“Her specific brand of performance—pairing quirky, Sedaris-style musings with unexpected theatrical trimmings like on-site musicians (she once used an entire New Orleans brass band)—is a text-based variation on the 'story theater' style used by many Chicago theatre artists. 'I never think of it as performance,' Stielstra says. 'I just want to tell good stories.'” —Timeout Chicago

"Stielstra has staked her career on live performance storytelling that is often emulated but never duplicated. In print and especially live, she urges the audience to come with her on adventures that can get both hysteric in pitch and absolutely still: few performers can teeter their audience between these extremes while still engaging such a personal connection. It is the story that reigns supreme, that dictates what will happen on stage. Her delivery is just one part of the show, like the musicians that back her, or the singer that swaps a story duet, or the brass band parading around her." —Chicago Literary Examiner

“'Incredible' is the title and the best description of the story by Megan Stielstra. A woman is rejected by many lovers, but not by the 'Incredible Hulk' underneath her bed—is she nuts?” —Newpages.com

Megan Stielstra is a writer, storyteller and Literary Director for 2nd Story, Chicago’s urban storytelling series held in wine bars where she regularly tells stories to drunk people. She’s performed for The Goodman Theatre, The Chicago Poetry Center, The Chicago Cultural Center, Neo-Solo at the Neo-Futurarium, Story Week Festival of Writers, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Strawdog Theatre, The Dollar Store, Chicago Public Radio, and all sorts of bars, lectures, conferences, and even a vineyard or two. Her fiction has appeared in recent issues of Other Voices, Fresh Yarn, Pindeldyboz, Swink, Venus, Perigee, The 2nd Hand, inthefray, Punk Planet, and has been featured by the Serendipity Theatre Collective, Theatre Seven of Chicago, and Bohemian Archeology in NYC.

Currently, Megan teaches in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Chicago. She lives in Uptown with her husband, their kid, and Mojo the dog.