Looking at February - May of 2018

Hey all you No Shush Lovin' folks!

I've been wrapped up in Library School and work and this is the first chance I've had to update the blog in a long time. I'm excited that October 2018 will be our 5th year anniversary and our third year at the Oak Park Library Maze Branch! But before we get to that, check out these other exciting things coming up:

Thursday, February 22nd, we are excited to have one of our regular No Shushers, Alexei Collier! Alexei is a writer who grew up in sunny Southern California, in a house his family moved into on his very first Halloween. Many years later, powerful forces flung him deep into the heart of the Midwest, where he now lives across the street from Chicago with his wife and their cat. His short fiction has been published by Cicada, Ideomancer, and StarShipSofa's Tales to Terrify. You can check him out on his underused author website: alexeicollier.com

On March 29th, we are honored to have Gary Johnson. Gary is an Associate Professor in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. He is also a writer/producer of creative nonfiction for Public Radio on Morning Edition, Soundprint, Living On Earth, and Pacifica. His fiction appears in We Speak Chicagoese, F Magazine, Private Arts, Hyphen, and his articles have appeared in the Chicago Reader, and online at The Smirking Chimp, Buzzflash, and American Politics Journal.  He is a Certified Story Workshop Master Teacher.  He served as an Oak Park Library board Trustee from 2009-2013.

On April 26th, we are thrilled to have The OuttaSpace Ensemble as our featured performer. They are an improv group that meets weekly at OuttaSpace in Berwyn.  A core group of 6 players (sometimes more), hones "acting without scripts" in various long form improv formats.  With the understanding that improv doesn't have to be funny to entertain, the players focus on connecting with the audience through audience input and character development to tell a darn good story!

On May 31st, we'll be all about Rockin' the Open Mic (er, podium)! We look forward to celebrating your yet-to-be-published stories, experimental music, recently choreographed dances, trial comedy, and so much more.

All of our events begin at 6:30 pm on the last Thursday of the month unless otherwise noted. They all take place at the 
Maze Branch of the Oak Park Library 
in the Meeting room  

845 Gunderson Ave., Oak Park, IL 60304

Catching Up and Looking Forward

Hello friends!

Sorry I've been so delinquent in updating this blog, but I started Grad School and it kind of ate all my extra time. The good news is, I have lots to share with you! Also, since Thanksgiving doesn't fall on the last day of November this year, we will have a No Shush Salon on November 30th (at 6:30 pm, in the Meeting Room at the Maze Branch of the Oak Park  and it is ALL OPEN MIC! So bring your newest story, song, dance, comedy routine, puppet play, etc.

Here's a brief recap of what has been happening from August to October:

August

This month we had an all female comedy troupe called, “The Kates” as our featured performers. They were awesome! We had 14 people and, along with the two comedians, five people presented in our open mic. Also, one of the open mic folks as well as four audience members had never been to the No Shush Salon before! Three women said they learned about us through a Mom’s email list.  The other two newbies were friends of regulars.

September

September’s No Shush Salon had Patricia Ann McNair as the featured reader. Patricia is a professor at Columbia College. She presented her recently published book, "And These are the Good Times: A Chicago gal riffs on death, sex, life, dancing, writing, wonder, loneliness, place, family, faith, coffee, and the FBI (among other things)". She brought along Randy Albers who is the head of the Fiction Writing department. We also had Gary, whose last name I missed, who used to be on the Board of the Oak Park Library. Sheila I was so honored to have such excellent writers!

October

This month we had John McNally as our featured reader. He read from his recently published book, “The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted to have Sex: The Memoir of a Fat Kid.” It was so fun and poignant! It was exciting to have one of my classmates show up as well as someone who learned about the No Shush Salon through the Writers’ Word Feast. Everyone had a great time and we had some excellent Open Mic readings. We also had a professional photographer show up that Rebecca arranged for us since the woman who usually takes our pictures was in Japan. (Sadly, she wasn’t able to stay and get shots of the Open Mic readers, but she did get some GREAT audience shots.)

           

Fantastic June with Aeverling & Open Mic!

