. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two little boys.

A North Side native, NICK KRYCZKA is a schoolteacher in the Chicago Public Schools and a graduate student in History at Northeastern Illinois University. Aside from the obligatory writing of lecture notes for his eager high school pupils and the drafting of thesis papers on obscure moments in nineteenth century American history, Nick has hunched over countless keyboards in third world internet cafes to cobble together accounts of his summertime treks through the remote corners of four continents.

NICHOLAS MICHAEL RAVNIKAR (BA, University of Wisconsin; MFA, Naropa University) lives in Racine, WI,Jo B where he edits the irregularly published webzine, The Bathroom and is organizing with Nick Demske the first annual Racquetball Chapbook Tournament. His writing has appeared in most recently in Otoliths and Boo: A Journal of Terrific Things and is forthcoming in BlazeVOX and unarmed. His first feature-length documentary, Quilts on Barns: The Beauty of Rural Art, wrapped post-production in August 2009 and will be available for free viewing online soon. He’s currently working on a documentary titled SMALL PRESS, MIDWEST. Midwest-affiliated writers, publishers, readers and scholars interested in letting him interview them for that project can send an email to nicholasmichaelravnikar@gmail.com. He has facilitated workshops in poetry, video, installation art and journalism in a variety of settings, most recently in conjunction with the Racine Arts Council and Woodland Pattern.

JENNIFER SCAPPETTONE, a translator, poet, and purveyor of visual stills and prose, is the author of From Dame Quickly (Litmus Press, 2009), and of several chapbooks. She is now at work on Exit 43 — an archaeology of the landfill and opera of pop-ups—for the cross-genre publishing project Atelos Press. Excerpts of that book appear in Belladonna Elders Series #5: Poetry, Landscape, Apocalypse featuring pop-ups and prose by Scappettone, a lyric sequence by Etel Adnan, and an essay by Lyn Hejinian (Belladonna, 2009); pop-up scores are now being adapted for performance in collaboration with choreographer Kathy Westwater as LAND. She was guest editor of the feature section of Aufgabe 7, devoted to contemporary Italian experimental poetry, and is at work on a range of translations from Italian, with a focus on the “Babeling deeply felt” of the postwar polyglot author Amelia Rosselli. A selection of Neosuprematist Webtexts, filmed stills, was installed at Infusoria, an exhibit of visual poetry curated by Helen White for the Festival Le Off in Brussels and Het Zilverhof in Ghent in 2009. A range of readings, a talk on poetry and landscape, and a podcast dialogue with Al Filreis are available for download at her PennSound author page. She is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.