Caitlin’s Corner: Comedy and Satire Newsletter
Welcome to Issue #12!
2017: Garbage Year Central
Too harsh? Nope! Say hey what’s up hello to issue #12.
Welcome to the new subscribers! I don’t know what happened between issue 11 and now, but there are a lot of you. This newsletter is focused on comedy and satire writing and features interviews with writers about their process, submission opportunities, and relentless self-aggrandizement from me, Caitlin Kunkel! It’s my newsletter, after all!
Beyond politics and trying to work/live in a very heightened state of anxiety, this was a rough year for me, personal writing-wise. The Belladonna launched in February and it’s been AWESOME, but I’ve had to adjust my creative time to account for editing and emailing and events and long-term planning for the site.
I got insomnia at the top of the year (right after a certain inauguration) that lasted for three months. If you’ve ever had insomnia you know the main thing you try to do each day is not weep and/or lose your temper repeatedly, so after meeting my deadlines for freelance work each week, my will to create was…low.
Then I had some health problems in the second half of the year that resulted in me taking medication that made me feel very unlike myself. I’m tapering off it now and hope to feel better in the new year, but my grand plans of end-of-year submitting and crushing did not pan out (mainly because I think I need to read some of these pieces again before letting an editor see them! They might be a little strange).
I share all that personal information to say…man, I still got a lot done. Before this year if you had told me, “hey girl, you’re gonna not be able to sleep for months on end, take on a non-paid (currently) venture that is going to take ten hours a week, do more freelance work than ever in your life, get sick, and STILL write a lot,” I would have laughed in their face and then gotten back in bed. But that’s what happened!
This year was helpful in finally defeating the idea of my creative muse showing up when it feels like it. I’m a huge fan of Stephen King’s book On Writing for discussing the idea that you train your creativity to show up when YOU want to work, not the other way around. This year, that muse showed up when I sat down with a deadline and had to do it and forced myself to brainstorm and draft and rewrite (sometimes at 3am because sleep was not happening, sometimes on a train, sometimes on a plane despite that being my most hated place to work).
It wasn’t pretty or inspiring or beautiful, but it happened and I’m grateful for all the things I was able to produce.
Here’s what happened: I wrote twenty-three shows for Live Wire Radio, fourteen pieces for The Belladonna, a piece each for The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, and probably another 10 pieces for other sites. I redid my website, a long term project I’ve wanted to do for two years. I finessed my three-hour satire workshop and taught it at Washington Improv Theater and Magnet Theater and Catapult here in New York, with plans to tour it more in 2018.
So I guess the takeaway is you can create things and make forward momentum even when you feel like shit emotionally and physically. And not to be too poetic, but really, don’t we all kind of feel like shit constantly now, in 2017 going on 2018? WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE FEELING LIKE SHIT! Put that on a t-shirt.
To close out the year and rocket us into the new one, I have interviews with two of my personal favorite humor writers, Bizzy Coy and Karen Chee. Let’s dive in!
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Caitlin aka KunkelTron
My Favorite Things I Wrote This Year
Here are my favorite things that went up this year — click each image to read!
I still love this piece I wrote for The Belladonna launch in February:
My first piece in Daily Shouts went up at the end of February!!!
I wrote a topical piece for McSweeney’s in May that I really liked:
And honestly, I really had fun writing this “exit interview” for The Mooch after his glorious ten-day tenure at the White House came to a close.
I’m teaching a bunch of classes for Second City starting January 7th — check out the selection here!
This month I spoke to writer Bizzy Coy, who was NOT so elusive as to evade my emails. Bizzy is a humor writer and copywriter who ditched the mean streets of NYC for the mean bears of the Catskills. She lives and writes in her cottage in the woods, with humor pieces appearing in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Splitsider, The Belladonna, The Establishment, and The Higgs Weldon. She has worked with copywriting clients including Disney, NBC, Bravo, the Super Bowl, Stoli, Blue Man Group, and 30+ Broadway plays and musicals. Bizzy also teaches copywriting through Mediabistro.
Take it away, Bizzy!
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You’ve been published numerous times on “Shouts & Murmurs” in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Splitsider, The Belladonna, and other venues — how do you keep yourself consistently writing and submitting in the voices of so many different publications?
