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!

When Writers Gather

Wednesday Writers' Word Feast!

(WWWF... we need a writing Panda)

For our first two meetings, we had seven writers. Some from the first meeting were at the second and we had some new folks join us too. We got together to share our words, some yummy food, inspiration, gave feedback, and we wrote! 

On April 6th, we had Captain Mega Thunder-Chunder-Blunder vs. the Marauding Letter Snatcher, a galaxy of small worlds around a single star, a boy in a grave during a fire, a spaceship named Tania who takes on the one resident of an escape pod, and a view of what happens when someone gets shot in the supernatural battle between Thropes and Drogers in an altered Chicago.

If you weren't at the meeting but would like more info, please email Jeanine at j9vaughn@gmail.com and I'll put you on our email list. 

We meet the first Wednesday of the month at the Oak Park Public Library - Main Branch, 834 Lake St. Oak Park, from 10 am - 1 pm in the Book Discussion Room on the second floor. Our next WWWF will be May 4th. 


WWWF on the Oak Park Library calendar

May the Fourth be with you!  

The Open Mic that gave Fools Wisdom

This is the night the DOUGHNUT WARS began. 

Brandon regaled us with a tale of orphans high on a mountain, eating and yelling and servicing airships. We met Jayer and Kiera (sorry if I misspelled), the outcasts of the misfits who are finding friendship with each other. 

You can pre-order this up-coming novel on your kindle for 99 cents: Orphan Fleet.

Sheila gave us a world where a dragon may bestow a gift, even to a hunter, but it might not be the blessing it seems to be at first. All that hot on the heels of a severed head and right before our narrator is swooped up by Carol, the infamous hunter.

Mike delighted us with a tale of Elliot who has the odious job of orienting new souls to the afterlife. They're never quite where they think they should be. Baby Steps Through Brimstone had an interesting dark-humored twist that we won't give away.

Jeanine shared the beginnings of a romance-gone-wrong story called Heart Space in which the narrator has visions of violence that may or may not be real.

But know this, the DOUGHNUT WARS are not over.