Caitlin’s Corner: Comedy and Satire Newsletter — Issue #2
This is issue #2 of my newsletter. Subscribe here for future issues.
We’re doing it, hope you’re ready!
Hey all! Welcome to issue #2. We’ve had some new comrades join since issue #1. To recap: this newsletter is meant to collect submission and writing opportunities, offer tips and prompts, and share resources and interviews. If you have something you want to see or an idea for a future issue, please respond and let me know. Also, feel free to forward to people!
Let’s get inspirational. Personally, December is about looking back on the year and seeing all the things I failed to do. HOW’S THAT FOR INSPIRATION? Seriously, I make a goal list at the start of the year (we’ll make one next issue) and I look back around this time to see where I ended up. Sometimes, I get even more done than I had planned, or the year took me in an unexpected direction. Other times, I can see where I scattered my energy and ended up…not doing great. But I like to check in at the beginning of December and try to knock a few more things off my goal list.
The big goal I absolutely did not meet this year was to complete National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I started and stayed on track until November 9th when some stuff happened, and then just made notes and outlined for the rest of the month. Big failure, huh? But one of the best things about being a writer is having enough imagination to constantly reframe things for yourself. So instead, I see the 8,000 words I DID write as being pretty awesome. I hadn’t written fiction in at least five years, so to outline a book and write several thousand words in a month actually still feels pretty great. It was definitely a challenge to shift from shorter comedic pieces to a longer work. But rereading what I have so far actually pleases and delights me, which is a surprising reaction to my own work. I’m sure it will change soon.
My goal for the book in 2017 is to continue to write 5k-10k words a month until I have a bad first draft, and then start the revision process (which already seems daunting and horrifying). Although I didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo, I did finally choose an idea and get on with the process of writing. I’ve been wanting to write a novel for years now, and always got cold feet when it came to committing to one idea. No more! I tell the students in all my classes that the perfect is the enemy of the good — I would rather write something that’s good and out there, than have a perfect version in my head when I die.
Well, we talked about missed goals, failure, and death. I think I kicked off this comedy newsletter pretty well. We have an interview with talented comedy writer Erik Sternberger, a chat with fabulous illustrator Marlowe Dobbe, and lots of writing and submission info. Enjoy!
Caitlin aka KunkelTron
MY WRITING
Choo Choo! Next stop is Self Aggrandizement City!
- Here is a piece I wrote for Second City Network right before Thanksgiving about safe post-election small talk.
- Here is little game I initially wrote for the radio program Live Wire! in Portland. It was played with guest Megan Amran, of “Science! For Her” fame: “Name of a Women’s Magazine, or Just a Word?”
- Here’s an interview I did with my friend Willow Paule called “Wielding Humor As a Weapon.”
- Also — as I was googling images for “writing prompt” I saw some VERY BAD ones. So I wrote a little list of those and threw it up on Medium. If you actually write a piece from one of these, email it to me. Let’s have some fun, huh?
Looking for a Christmas gift? I’m teaching new sessions of the Satire 1 and 2 classes I developed for Second City starting in January. Take a look!
WRITING TIP: FOCUS ON FORM
The easiest way for me to break out of a writing rut is to play with form. I always naturally default to writing a list, or a sketch, or a monologue when I have an idea. What about email chains, speeches from the cockpit, Yelp reviews? Job listings, movie synopses, or apartment listings? You can literally google “forms to write in” when you’re stuck and see if your idea would stand out more written in a different way.
Here are some of my favorite pieces that use an innovative form:
- Hallie Cantor’s (really, check out all her work) hilarious piece in Shouts & Murmurs, “Official Agenda For Your Sick Day.”
- Hannah Murphy’s memo from a studio executive, “We Want to Make Your Feminist Action Thriller Into a Blockbuster Hit!” in Funny Women.
- THREE authors on this masterpiece — Annie McGreevy, Derek Palacio, and Claire Vaye Watkins wrote this scathing New Yorker piece, “Academic Job Listings for my Exes.”
Featured Artist: Illustrator Marlowe Dobbe
When I was an Assistant Professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR, I had the pleasure of working with Marlowe Dobbe on her senior thesis project. We’ve stayed in touch since then (she just designed my holiday card!), and I wanted to introduce her to all of you.
Marlowe is an illustrator, game designer, and excellent writer. She created the illustrated headshot that I use at the top of this newsletter. I personally love having the option to use an avatar on the internet that isn’t my actual photo (because: trolls, and also privacy concerns) and Marlowe’s image captured how I mug for most pictures anyway. Learn more about her creative process below and consider hiring her!
Marlowe, what is your background in illustration?
Aside from my back catalog of hundreds of childhood crayon drawings of pizza, I graduated from the Illustration program at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Spring 2016. Since graduation I’ve been doing a lot of freelance for print and local clients, as well as commissions!
Where can we see some of your work?
At my website! The link to my Etsy shop is also there.
What are the biggest challenges to being a freelance artist?
