Humor Writing: Punch Up Your Prose
Dan Zevin
Format: MP3 Audio Download

Your friends think you're funny, your family thinks you're funny, and your sensibility is more Seinfeld than Sartre. So how come your writing sometimes winds up so dry? Hint: Your high school English teacher said that writing was solemn business. In this workshop, it's payback time. You'll be encouraged to look at the world the way nature intended: with your sense of humor. We'll discuss personal essays, comic fiction and topical satire. And our in-class exercises (relax, no cardio) will help you find the funny in the characters, dialogue and situations you create. Whether your goal is to write a "Shouts and Murmurs" piece for The New Yorker, a list for McSweeney's or a book-length humor collection, the first step is the same: take your sense of humor seriously.