Now that you’ve filed your taxes (right?) and given up on baseball season (let’s be real), treat yourself to an evening at The Book Cellar on Monday, April 21st at 7pm, with these April essayists:
Erin Diamond grew up in Arlington Heights in a legendary neighborhood that is filled with stories. She is a proud theater school drop-out and devoted fan of the band Third Eye Blind. Erin spent five years as the recreational rehab director at a residential home for adults living with severe mental illness. She left that job to spend more time writing and storytelling. She tells stories around town and is currently writing a play about two sister-wives who escape a polygamist colony and become burlesque dancers. This will either be awesome or awful.
Maggie Jenkins is a writer, comic, runner and rapper. She has been a featured storyteller at Write Club, Tuesday Funk, 20×2 Chicago and Story Club North Side, among others. She is a producer of Serving the Sentence, a monthly showcase where storytellers begin their pieces with the same audience-suggested sentence. A four-time Chicago Marathoner, she co-authors the blog rulesforrunning.com. Maggie also is a member of She’s Crafty, Chicago’s all-female Beastie Boys tribute. She’ll be performing with She’s Crafty on Sunday, May 4, at MCA Day Chicago 2014, celebrating the life of Adam Yauch and all things Beastie Boys while raising money for cancer charities.
Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father’s House, You Can Make Him Like You, So Different Now, Orphans, and Lost in Space, among others. He also oversees day to day operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life, directs Publicity and Content Strategy for Curbside Splendor, and can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life, the center of his growing lifestyle empire.
The name on Tom Wolferman’s original birth certificate was listed as “Thoman” instead of “Thomas” because the attending nurse wrote down an “n” instead of an “s.” As a result, he has made a career out of trying to find the right words to explain himself.
Barrie Cole is a writer, playwright, and performer. Her latest play, “Elevator Tours,” which had it’s premiere in January of this year was called an “unmitigated triumph of perversity,” by Tony Adler of the Chicago Reader. She has read and performed her work at Story Sessions, Write Club, Guts and Glory, Fillet of Solo, That’s All She Wrote, Solo in the City, and at many other live lit events throughout the city and elsewhere. Currently, she is competing a book of short pieces entitled Fascinating Mistakes.
Essay Fiesta 