Humor Writing for People Who Are or Aren't Funny (Yet)with Elissa Bassist

In this once-in-a-lifetime seminar/prayer circle, we’ll dismantle the short conceptual humor piece and discuss all the ways to write 500-800 words à la The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs and hundreds of other venues. Bonus: however niche, we may apply humor lessons, virtues, and exercises to all writing. 

No experience or skills required--we'll use our own lives to find what's funny, and there will be handouts and readings galore to help you help yourself. In addition to understanding forms, techniques, and cheap tricks, each student will brainstorm lists and titles to formulate and hone future humor pieces--or will pass out trying. 

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• a notebook or journal
• pen, pencil or whatever you prefer to write with
• a serious willingness to laugh and to be laughed with

ABOUT THE HOST: Elissa Bassist

Elissa Bassist edits the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and teaches writing nationally. Her sad essays and humor pieces appear in The New York Times, NewYorker.com, Marie Claire, Longreads, and more, including the best-seller Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, ed. by Roxane Gay. She served as managing editor of The Best American Nonrequired Reading and writers' assistant on The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and she is probably her therapist's favorite.

TICKETS: $10/person or $16/pair (bring a friend!)