Last week, I had the good fortune of participating in a weeklong humor writing workshop taught by Damon Young through VONA (a literary org for writers of color—happy to share more about my experience for anyone interested!).

I don’t identify as a humor writer per se, but humor has always been a part of my artistic sensibilities. If my father’s cynicism has given me anything (aside from crippling trust issues), it’s the gift of quickly detecting irony—not to mention the defense mechanism of laughing about it according to my therapist. Turns out, therapy is not the place to workshop jokes.

If humor isn’t typically an aspect of your writing and you’re curious to explore it, this week’s prompt is just for you!

To share some humor gems I jotted down from workshop:

• Make yourself laugh first. Do not try to impress some unknown audience.

• The more vulnerable and specific, the better

• Comedy often occurs in 3s (ex. a list of something normal, normal, absurd/subverted expectation)

• Know your position of privilege because that influences the subject matter and target of your humor

This week’s prompt comes from an exercise we did in workshop. As a bonus, submitters will see what I wrote for mine.

Here for the ha-ha’s,
Jamie

📝 This week’s writing prompt

Reply to this email to submit your writing. Submit by Saturday evening and see what everyone else wrote for the same prompt.

Last week’s submissions: Returning to metaphors

Did you submit last week? If so, click to view the other submissions 👀 

✨ Writing inspo of the week

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