An Aeverling Collage 

Aeverling thrilled us with their songs, The Drive, In Reverse, & Walk With Me! They also performed wonderful covers of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and The Civil War's Barton Hallow. I have a shaky little video clip that I hope I'll be able to download eventually, but for now, check out their music on their webpage: https://aeverling.com/



Our Open Mic kicked off with Ed reading An Exciting Science Fiction Story! (Yup, that's the title.) There was a cybernetic arm, an enraged moose, looters, and the ALIEN (Allied League of Interstellar Extraterrestrials) threat. So yeah... pretty dang exciting. This was followed by Sabotage!

H

Open Mic Performers: Sheila, Rhiannon, Jeanine, & Alex

Rhiannon brought us fever sweats in the sick house of the Fey. Going against expected practices, Kaylen was giving the dying Fey release for transcendence.

Mayle and her two little ones, told us an Estonian nursery rhyme involving a bumpy road and lemonade.

Alex shared a new part of his Four and Twenty Blackbirds story with Marta and Yohan. Twelve sets of twelve steps, drop a marble. In a tree, a blackbird sang.

Sheila shared Shadow Play, a story about old Mrs. Morton in her closet apartment and the thunk, thunk, thunking of the ball against the wall. Standing in the hall was a girl. "The Shadows won't play with me anymore! Will you play with me instead?"

Jeanine gave us a short little story Werewolves from Outer-space in which the electricity goes out in Birmingham. Patch and Seymour leave the heat of The Little Donkey Bar and see the bright lights that light up the zoo.

Our next No Shush Salon will be July 27th

6:30 - 8:45 pm 

The theme is FUN!

The No Shush Salon Presents: Aeverling

JUNE 29th, 2017, 6:30-8:45 pm

AEVERLING

Half an hour of music followed by an Open Mic

(with goodies to eat on the side)

At the Maze Branch of the Oak Park Public Library

845 Gunderson Ave., Oak Park, IL 60304

Aeverling is an acoustic folk-rock trio made up of Lorinda Guenther-Wright, Juanita Rea, and Gary Guenther-Wright. They play a mix of original music and cover songs crafted from a rich blend of vocal harmonies and complex musical arrangements. Influences for this unique band range from Indigo Girls to Fleetwood Mac to James Taylor. Aeverling will put on a show with a little something for everyone, and they look forward to sharing their passion for music with you.

May: Luis Tubin!

What an excellent No Shush Salon we had in May! Our featured performer, Luis, is a spoken word artist. He has a very vivacious presenting style.

Luis kicked us off with his piece, Bidenity about being a Puerto Rican in Chicago. "I cannot keep Caribian blood quiet." He shared an Ode to the Photographer that took a look at the image rising to the top and an Ode to the Bartender about the fountain of euphoria. There was sad love and playing hop-scotch over landmines as he watches the bombing fill the holy land with holes. He spoke with a rhythmic slam about making mofongo with his hands stained a dirty gray. There was A Love Letter to Logan Square; "we used to be different... is this the hood I claim to keep?" He gave us Phone Call, a story about prejudice that was hard for his ears to digest.

In our Open Mic segment, Vann delivered a rap that held a hazmat suit Buddhist and the notion that "safe space means I have to feel safe first". Mike brought us The Unicorn's Song where cleaning became discovery of an office conflict involving an innocent plush unicorn. Stephanie told us about the Nimrod Club and the sketches by Seymour, "ripped from the headlines of 1867. Alex's Rattle Snake Tears gave us snake people and the understanding that "one day, the skin will wear you." Jeanine read from her Peculiar Predicament of Poppets novel about Margarita and her daughter Eva fleeing the fires in Peshtigo by running with the mass of people into the lake. CSE recited Little Sally and the Bull Fiddle God where he liked the thorns on this doll. She sang Lady Knight, a heart filling tune of a woman saving another woman. She also sang Lysistrata Strut Your Stuff -“The oracle has spoken, it is written in the stars If we can join our forces then this victory is ours". Sheila gave us Swimming Lessons about a mother dealing with her daughter's obsession with a real live mermaid.

Our next No Shush Salon will be on June 29th where we will be featuring the band Aeverling. 

We hope to see you there!

Nobody Shushes the Salon! X2

April 13th - Owen Patterson

This is the event that got flooded. But even with the rescheduling, we had a great time!