Fortunately for me, I write humor as a way to procrastinate on other things. I would almost always rather noodle with a short funny piece than sweat and grunt through a frustrating long-term project. Am I lazy? Probably. Ideas also help. When a new idea tickles me, I generally want to start writing quickly to ride the inspiration wave.
accurate representation of bizzy riding the inspiration wave
Do you keep a log of ideas at all, or do you write when they come to you?
I have my trusty Google Doc where I drop all of my humor ideas. Right now, it’s 24 pages of mostly nonsense. If I have a good idea, I write it up immediately and it doesn’t stay on the Google Doc very long. Rarely do I find an old idea that’s any good.
Here are a few fun stinkers I found on the list:
- Murder, She Ate
- Carnivore Cruises
- Podcast for One
- These Teacup Pigs Won’t Fit in My Teacup
- My Doorman Is My Doula
- All Alone on Arbor Day
- Millennial Judge Judy
Walk us through one of your pieces in The New Yorker. Where did the idea come from, and how many drafts did you do?
The New Yorker is very special to me. I was traveling in Edinburgh, Scotland years ago, feeling lonely and depressed. I went to the public library to check my email every morning. While waiting in line to use a computer, I’d browse old copies of The New Yorker and cheer myself up with “Shouts and Murmurs.” When I received my first “Daily Shouts” acceptance a decade later, it was deeply satisfying.
For “Brunch Recipes for When Your Therapist Is on Vacation,” I knew I wanted to write something about therapy (see aforementioned depression), and the phenomenon of how NYC therapists all go on vacation in August. Now, through the magic of Google Docs, I can track exactly how the idea evolved! (I swear this isn’t sponsored by Google. #sponcon)
On May 10, I wrote down these brainstorm ideas:
- Therapist on vacation
- Things to do when your therapist is on vacation
- Your therapist’s voicemail message
- Therapists are away in august, so are…
- Postcards from your therapist on vacation
- How to cope when your therapist or dominatrix is on vacation
On May 12, I continued to brainstorm:
- Therapist on vacation cookbook
- Recipes to make when your therapist is on vacation
- The “My Therapist is on vacation” cookbook
- “Batter will be grumpy”
- Passive aggressive pancakes
I liked this food concept and wrote a fairly quick first draft on May 12. I wrote in a meandering train-of-thought way, like talking in therapy, and I found recipes to include. I sent it to a friend, made some small edits, and submitted it for consideration on May 23. For this one, the first draft was fairly close to the final result.
A lot of writers can tell when they’re 90% of the way done, but they have a hard time knowing when something is 100%, ready to go, no more tinkering, out the door. How do you know this for your own work?
It’s part instinct, part experience. If my instinct says something’s wrong, it usually is. But my experience tells me that I should ask for help if I can’t figure it out on my own. Perfection is so subjective, and I’d rather get my work into someone’s hands than tinker ’til the cows come home. If I’m really stuck, I’ll sleep on it and read with fresh eyes in the morning, which always helps.
I rely on great editors to take my piece the rest of the way if needed. In the above therapy brunch piece, for example, the brilliant Emma Allen wrote the fantastic final button: “Add vodka.” To me, it makes the whole piece. Thanks, Emma!
Do you have people you trust to give you final stage feedback?
I ask for notes a lot. Sometimes, I’ll send what I think is a stellar draft to someone just so they tell me I’m a super genius, which backfires 100% of the time.
My most frequent feedback partners are my friend David, who is full of incisive suggestions and off-kilter jokes, and my brother Evan, who shares my childhood foundation of ’90s Comedy Central programming: Kids in the Hall, SNL, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Strangers with Candy, etc.
You were a 2017 MacDowell Fellow. What was that experience like, and what do you think the benefit is to humor writers to apply to different residencies?
The MacDowell Colony was wonderful, and I was honored to have been accepted there among some intimidatingly talented company. I applied as a playwright, not a humor writer, to work on a new script. But I couldn’t resist the siren song of satire. Another fellow and I (shoutout to Michael Mount!) collaborated on a piece about the Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial disaster, but nobody wanted to publish it. Oh, well.
I encourage all humor writers to apply for residencies, fellowships, awards, grants and other opportunities, even if they’re aimed at more “traditional” writers and artists. MacDowell connected me with incredible people I would not have otherwise met, and inspired me to take my work (even the silly stuff) more seriously.
You often teach humor writing and submission workshops. What do you think is an important piece of advice for beginning writers in this format?
