Begins Saturday, August 1, 2026

Class will meet once via Zoom on Saturday, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET

