Two Way Street Coffee House is Chicagoland’s most beloved folk and acoustic music venue, presenting weekly concerts and community events for over 55 years!  The show starts at 8pm (CT) and the doors open at 7:30pm. (Suggested donation $10, cash or Paypal).  We will also host this concert virtually.  You may access the livestream on www.twowaystreet.org, on our Facebook page, or on our YouTube channel.

On Friday, May 22, 2026 Two Way Street Coffee House Friday Night Concert Series presents Heather Styka.

After growing up in the Chicago suburbs, Heather Styka moved to the city to studying creative writing, meanwhile honing her song craft among Chicago’s long-standing folk community. “Chicago has such a rich musical history, especially with places like the Old Town School of Folk Music,” Styka explains. “I was definitely steeped in that tradition.” Her 2011 release Lifeboats for Atlantis brought her to national attention, hitting #3 on the FOLK-DJ charts. Styka’s honest, image-heavy songs have garnered her a number of awards, including being a New Folk Finalist at the Kerrville Folk Festival (2015, 2017) and official showcases at Folk Alliance International, NERFA, SWRFA, and FARM.

While living in Portland, Maine, Heather Styka released While This Planet Spins Beneath Our Feet. Recorded with Beehive Productions and printed by Styka on a 1901 letterpress in Maine, this 2014 release charted for four months on FOLK-DJ. Styka’s next album, The Bittersweet Tapes (2016), was recorded in Tulsa, Oklahoma on an old four track recorder with sparse, ethereal production by John Calvin Abney (John Moreland, Samantha Crain). These gut-punch pretty songs nod to traditional folk, classic country, and even garage rock, carried by Styka’s emotive vocals.

Live, Heather Styka comes off as something like Leonard Cohen crossed with Patsy Cline. Armed with a guileless, unvarnished delivery, she’s equal parts wordsmith and entertainer. Styka’s energetic shows feel as intimate and candid as late night conversation, peppered with a quirky sense of humor and confessional storytelling.

With the addition of The Sentimentals, North is something of a departure from Styka’s earlier intimate, haunting folk albums, but the direct and narrative poetry of her lyricism remains intact. “It’s still a bunch of unadulterated feelings. I tell stories about feelings. It’s like we’re on the same folky bummer road trip, but now we’re driving a convertible with friends in the back seat,” laughs Styka. “It’s fun, and it’s real. We need that now.”

 SELKEN is the indie rock / bummer pop project of Chicago songwriter Heather Styka. Blending dreamy textures with sharp lyrical clarity, SELKEN’s music drifts between emotional honesty and mythic undertow—equal parts siren song and late-night confession. Influenced by folk, vintage pop, and shimmering synths, Styka writes for those in transition: grieving, growing, and searching for meaning in the in-between. The Winds, SELKEN’s debut LP, is a cathartic, cinematic exploration of longing, resilience, and letting go.

If you can’t join us in person, you can still tune in virtually to catch the show! Make your donation HERE to Heather.  Visit www.twowaystreet.org for more information.