I tell beginning writers to always throw away their first jokes because they tend to be the most obvious. Get the expected jokes out of the way so you can dig deeper and find the unexpected ones.
You also write and teach copywriting courses. Do you find that humor writing and writing copy complement or detract from each other?
I love copywriting! It’s not so different from humor writing. They’re both about brevity, a clear premise and a strong voice. With the dearth of available journalism jobs, I highly recommend that humor writers sell their souls and work in advertising. An agency will teach you just as much about deadlines, collaboration and creativity as a newsroom. Plus, you’ll get paid well, and you’ll play an important part in perpetuating America’s crushing consumer-industrial complex.
What’s a major goal of yours for 2018? Shout it out!
I wrote a play! Somebody should produce it!
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Thanks, Bizzy!
LINK ROUNDUP! GETYA LINKS HERE!
I just found this podcast from the Wall Street Journal and have been enjoying it: Secrets of Wealthy Women. It’s women from different professional fields, not a podcast version of Real Housewives of anything (although 100% would listen to that, too, does it exist??)
This is a very interesting article breaking down doing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I’ve had aspirations of doing this, but my friends have had very mixed experiences. It’s a massive undertaking, for sure!
I loved this piece on how algorithms can only take us so far by Maris Kreizman in The New York Times.
This is NOT my mother, but I really liked this piece by Kerry Elson on The Belladonna: “I Am Your Mother And I Want To Tell You Where To Meet New People.”
Probably too late to order for the holidays, but did you know there is an entire full-length satirical magazine about Paul Ryan? WELL THERE IS!!! I have read it and it is VERY funny.
I’m also very excited to have spoken with the great Karen Chee! Karen is a comedy writer/performer currently based in New York. You can see her writing in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Shondaland, among other sites. Follow her on Twitter or check out her website for more info!
Hit it, Karen!
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You’re FRESH out of college and already having a lot of success publishing humor in outlets like The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Reductress, among others. Did you grow up reading a lot of written humor? What was the atmosphere in your home like around comedy and humor growing up?
Starting in high school, yes! I wasn’t really aware that comedy was a profession until eighth grade. I have a very funny family — my mom and uncle are especially hilarious — and so our family gatherings have always been full of laughter. Most of my extended family live in Korea and they’re largely academics and artists, so I didn’t know any comedians growing up, but they’ve all been very supportive of me pursuing a creative career.
I first starting watching comedy in 8th grade, and I got immediately obsessed. I researched writers and performers I liked, and read and watched what influenced them. This led me to a deep love of British comedy, and now I have a weirdly thorough knowledge of British comedy and satire in the 20th century.
I read lots of humor writing in high school and college — PG Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, David Sedaris, etc. And I ended up writing my senior thesis on an Asian American satirist from the 1930’s named H.T. Tsiang! Fun stuff.
Why do you think the form appeals to the way you think?
I think writing is the perfect blend of who I basically am: very emotional and very logistical. Writing feels like the ideal medium to express all my emotions in a very organized, intentional way. I love that. I also genuinely love the process of writing — it feels like woodworking or marathon-training, which are two things I cannot do so I’m very happy to settle on writing.
What’s your process like for finding ideas? Are you one of those people who have them constantly zinging around your head, or do you sit down and brainstorm specifically to write a humor piece?
Hmm. I’d say both. Coming up with ideas feels like a muscle to me. I’m kind of nerdily disciplined about writing, so I set aside time every day to think of stuff — I usually don’t get up until I’ve got something that I like. If I break this routine it becomes much harder, and I have to really sit down and force myself, but if I do it every day then random ideas will zing around my head even when I’m not focused on producing material.
Walk us through one of your pieces from The New Yorker. Where did the idea come from, and how many drafts did you do?
This is a piece called “Pep Talks to Get You to Read the Day’s News.’ I loved writing it because I love giving pep talks in real life, and my greatest self-delusion (that I’m aware of) is that I envision myself as an upbeat coach in an inspirational sports movie. This piece was fun to write because each pep talk is actually hitting on something that’s frustrating or dumb, and I got to twist it in a way that was more positive.
Politics has been unavoidable and so pervasive in all aspects of my life: in conversations with friends, family, grocers, librarians — even Twitter is full of politics right now in a way that it never was before the election. It’s extra tiresome and frustrating to deal with since it isn’t compartmentalized as much now (even more so for people of marginalized identities/communities). So I played on the idea of trying to use this to cheer people up.
