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Twilight Tales brings you an evening with Character!

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Do you have plans yet for the Monday after Thanksgiving? Even after all that food, we think you’ll still be hungry…for good fiction! So come down to Twilight Tales at the Mix (2843 N. Halsted) at 7:30p, for a taste of the new anthology published by some friends of Twilight Tales.

Further Persons Imperfect, An Evening of Surreal Stories Read By:

Paul McComas, “The One that Got Away”
Moira Sullivan, “The Pawnbroker’s Deal”
Drew Downing, “The Z Conspiracy”
Elizabeth C. Rossman, “Product Placement”
Brian L. Cox, “November Forgets”
Shirley Bartelt, “Off the Wall”
Jessica Bartlett, “Learning to Walk”Â

Further Persons Imperfect was recently honored at the DIY Book Festival. Copies will be available at the reading, and a portion of all sales of this book will go to Boys Hope / Girls Hope, a not-for-profit network of group homes for high-potential, at-risk youth (info: http://twilighttales.com/www.chicagobhgh.org or http://twilighttales.com/www.boyshopegirlshope.org).

Don’t forget, the MIX offers FREE parking in the adjoining lot!

Twilight Tales @ the Chicago Ghost Conference

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Twilight Tales will be participating in the Chicago Ghost Conference on Saturday October 27 at the Congress Hotel in downtown Chicago. We will be selling our books and promoting our reading series.
For more information, follow the link to the conference’s website: http://www.chicagohauntings.com/conference.html

Twilight Tales @ Cultural Center Book Fair

Friday, October 19th, 2007

John Weagly & Tina Jens will represent Twilight Tales at a book fair

Saturday, Oct. 20th

10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Randolph Cafe @ Chicago Cultural Center
77 East Randolph Street, downtown
(Building occupies the block bordered by Michigan Ave)
John and Tina will join 28 other authors at the fair hosted by the Illinois Woman’s Press Association.

Plenty of Twilight Tales books will be available.

The event is free to the public.

It’s an Anniversary Party!

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

It’s our 14th anniversary in November! And we’re partying a tad early–that is to say, now!

Fourteen years is worthy of a celebration on its own, but at this year’s party we’ll be saying goodbye to two institutions and looking ahead to some exciting changes.

* Our founder and fearless leader, Tina Jens, is retiring.

* As mentioned previously, we’re moving (temporarily) out of the Red Lion Pub as it undergoes a massive rebuilding project.

The party, being held this Monday (October 1st) from 7:30p til midnight upstairs at the Red Lion Pub, will be Tina’s last official day…and our last gathering at the Red Lion (2446 N. Lincoln Ave) until it reopens.

There will be free food, free booze, and great conversation. Oh, and massive book sales! We don’t want to move all those boxes.

Taking over as CEO, while stil retaining his much-loved moderator duties at our regular Monday meetings, will be Eric Cherry. Those of you unable to attend, but who would still like to share personal tributes for Tina, the Red Lion, or congratulations for Eric; can forward them to Mike Martinez at scheduling@twilighttales.com. He will make sure they are presented to the intended recipients on the night of our big party.

Reminder: starting Monday October 8th, Twilight Tales at our temporary home of Mix: The Lakeview Lounge. Located at 2843 N. Halsted, just three buildings north of the Halsted/Diversey intersection. For ‘L’ riders, it’s currently off the Belmont red/brown stop while Diversey Station gets a rehab of it’s own. There’s also free parking, and Monday is dollar beer (Bud/BudLight) night!

The Red Lion is (temporarily) Closing!
Twilight Tales is (temporarily) Moving!
Massive Book Sale Ensues!

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

The Red Lion is closing this fall for remodeling/renovations. The building will be torn down to the ground and completely rebuilt. They are starting in early October–our planned last Twilight Tales there is on the 1st–and are expected to reopen in early summer 2008.

Twilight Tales will continue throughout the construction project, but not amidst the rubble. Instead, we will be temporarily located at Mix: The Lakeview Lounge at 2843 N. Halsted (one block north of Diversey). Directions can be found here

In the meanwhile, we’ve got an awful lot of *gasp* books! And we’d really rather not lug them all down that flight of stairs if we can help it. So every Monday between now and “Last Call (For Now),” we’re holding a book sale.

Each week, we’ll have a table of books going for $1. We’ll also offer “buy one, get the second half off” on many of our regular titles. And we’ll have other promotional items on a “freebie” table, as we find them.