Owen read from his book, The Dis-Condition of Ease, that explored life through short vignettes that asked about living up to a name, how great calamities befall humanity, and miracles in the everyday.

Oak Park Library's own Larry Nance was there and read his poem “Brother Tim” about the intersection of oppression and Tim who spoke of social justice in a way that spoke to the young Larry. I read from my short story “Lobster Girl” about a young girl and her father and what happens when a child’s desire translates to magic. (It’s going to be published May 15th!)  

We had a few folks who had never been to our even show up halfway through. Owen read a much lighter story that made everyone laugh about a student who had no patience and discovered by experience the importance of following the chain of command.

April 27th - Iztac Metztli

Iztac is a spoken word poet as well as a short story writer who is a former student of mine. She has grown into an amazing woman! She first read her short story, “The Old Man, The Ocean, and the Bird”, a magical realism story about a man losing his wife and discovering the flight of birds with the help of the ocean. Then she read some of her spoken word poetry - “White Bitch” was about being born here but being Mexican and knowing the soil from which her grandmothers sprang. “I Am, I Is” tackled the prejudice that comes from of how language is perceived. “In Between” dealt with her identity as a Mexican American born in a Puerto Rican neighborhood. “In the Seat of Suffering”, she explored Chicago’s response, or lack thereof, to gang violence and how these are our children with expiration dates.  “I Ain’t Hip-Hop” was about growing up in the shadow of older brothers in the Hip-Hop scene. “My Grandmother is a Candle” was about her grandmother Vella who taught her the art of ancient navigation and whose candle may flicker but always burns bright.

For our Open Mic, we had Mike reading his short story, “The Ancient Eyes of Sady French” about a murder that may or may not have been perpetuated by a parrot. Alex read from his novellla, “The World River Flows Where it Will” where two characters were looking for a place in an alien world where being human didn’t make them the lowest of the low. I read my poem, “We Were Never Mermaids” about my sister who has a brain injury and how her life affects the entire family. Sheila read, “Not For You”, a story about ghosts walking on halloween night and what to do when you are the lighthouse for the dead but one of the dead is an asshole. Ed read about how he wanted to write a serial, “In the Shadows of Giants” that sipped expensive marshmallows and his poem, “Homework oh Homework” about the terrible choices homework provides.

Our Next No Shush Salon is Thursday, May 25th a 6:30 pm, with Logan Lu!

April 13th, Presenting Owen Patterson (Take 2!)

Thursday, April 13, 2017 - 6:30pm to 8:45pm

Oak Park Library - Maze Branch

845 Gunderson Ave, Oak Park, Illinois 60304

Owen Patterson, a native Chicagoan, is this month's featured reader. He will be reading from his book, The Dis-Condition of Ease. To learn more about Owen and his book, check him out here: https://booklife.com/profile/owen-patterson-14779

We have 10 minutes for anyone who wants to present their latest creative endeavor. Treats to share are awesome, but we will provide munchies. Spectators are welcome and appreciated!

The No Shush Salon is a monthly Open Mic for all creative types who what to share their works-in-progress or newly finished endeavors. We often begin with a featured performer / reader or we have a theme. No registration required, just drop in and share your talents!

Can't make it? Follow us through our blog: noshushsalon.blogspot.com and like us on Facebook: No Shush Salon

January: Bring in the New!

A New Year, A New You, A New OPEN MIC!!! 

Our January theme is "Bring in the New!"

When: January 26th at 6:30 pm

Where: Oak Park Library Maze Branch 

845 Gunderson Ave. Oak Park, IL 60304

What: Share at our open mic your NEWEST words, music, dance, comedy, or whatever creative endeavor you have been working on. If you have nothing new, share anything you created -- in 15 minutes time slots. 

Who: YOU!!! Show us what you've got!

No need to register; just drop in and share your talents! Can't make it? Follow us through this blog like us on Facebook: No Shush Salon

Treats to share are welcomed!

Spectators are welcome and appreciated!

No Shush November Featured Sheila Johnson

Everything changes... this is the theme of the story that Sheila read from her book, All Our Loved Ones Together, on November 10th. Two brothers, a daughter / niece, and a Dryad show us how change is a powerful force. "Sometimes, the truth is a spell that loses its power when spoken aloud." 

