The task is gargantuan: From the bad — be it minor embarrassment or unfathomable tragedy, depending on the month’s theme — wrangle something good. Oh, and in eight minutes or fewer, all with only your writer’s imagination.
Joe Wadlington and Danielle Truppi, the creators, producers and co-hosts of the 3-year-old monthly reading series Happy Endings, emphasize that they they’re not thoughtless Pollyannas. “The show in no way avoids painful realities, but acknowledges that joy and sadness are not entirely discrete, that humor can help us find the warm corners,” Truppi said in a statement.
Each month features five writers working in a variety of forms, from comedy to poetry. For March, whose theme is “Fashions, Distractions, Disguises,” one of the contributors is Fauxnique, a.k.a. Monique Jenkinson, whose memoir “Faux Queen: A Life in Drag” was recently published by Amble Press.