So please come down in the next few weeks and buy our books so we don’t have to move them!

Monday: Party with the Dead!

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

The Dead have been wandering all across Chicago for events to celebrate the release of Book of Dead Things. Now, in classic zombie fashion, they swarm the upstairs of the wooden building that is home to Twilight Tales.

Monday, July 30th, 7:30pm – 10:00pm

Twilight Tales at the Red Lion Pub (2446 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago)

Readings and signings by:

deadthings

C.S. E. (Claire) Cooney

Brendan Detzner

Joshua Alan Doetsch

Tina L. Jens

Chris Kozlowski

Craig D.B. Patton

Mike Penkas

John Weagly


Better Dead & Red! Event at Kate the Great’s

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Join us for “Better Dead & Red!” a joint debut event for Book of Dead Things and Tales From the Red Lion.

Thursday, July 26th, 6:30pm – 10:30pm

Kate the Great’s Book Emporium (5550 N. Broadway, Chicago)

There will be readings and signings by:

redliondeadthings

Richard Chwedyk (RED LION)

Claire Cooney (Dead)

Brendan Detzner (Dead)

Joshua Alan Doetsch (Dead)

Tina L. Jens (RED LION)

Chris Kozlowski (Dead)

Mike Penkas (RED LION)

Larry Santoro (RED LION)

John Weagly (Dead)

Flash Fiction 1st Place Winner!

Monday, June 25th, 2007

We’re happy to present you with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in this year’s Flash Fiction Contest held at World Horror.

The rules for the contest are simple - stories must be read in five minutes or less, and they must have a beginning, middle, and end. A panel of celebrity judges choose the winners. Read all three stories in the posts below.

THEN, JUST A DREAM
By Lawrence Santoro

A kid walks. Late afternoon. All alone, he walks along rail lines. He’s walked for miles; for as long as he can remember the day, he’s walked it. Trees push close to the tracks, one side; the other, a graveled drop-off leads to more trees. Pine covers the hillside down to water, maybe a river, a lake, but something watery is off that side of the tracks and down there. He can smell it, the water; mud, fish, mosquito eggs, that kind of smell rises from that side. It’s summer afternoon, late summer, not hot, but warm. Nice. No place to go from here but home. The smells, the feel of the gravel way underfoot, the scent of creosote bubbled from the ties, it smells, yes, like home. Like near-home.

He walks easily, not thinking, not looking, then, a soft click, a sound that would be metallic if it weren’t smothered by leather and the softness of his foot, and he isn’t walking. Now, he looks. The boot, his ankle in it, is caught in a switch. Jesus Christ. Along some track, middle of nowhere, a guy’s walking along, alone, and the thing just closes, thump, like that. It doesn’t hurt, it simply holds him. Fact is, he couldn’t tell if it closed on him, or if he just stepped in it and got wedged there. Doesn’t matter. Point is, he cannot get out.

(more…)

Flash Fiction 2nd Place Winner!

Monday, June 25th, 2007

ROADKILL ANGEL

By Mark Zirbel

He will arrive in your town one day.

You will notice him walking along the side of the road, holding a smashed animal carcass in his grimy hands. Perhaps it will be an opossum, the creature curled into a fetal position as though it tried to retreat to some place of comfort in the last horrible moments of its life. Or maybe a cat, a fluffy Maine Coon or a sleek Siamese, its eyes wide open and staring at the heavens, its rigor-mortis limbs pointing skyward.

Hopefully you will not give this man and his roadkill a second thought – just some dirty bum, a derelict, a drifter. Because if you should decide to stop and take a closer look, you are not going to like what you see.

(more…)

Flash Fiction 3rd Place Winner!

Monday, June 25th, 2007

BLACK LAKE

by Nicole Castle

Travis has no car so we have to walk out to the lake.

“Damn, am I stupid,” I mutter to myself.

I kick at the dirt. There’s been no rain for months and the dust blows up into my face. Travis laughs, his real dumb ignorant laugh. “Shut up, shithead!” He doesn’t like that. “Travis, you know you ain’t getting’ none, right?”

“Come on. You know I don’t think that way ’bout you.”

I shoot him the eye. And I stop dead. “Is that what this is about, you asshole?”

“Naw, honest. I gotta show you somethin’. Somethin’ you ain’t never seen before.”
(more…)