Inside Jokes

A step-by-step practical guide to all types of comedy writing, filled with invaluable advice, exercises, interviews, tools, and jokes that will turn anyone into a funnier writer and person, from authors/editors/teachers/perfect 10s Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel.

Comedy writing is hard. Or is it? Not with Inside Jokes.

Inside Jokes is a masterclass in a book that teaches you how to write anything funnier, from short humor to essays to psychiatric in-take forms. Each chapter has technical and practical advice to turn comedy outsiders into insiders, comedy readers into writers, and nonfunny nonwriters into funny writers.

Included at no extra cost: interviews with professional comedy writers, brainstorming and writing exercises, prompts, and assignments that will take your writing from nonexistent to shitty first draft to award-deserving.

Inside Jokes is a blend of writing guide, creativity bible, and therapy session with secrets that most writers learn through trial and error and professional humiliation. It’s for: People who are funny already People who worry they can never be funny People who've been asked to give a wedding toast (hot hip: mention ex-partners in a list of 3, 5, or 17) Writers who work across genres or want to learn Employees who just want to get one solid laugh in their department meeting Basically, Inside Jokes is The Artist's Way for the funny soul. Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel have taught thousands of classes to thousands of students at thousands of institutions, including people who are now writers for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Onion, Reductress, The New Yorker, film, TV, their own books, and more. Inside Jokes collects their experience, lectures, step-by-step replicable processes, and no-fail techniques to make comedy writing accessible to anyone with something to say.

“I guess it’s not enough that Caitlin and Elissa are both monstrously talented, hilarious writers; apparently they have to stick it to the rest of us by also being warm, big-hearted educators with a knack for breaking down the dark art of joke craft in a way that even a dummy like me can understand. Did I mention they’re both hot? RUDE.” ―Emily Flake, cartoonist for The New Yorker and author of That Was Awkward: The Art and Etiquette of the Awkward Hug

“I felt every emotion reading this book by Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel: joy, bliss, euphoria, horny, cheese-hunger, gigglefits, delirium, horny. Work wives Elissa and Caitlin are true comedy masters, alongside French clowns and a dog looking directly into the camera.” ―Janine Brito, writer and actor on Girls5Eva and Mr. Mayor