This Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 is one of those nights in Chicago when there is almost too much going on.
We have two memorable Chicago literary events lined up right down the street from each other.

1. Texas-based literary journal, The First Line, will be promoting its new anthology by hosting a reading at legendary indie bookstore, Quimby's, from 7-8pm(1854 W. North Ave). If you've never been to Quimby's that's reason enough to check out what will surely be a quirky reading from the editors, contributors, and mascots of the slender journal where each of the ten stories all start with the first line. Sound gimmicky? It is. But the first lines for each quarter provoke a surprising range of  stories.  How it could not with first lines such as this for the Fall 2008 issue: Roy owned the only drive-thru funeral business in Maine.

From the Quimby's press blog:

The First Line, the most important (*) literary journal in the country, is celebrating ten years of killing trees and making the grammar gods cringe. Come meet the editors (and mascots), at Quimby’s in Chicago. If you’re lucky, Robin and David will read from the new anthology: The Best of The First Line, Editors’ Picks: 2002-2006 (don’t worry, you’ll get lucky).

The purpose of The First Line is to jump start the imagination-to help writers break through the block that is the blank page. Each issue contains short stories that stem from a common first line; it also provides a forum for discussing favorite first lines in literature. The First Line is an exercise in creativity for writers and a chance for readers to see how many different directions we can take when we start from the same place.

(*) ten-year-old, Texas-based, 64-page, perfect bound, 8” x 5”,
$3.00-a-copy, quarterly, unaffiliated, unfunded, unassuming, and far
from uninspiring

2. The second event, and a new monthly favorite on the last Tuesday of every month, is The Windy City Story Slam. It starts at 8pm just down the street at the unassuming and somewhat hidden Quennect 4 Gallery in Humboldt Park (2716 W. North). I just covered the event for the Books Section in TimeOut Chicago.

So is the event. On the last Tuesday of every month, Hillmann and his crew, including his mentor Don De Grazia, and coproducers Stephen Wozniak and Kate Paris, invite a cross section of writers, playwrights, comedians, neighbors, parolees and tamale vendors to the Quennect 4 Gallery in Humboldt Park. The space—with a makeshift stage that might be art itself—is of a piece with the gritty truths that are espoused at the Story Slam. Hillmann wants to continue the oral storytelling tradition in Chicago by bringing together artists and storytellers of various disciplines and backgrounds, and admits that his dream is to have legendary oral historian Studs Terkel onstage.

Terkel has been an obvious influence on Hillmann, but the inspiration for the Windy City Story Slam came from legendary poetry-slam founder Marc Smith, who was the featured guest in April.

Each show begins the same way: Hillmann and his crew feature one guest whom they consider vital to the Chicago storytelling community to kick off the show promptly at 8pm. In addition to Smith, past guests have included WNEP Theater founding director and self-described “angry white guy” Don Hall, iconic artist Fred Burkhart and enigmatic doll-maker Jo-Jo Baby.

After the featured guest, Jai Henry of the Minneapolis Henrys provides a musical break, performing four or five story-songs on his guitar. Then comes the celebrated competition, wherein five invited slammers take over the stage and perform or improvise a story in under five minutes. “It’s mixed martial arts,” De Grazia says of the competition. “It’s whatever you want to bring to it.”

Everyone has a story to tell, but it’s the audience’s job to determine which ones are worthwhile. The crowd can “blah blah blah” a storyteller off the stage, and other audience members can argue for “more more more.” Hillmann keeps a whistle at hand to regain order and clear the stage. After the stories, all five performers come back on stage for the audience to applaud-select the winner.

Of course slammers invite their friends, but Hillmann and his crew are mindful of bringing disparate cliques together to make the most dynamic performances possible. The audience responds honestly, it seems, to crown the best story of the night, regardless of allegiances. In fact, friends of the slammers are usually the ones doing the heckling.

May’s slam—the fifth—was a dead heat between two storytellers. Jose “The Door Guy” Rivera eked out the win with a story about a racially heated fight during his recent stint in Cook County Jail (which incidentally had prevented him from participating in the April slam).

Writer Max Glaessner took home the April prize with a story of a fifth-grade crush gone awry, a bizarre twist considering the preceding story was about fifth-grade love as well. Glaessner politely dismissed this coincidence to the crowd: “Heckle all you f*&^ing want.”

His delivery, and prep-school charm, was the difference. “You can’t just read; you have to be very conscious of that performance element and having that dialogue with the crowd,” Glaessner says.

That’s the essence of the Windy City Story Slam: You never know what you’re going to see or hear, from the performer or the crowd.