If you wish to know more about this delightful creature named Sheila and find out how to purchase her book, please check out her website: sheilacjohnson.wordpress.com

The Open Mic gave us Alex's 4 and 20 Blackbirds. We heard about how Marta used the magic of the blackbirds and how her bother Yohan had changed. Ron followed it up with a musical rendition of Give a Little / Makin' Whoopie / Glory of Love / Paper Moon mixed with other songs. Then he tickled our funny bones with Ventriloquist Love. Next was Brendan who read from his book The Hidden Lands where Amber was on a train and met Lin Mae. They discussed Boarding School rules. Matt brought us Mythical Mike and his gang of Comic Bookstore misfits in an effort to "make the streets safe for the comic buying company." Ed brought us Spider-Man Unlimited and the True Meaning of Thanksgiving with Ted, the weredog, from accounting. Rhiannon brought us blue magic wielding elves who were on an investigation. But they got sidetracked in tossing Kava (magic). J9 shared a bit about Hazel, the Luchadora Librarian.

All pictures by Anna Peterson.

Just a reminder, we are off for December, but will be back on 

January 26th at 6:30 pm with the theme, Bring in the New!

The Three Year Anniversary of the No Shush Salon!

Presenting: Cemetery Guardians

What an awesome night! We had four readers from the Cemetery Guardians and a fantastic Open Mic. Plus there was pizza and salad and cake! If you'd like to see the live stream of the event, Wes posted it here:  

Part 1 of the No Shush Salon Three Year Anniversary Reading 

and here: 

Part 2 of the No Shush Salon Three Year Anniversary Reading

Also, please check out the Cemetery Guardians for more awesome stories and great art!

Our next event will be November 10th with Sheila Johnson as our featured reader! 

Link to more info in the sidebar.

September 29th: Kilty Pleasure

Thursday's event was awesome! 

Kilty Pleasure gave us a great show. Check out these mini-videos I recorded:

Kilty Pleasure 1

Kilty Pleasure 2

Kilty Pleasure 3

To check out more Kilty Pleasure, they'll be performing at 2 pm for the Danada Fall Festival at Danada Equestrian Center on October 9th. 

They are also often found playing at the Two Way Street Coffee House!

Much thanks to Anna Peterson for these excellent pictures!

After our delightful concert, we had our Open Mic.

Ed presented a Visual Novel of flash fiction that he and a few other writers are putting together. (Multi-media platforms for the win!) He shared some from his story with King William the 3rd and Rolf who was accused of putting Decart before de horse. He also shared Tim Yow's Call Me Cersei who is always listening and asserted that virtual Andrew would be better than actual Andrew. He shared Kashia Nowden's poem the Sin Tree which grew from the deadly sins the narrator planted. Eventually, the Visual Novel will be posted on  http://writingjourney.org/

Sheila gave us Saint Blow Me in which the old gods were pissed and trying to wipe out the small town of Hedwig with a tidal wave. We heard about crazy Mark and the Ironic raining of Lake Hedwig. "If this god stuff were real, it'd show up on Youtube." and "The Apocolypse will be reblogged!"

Alex shared the end of his story, Seeing Blue where Willow took after Red and became a Seeker. At Sacred Lake, making paint with mew colors by the Bright Rock. It was thought that, since Red "was no maker, her breath held no magic." But then it did and she wondered, "could one be a seeker and a maker?"

Jeanine gave us a few snippets of her life with Little Jeani One Note and read part of a poem called The Undying about her brain injured sister.

Our next event will be on October 27th, at 6:30 pm. This will be our THREE year anniversary! We'll have pizza and cake and readings from https://cemeteryguardians.com/

Aug. 25th Highlights on the theme: What is Family?

Another Open Mic filled with great storytelling and discussion!

