Golden Parachutes Vs. The Holidays featured four pieces detailing the tension that exists between our intrinsic desire for escape and the need to make a home. These readings spoke to a fundamental contradiction within us: we want excitement and adventure, we crave mystery and danger, we keep secrets and want to know that we can get away with it, and yet we also need to know that we can rely and our family and friends, that we can have the creature comforts offered by a “successful life,” that we can take pleasure in our work, and that we can depend on the routines of a day, knowing that every morning the sun will rise and we will be able to do whatever it is we do.

With this reading, our first year has come to an end. Over six installments we presented twenty-eight writers, poets, and filmmakers whose work we loved. They ran the gamut of styles, of approaches to writing, of the way stories can be told, but they all shared something — a seriousness of purpose, an essential truth. They shared a frankness with which they dealt with their characters, a jaundiced yet fair view of the world. And above all they dealt with both the tragic and the mundane with a sense of humor. Through them, The Disagreement has learned a lot about what “funny” can mean, whether it is a great big old belly laugh accompanied by knee-slapping, a wistful but bemused grin, or cackling while crying. Whichever kind, it is this humor that allows the work to look at life honestly, and we’ve been honored to share such wonderful writers with you. We hope you will continue to join us next year.

On January 8th, we will present Anniversaries Vs. Your Funeral, which will feature one writer each from these last six readings, each reading a piece of their choice. And from there we will continue on the second Wednesday of every month with a set of new themes and writers, selected again by one sole criteria — that it is work we love.

From top to bottom: Aaron Smith, Marina Weiss, David Moscovich*, Tracy O’Neill (speaking to host Melissa Swantkowski)*, us, and you, our wonderful audience.

* Our photographer was so enraptured by their readings, she forgot to snap photos of them as they read.