Have you ever written a piece thinking it would crush, and then it either got rejected by an editor, or had very limited engagement? This has happened to me and it. is. rough.
Totally!! My friend Broti Gupta and I once wrote a very in-depth piece on David Brooks in the style of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We loved it and were devastated when it got rejected because we re-read (studied!) Shelley to prep for the writing, and we thought we did a good job with literary accuracy and joke density.
Doing topical pieces is hard, though, because the shelf life of each piece is so short that in the time for one or two editors to reject it, probably too much time has passed for it to be relevant anymore.
Speaking of topical — you DO write a lot of topical pieces. What fuels that? Where do you look for your news and how do you find an angle?
In the past they’ve stemmed from something hypocritical or nonsensical, but recently they’ve been derived from anger or frustration. I love the process of finding angles for something because I have my personal take on something, i.e. “This is bad!” and then I try casting it in different lights to best show why it’s particularly bad.
What do you think the role of satire is in this current state of affairs*?
*the garbage fire that is the world
Two things, I suppose. One is rallying base camp; the other is pointing out flaws. And being relentless about all the miserable things happening. Of course laughter is the goal, but there’s something really important (possibly self-important?) about calling out authority figures and sharing perspectives of those not in charge. I’m a pretty small, conflict-averse person who isn’t intimidating in real life (though I really wish I were), so satire is a fun, accessible way to punch up and be heard.
You were just awarded one of the first two Erma Bombeck fellowships for a two-week residency — hurray! What are you going to be working on?
Thank you so much! I’m thrilled. The fellowship is such a marvelous way to support and amplify women’s voices, and I’m really honored to win it. I plan on working on a collection of humorous essays (kind of like David Sedaris!) that are largely autobiographical but also possibly some fiction pieces, too.
I’m also super stoked because I’m a huge Wright Brothers fan and Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio. They have a bunch of parks and exhibitions commemorating the brothers and the science of flight and I can’t wait to see them!!
How does your personal background and experience inform your writing?
I studied History & Literature in college, so most of my academic work was close-reading text (fiction and non-fiction) and understanding how to empathize with the writer and characters. I think most of the courses I took focused on how to best read & share stories of marginalized people in an honest, respectful, and empowering way. I don’t know how much it translates to the dumb comedy pieces I do, but that’s become a very core part of how I think as a person and especially as a writer.
I also have two parents who are ESL (as am I!) and are immigrants from South Korea. They’re incredibly supportive, which is such a blessing, and they always read whatever I write. I realized a couple years ago that knowing they’re going to read my work has made me veer away from writing ornately and instead being direct, straightforward, and inclusive (i.e. avoiding pretense or any unnecessary, self-absorbed language).
Now when I read fancy, cluttered writing, I think, “Who’s your audience? Are you excluding people just to seem obscure or gain admiration?”
Who’s another writer that you’ve admired recently?
I think Taylor Garron is so funny and her Reductress articles are always on point!! Check her out. Her Twitter is also consistently fantastic.
What’s a major goal of yours for 2018? Shout it out!
I’ve been adventuring in different genres and forms recently — more sketches, personal narratives, and humorous essays. Next year, I’d love to write a short film or a feature script, if only just for me to try it out!
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Thanks, Karen!
Submission/Writing Opps
- Erma Bombeck-heads! The submission period for the humor writing contest opens up on 12/4.
- Those of you who write TV — the Nickelodeon Writing Program opens up VERY SOON after the new year. Get those specs and pilots ready! Follow their Twitterfor interviews with past winners and tips.
- If you’re looking to take a fiction class online or in NYC this year, Catapult classes are 20% off through 12/26 with the code HOLIDAY.
ABOUT ME: Caitlin Kunkel is a comedy writer, satirist and famed pizza scientist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been featured in Shouts & Murmurs in The New Yorker, The Second City Network, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Reductress, and other places across the vast internets. She created the online satire program for The Second City and teaches monthly classes for them. She’s the writer for Live Wire Radio, distributed by Public Radio International.
GUESS WHAT? Caitlin is also the co-founder and editor of the comedy and satire site for female writers, The Belladonna. She reads her humor writing and performs improv on filthy stages all across New York. Subscribe to her newsletter for writing advice, submission opportunities and excellent pics of cute animals and follow her musings on Twitter @KunkelTron.