Ed read his story, "The Kidnapper", where you can't believe everything you hear. He then shared a story about last week where the song was changed to Hotel North Dakota.
Alex shared "Seeing Blue" about seekers and makers where Red, a seeker, followed a snowy stag and we met Mother Maker.
Sheila read from her upcoming book, Open Arms, Steady Hearts, about Mirabird who posed the question, "is it okay to be a doctor when I grow up instead of a dragon?"
Jeanine shared, "Demons Love Latin", where a flirtation went all wrong since one of them was a demon.
Mike read, "Return of the Zombie", where a kid bought a zombie making kit from Mama Midnight to make a new friend.

Thanks again to Anna Peterson for her picture taking prowess and sneakiness!

Joyful July!

It was great to have Nathan Beachamp as our featured author!

Candid shot of our Featured
Reader Nathan Beachamp

From the Clones Anthology, Nathan read his story, "The Replacement Husband". Without giving too much away, 'cause really, you should read this story, I will say it captured the sense of loss and everything being wrong incredibly well. I was drawn in from the beginning, and thought I knew where things were going, but I was wrong... which is delightful!

What will we read?

Collage of Open Mic-ers - From top L
to bottom R: Brendan, Sheila, Jeanine, & Alex

Our Open Mic was also filled with great storytelling! We had something under the bed in Mike's story about shedding skin and a father that's truly terrible at lying. Ed brought us a spy-thriller about cookies that could solve world hunger and queried what that would entail. Sheila finished up A Gift Most Wanted, leaving us wanting to know more and more about Carol the hunter and her lover Looze (sorry for the misspell!) who was/is a meteoroid / asteroid / traveler. J9 gave us Demon Eye, a tiny poltergeist who haunts glasses. Alex had us Seeing Blue, where we met Red and learned about Seekers and Makers... Seeker Man - Maker Woman, though it sometimes gets turned around. Brendan brought us to the Chicago Arts District where we found a woman under a hood who intrigued and tantalized our protagonist and us. 

Discussion!

All of that and a bag of doughnuts... and ginger... and chocolate covered candy... and... I'm pretty sure I'm missing something else yummy, but it was an evening delicious to the taste-buds and the ears! 


Much thanks to Anna Peterson for her picture taking prowess and sneakiness!



UPCOMING:

Aug. 3rd, 10am - 1pm
Wednesday Writers' Word Feast
A writers' group for all types and genres meeting at the Main Library
Second Floor - Book Discussion Room

Aug. 25th, 6:30 - 8:45pm

A No Shush Salon Themed Open Mic: What is Family?

Meeting at the Maze Branch of the Oak Park Library Meeting Room

July 28th, Presenting: Featured Author, Nathan Beachamp - part of the N. J. Tanger collective

Nathan will be reading from Ceres, the latest book in their Universe Eventual Series and from Chimera, the first book in the series. Universe Eventual is a Young Adult SciFi series written by a trio of writers who make the story interesting and cohesive.

He will be bringing copies to sell!

A quick synopsis of Chimera: "The fate of Earth's first colony rests on the shoulders of a pair of misfits: Theo Puck, a rogue hacker with a gift for speaking to machines, and Selena Samuelson, a brash but talented pilot with a dark secret in her past.

Earth went silent over a decade ago. No contact, no resupply. If something doesn't change, the colony will go extinct. The only way to restore communication with Earth is the ancient colony ship Chimera. Two centuries of disrepair have taken their toll on her--the shipboard AI that allows travel between distant stars is lost in unending sleep. She must be woken and the ship rebuilt for a desperate return journey to Earth."

For more info, check out their website: 

http://www.njtanger.com/

This will be followed by our regular Open Mic. Come share your poetry, prose, music, dance, or any other creative endeavor in under 15 minutes at our Open Mic. 

The No-Shush Salon is a monthly open mic for all creative types who want to share their works in progress or even their newly finished endeavors after a featured artist or on a theme. 

Treats to share are welcomed! 

No registration required — just drop in and share your talents!

Spectators welcome & appreciated!

June 30th, Presenting: Featured Poet, Russell Jaffe

WHEN: Thursday, April 28th at 6:30 pm

WHERE: Oak Park Public Library Maze Branch

845 Gunderson Ave., Oak Park, IL 60304

This month we will be featuring Russell Jaffe, an Oak Park poet!

