Recap: TueNight Live: Photos from our Birthday Party!

We turned five, y’all! With nearly 100 of our BFFs in attendance, we celebrated our first TueNight half-decade remembering our favorite pieces from the past and listening to brand new ones. We also noshed on some delicious “pencil” cake, raised $1500 for VoteRunLead and connected with TueNighters old and new.

All photos by Simon Courchel.

The Invisible Dog Art Center filled up quickly as we got the evening started.

Margit reminded us of the TueNight origin story and the piece she published on Medium that started it all: Dinosaur Jr. — On Entering the Puberty of Old Age.

She thanked our sponsors Ruth Ann Harnisch, MedAmour, Hint Water and Brandless. And then kicked off our first storyteller, Tamar Anitai.

Tamar read her 2013 story that has resonated with so many of you — and a bit controversial at the time she wrote it —  being a grown, married woman who planned to live a child-free life. A lot of nodding heads in our midst. Watch Tamar read here!

Susan Linney, one of our founding editors, contributing two years’ worth of stories in her Bottles Down column, read about a pivotal Halloween many years ago, when she first started hiding alcohol, even from her husband. Watch Susan tell her story on Facebook Live.

Penny Wrenn, a TueNight favorite, told us the joys of throwing your own damn retirement party. And gave us an update on how she’s been since. Here she is on Facebook Live.

Heather, a past TueNight contributor, was back as the Director of Communications for VoteRunLead, an important organization that trains women to run for office — and win. All of our proceeds from the event went to VRL, and we encouraged everyone to check out their table (and buy their t-shirts) during the break.

And then we grabbed a drink, ate some snacks and talked to friends.

We returned to find Cindy Gallop inspiring us with her powerful stories of appreciating our age and experience and reminding us to #sayourage. Watch her talk and feel the power of age!

More nodding heads. (Also, everyone at the mic after her did just that — said her age — and it was terrific.)

Dionne Ford returned to the TueNight mic to read her beautiful piece about her personal approach to faith, My Struggle With God Ended on a Plane.

TueNight’s Adrianna Dufay talked a bit about the Invisible Dog space and the artwork she curated for the evening. We were lucky to be able to feature the artwork of six talented women: Sarah Palmer, Maya Sariahmed, Vanessa Belli, Anne Mourier, Claudia Peneca and Raven Schlossberg.

Dodai shared her story about being single and the price she’ll pay for a little human contact in  Touch My Body — I’ll Pay For It.

Giveaways! MedAmour, a sexual health and wellness website,very generously donated another raffle prize, and our own organizer Stormy Perez raffled off an organization session with her. Two lucky winners!

We took another short break to refresh…

New TueNighter Michele Carlo was delightful, telling of defending her culo from harassment on and off the street.

Deb Copaken read an excerpt from her soon-to-be-published memoir, about finding herself late at night in a serious health crisis.

Karen Gerwin revived one of our most popular TueNight pieces ever — about a mother/daughter coming-of-age tradition that she really had to consider first.

We ended with a tradition of our own — a (birthday) song, well, actually, “Heart Shaped Box” sung a capella by Crystal Durant. You can watch her sing it on Facebook.

Then — cake! TueNight contributor Lani Halliday made us an incredible, vegan, pencil of a cake. And it was delicious. Here’s the goofy cake presentation.

We were able to donate $1500 to VoteRunLead — fantastic!

Thank you to everyone, and we’ll see you next time!

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