Bios

STORY CLUB

 

BIOS

Dana Norris
Dana is the founder and host of Story Club.  She has a Bachelors in Creative Writing and Religion and from Wittenberg University and a Master in Religious Studies from The University of Chicago.  Dana also has a Certificate in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Chicago and is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University.

Dana will be appearing in the 
Beast Women cabaret this summer.  She recently won the AWP Intro Journals Creative Nonfiction prize and will be published in the Tampa Review.  She also received a Writers Studio Student Prize from the University of Chicago Graham School, was a finalist for the Guild Complex Nonfiction Prize, is a contributor to Praxis Magazine and was first runner-up at the February & April 2010 Moth StorySLAMs in Chicago.

Dana loves hosting an open mic and she especially loves it when the stories get weird.

 

August 12th show

Alyson Lyon
 
Alyson Lyon is the co-producer of Essay Fiesta, in addition to being a monthly featured reader. She is also an actor, musician and writer.  A Chicago native and graduate of DePaul’s Theatre School, Alyson’s performance highlights include: “12 Ophelias” at Trap Door, “The Vagina Monologues” at the Apollo Theatre, Redmoon Theatre’s “Balloon Man”, “Overwintering” at iO (acted in and directed), “Pajama Girl” (her one-woman show) at the Chopin Theatre, a guest star appearance on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and a cameo in Jeff Garlin’s “I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With”.  Alyson plays bass, guitar and sings and can be seen Thursdays at the original Potbelly’s on Lincoln and Fridays at Potbelly on Clark and Diversey.  She also keeps it real on a daily basis.


Keith Ecker

Keith Ecker is the co-producer of Essay Fiesta, in addition to being a monthly featured reader. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. When the journalism industry became a joke, he decided to get into comedy. He has studied improv at the Second City, iO and the Annoyance Theatre. He was a founding member of the improv group Armchair Showcase; he was the co-founder, head writer and producer of the sketch group The Alliance; he’s performed stand-up all around Chicago; and he's the writer and star of the Outworld series Word of the Gay. He’s also a professional freelance writer, a theater critic for the Chicago Theater Blog and the mind behind the ChicagoNow blog Satire and the City.

 

Previous Featured Performers

JC Aevaliotis

JC has taken a winding path to Chicago. After a stint studying with The Groundlings and waiting tables in L.A., he received a master's degree in religion and theater from the Yale Divinity School. During grad school, he taught at a magnet school for the arts, performed at the Yale Drama School Cabaret, and took classes on comic theory, Scandinavian theater, and linguistics. Since his 2006 move to Chicago, JC has completed the conservatory program at Second City and studied with the Neofuturists. JC has worked with various theatre companies in Chicago as an actor (Dead Letters and Toxoplasmosis), dramaturgical consultant (As Told by the Vivian Girls), and set builder. Currently, JC writes and performs with Serendipity Theatre Collective's 2nd Story, and performs regularly with the Second City Training Center House Ensemble. JC also works for an art-education not-for-profit called Marwen (both to pay the bills and because he believes in it).

JT Berg

James Berg has studied at the University of Iowa, DePaul University, Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Chicago. When he's on his bike and he sees you, he will wave and say hello.

Caryn Berman

Caryn tells stories to better understand people and life. 

Mary Dean Cason 
Throughout a twenty-year career as an ad writer in Chicago, Mary Dean Cason’s short stories, drawn on her southern roots, were simply entertainment for her family. Then, in 2000, “What Solomon Saw” became a finalist in Chicago Public Radio’s Stories on Stage and went on to win first prize in California’s 2005 WestSide Story Contest.  Her story, “Liar, Liar,” featured in Lake Michigan’s SHORE, took second place at the 2006 University of Memphis Pinch Awards for Fiction. Mary Dean completed the University of Chicago’s Writer’s Workshop in 2009 where she received the 2008 Student Prize for Fiction. She lives in Chicago and Indiana with her husband. Together they have six grown children.


Shannon Cason

Shannon Cason was raised in Detroit, and now lives in Chicago. He blogs at www.shannoncason.com and hosts a podcast, Homemade Stories, available on iTunes.
He is currently writing the kind of novel he likes to read.


Evan Clossin

E. Clossin has fought the majority of adult males in the city of Chicago, including some men that were disguised as women/children.  His writing style can best be described as immature and wasteful.  If you don't feel like lighting him on fire after he subjects you to one of his inane ramblings, then you weren't listening. 
Never touch him or look him in the eye.
 

Julie Danis



 

Gisella Faggi

Gisella Faggi has identity issues that stem from growing up as a first generation American. She writes about these issues. Recently, her short script, The Pope's Visit, won first place in the prestigious Written Image Awards. Her work has also screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and she was a participant in the State Department-sponsored Fusion Arts Exchange Program in 2007. Currently, she is developing two feature-length screenplays: one a Bollywood-inspired musical, the other a horror film.

Aubrey Henretty

Aubrey Henretty is a pretty good guesser.
She lives in Chicago.


Jennifer Peepas

 Jennifer Peepas used to live in Washington, D.C. and manage foreign aid programs in Central and Eastern Europe.  Now she lives in Chicago and makes movies.  She teaches screenwriting and film production at Columbia College Chicago, and recently wrote and directed The Wardrobe (http://www.thewardrobefilm.com).   
In her free time she enjoys cooking food and then taking pictures of that food.  If she were a superhero, her name would be Captain Awkward, and her superpower would be making it weird.

 

Tom Reilly

Tom Reilly grew up behind the Chicago Stockyards.
When he was 9 years old, he shoveled manure off the loading dock ramps. At 10, he attempted to open
a used Christmas tree business. At 11, sold football parlay cards in the schoolyard for the mob.
It figures that, as an adult, he would run an advertising agency. Clients included The Chicago White Sox, George Ryan (yes, that George Ryan!) and Charlie the Tuna. In 2004, he sold his agency to write Playing In The Jungle, his memoir about growing up in Back of the Yards and has appeared on stage at several Chicago venues, including Live Bait Theatre and Uncommon Ground.

 Fred Reuland
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Fred Reuland has a B.A. in Theatre and has recently found his true calling as a writer of quirky short stories set in the 1960's.   Behind his lofty literary goals is a conviction to make readers laugh out loud   
whenever possible.

  

Harz Sondericker

Harz has been performing and writing in Chicago for
three years now. He has studied at the iO
Theater and Second City. Performing shows with the Playground Theater, Theater Momentum and Chemically Imbalanced with various groups. He has written three sketch reviews preformed at Second City Donny’s Sky Box. You can see more of Harz with Shock Corridor at the iO theater. The continuous improvised story "The Adventures of… " . The late night show Sickest F#@*ing stories at the Playground Theater every
first Saturday of the Month 11:59PM.
 
 

 


 


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