Definitely finding the balance of how much work is comfortable for me. I find that I get so excited about every project that comes my way I want to say yes to everything! At the same time, I have to remember there are only so many hours in the week.
What are the biggest benefits?
The variety of projects to work on. It’s very rewarding to tackle different subjects in freelance illustration (especially in print media) where I might be illustrating articles on specific topics. Not only do I get to draw a lot of different subject matter, but I get to learn about it as I read!
What do you charge for a hand drawn portrait with lettering?
Hand-drawn portraits with lettering are $75!
What do you need to get started and how long does the process take?
All I need are a few reference photos that you may like. This gives me an opportunity to see a face from different angles and really capture the likeness of my clients! In all with sketching, final drawings, inking, and coloring it’s about a two week turnaround.
What are you working on right now?
Right now my long-term personal project (in addition to my freelance work) is my video game, Margaret’s Blight, which will combat stereotypes against female characters in gaming culture (Editor’s note — I highly recommend this game!). I write about the experience in a monthly(ish) newsletter that’s documenting the process of an illustrator diving head first into the game development process — you can follow it on my website.
Thank you, Marlowe!
Featured Writer: Erik Sternberger
Erik Sternberger is a writer, performer and film maker from Columbus, Ohio who has trained in improv, sketch and satire at Second City Chicago. A long time comedy nerd, Erik used to tape stand-up routines by holding a tape recorder up to the TV so he could listen to them endlessly on his walkman. His work has been featured on McSweeney’s, Funny or Die, and Robot Butt as well as at countless film festivals and a theatrical run of a series of his short plays. He just wrote a new spec sitcom pilot pitch and is working on two new sketches to produce in 2017. You can check out all his work (plus watch him eat a donut in his underwear) here and follow him on Twitter @ZapThunder.
I asked Erik about the experience of writing his first McSweeney’s acceptance. Read the piece here, then learn from his process below!
How did you come up with the concept for this satirical piece?
The concept for “Fart Toads” (as I like to call it), came to me the week of the Bataclan shooting in Paris. I saw people posting on social media that “we all needed a laugh right now, more than ever.” So, everyone should come out to their comedy show. I’d recently had a few friends run successful Kickstarters and it gave me the idea of a terrible tragedy also being someone’s personal tragedy on a totally different, but still painful, level.
What was the biggest stumbling block?
The biggest initial stumbling block for me was to make sure I was hitting the right target. I didn’t want to be making fun of victims of tragedy in any way. So I made the thing the speaker was trying to fund so silly that it was obvious who I was going after. I still wanted to make the character sympathetic, and acknowledging that he knew what he was doing was wrong solved that issue. We all have little selfish dreams that we would hate to see die, and having him frantically on the edge of his dream coming true could put the readers in his place enough that his POV wasn’t just that of a complete …ummm…can I swear in this?
What were your fears about submitting (if you had any)?
I don’t know if I had any fears in submitting it. I loved the piece and felt strongly about it, but I’ve been rejected enough times by publications, and casting directors, that wins feel a lot stronger than losses at this point. If anything, I was already planning on where I could submit it to next and what my next attempt submission for McSweeney’s would be when I got the rejection letter, so the acceptance letter was like double icing on the cake.
Thank you, Erik!
LINK PARTY (Bring Your Own Sausages)
- This article in Paste about SNL’s satirical role, and whether or not Michael Che and Colin Jost are fulfilling it, was extremely interesting: “Michael Che and Colin Jost Should Not Host Weekend Update.”
- How much heckling should comedic actors be expected to take? Read former Second City e.t.c. performer Peter Kim’s excellent essay on his experience. “Why I Left My Dream Job at Second City.”
- Another SNL-focused piece about their recent sketch “The Bubble” and the difficulty of satirizing this past election.
Submission/Writing Opps
- Splitsider’s humor section is back up and taking submission. The email is
splitsiderhumorsection@gmail.com - If you’re a Funny Woman, why not submit to the great Rumpus column Funny Women? Details and past columns here.
- New York-based sitcom writers — check out the requirements for pilot competition here. Deadline 12/16!
- Also, this is not an opportunity, but it IS a very funny humor piece in The Establishment MAKING FUN of writing opportunities. So, valid.
ABOUT ME: Caitlin Kunkel is a comedy writer, director and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her plays and sketch comedy revues have been performed at theaters across the country and she sold the first screenplay she ever wrote. Her comedy and satire writing has been featured on The Second City Network, The Huffington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Reductress, The Billfold, Robot Butt, Public Radio International, and many other places across the vast internetz.
Caitlin also teaches people stuff! She has an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University, where she also taught screenwriting. She just finished a three year term as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR where she taught four courses she created: Modern Comedy and Satire, Introduction to Scripting, Scripting Intensive and Fight the Future: Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Stories (yes, that last one shares a title with the first X-Files movie on purpose. You gotta enjoy your life, huh?). She is the Program Designer for Second City’s online satire program. Follow her tiny thoughts on Twitter @KunkelTron.