Russell Jaffe is a poet, artist, writer, teacher, and full-time dad living in Oak Park. He teaches English at College of DuPage and throughout the City Colleges system. He is the father of Celestine, a collaboration with his partner Carleen Tibbetts, also a poet, and his entire family are OPPL superfans. His poetry has appeared widely online and in print, and he is the author of two current poetry collections This Super Doom I Aver (Poets Democracy, '13), INTROVERT // EXTROVERT (Punk Hostage, '14), and two forthcoming LA CROIX WATER (Damask, a Chicago press!) and Civil Coping Mechanisms (Civil Coping Mechanisms' winner of the 2016 Spring Mainline competition). In former lives, he's been a poetry editor, publisher, reading series host and coordinator, hot sauce blogger, professional driver for international writers, and mixed marital arts live results recorder. He has a number of hopes and dreams. He encourages people to add him on Facebook or, and he means this, play him in chess on the Chess Time app. His name is ILikeToEatScones. 

He will have tons of his first book, a mad libs poetry collection called This Super Doom I Aver, available to sell. His second book, INTROVERT // EXTROVERT is available here: https://www.createspace.com/5392793 

This will be followed by our regular Open Mic. Come share your poetry, prose, music, dance, or any other creative endeavor in under 15 minutes at our Open Mic.

The No-Shush Salon is a monthly open mic for all creative types who want to share their works in progress or even their newly finished endeavors after a featured artist or on a theme.

Treats to share are welcomed!

No registration required — just drop in and share your talents!

Spectators welcome & appreciated!

May No Shush Salon = CANCELLED

Hello all you lovely No Shushers!

For the first time since the inception of The No Shush Salon in 2013, I am cancelling an event. Due to unforeseen circumstances, our May featured reader had to cancel and I have decided to cancel the May 26th Open Mic entirely. We will be back June 30th with the poet Russell Jaffe as our featured reader. He is featured on page five of the Oak Park Library's Storyline!

I hope to see you then!

Jeanine

Amazing April!

 What a great No Shush Salon! 

We mixed things up a bit and had our open mic intermixed with Paula Ngo's belly dance performances along with a mini-dance class.  Here's a recap:

Brandon: Charcoal drawing of Amber abd poison on a dead body. You can come home. The training of playing chess. 

Paula did a beautiful serpentine dance to The Smiths.

Mike: The living ghost girl in the translucent dress haunted Floyd's building. He blushed. Haunting, it's kind of what ghosts do.

Open Mic

Paula did a more sprightly hip-bopping song of Amores y Amores.

Ed: A story of a kidnapping. Aunt Martha was driving Jack. Then a stop that changed everything.

Then a poem called "Homework O Homework".

Mini Belly Dance Lesson! Check out the pics below.

Allison: Her first comedy routine and she shared it with us! Sneaky woman recorded it:

Allison S Comedy At No Shush Salon

So AWESOME!

Alex: First scene of a Novelette about the beast princess. No one dared disturb the oracle. 12 augers, one is her uncle. Chose your words with care.

Rhiannon: Hospital bed sheets had more color in them than the cadaver in drawer two. Magical, freaky cadaver. "What the hell do we do? It's a self healing corpse."

J9: The first chapter of The Three Hazels. It's Hazel's 73rd birthday on the night the lights went out in Chicago. There was chocolate cake and an epidemic of dying children.

Paula wrapped the evening up with a traditional belly dance. Check out her fantastic website: Sepia Tribal 

photo credit: Anna Peterson 
Thanks for all the great pictures!

April 28th, Presenting: Paula Ngo of Sepia Tribal!

WHEN: Thursday, April 28^th at 6:30 pm

WHERE: Oak Park Public Library Maze Branch 

845 Gunderson Ave., Oak Park, IL 60304

This month’s featured performer is the belly dancer, Paula Ngo. Check out her website: sepiatribal.com

After her performance, she will be giving a mini lesson! 

This will be followed by our regular Open Mic. Come share your poetry, prose, music, dance, or any other creative endeavor in under 15 minutes at our Open Mic. 

The No-Shush Salon is a monthly open mic for all creative types who want to share their works in progress or even their newly finished endeavors after a featured artist or on a theme. 

Treats to share are welcomed! 

No registration required — just drop in and share your talents!

Spectators welcome & appreciated!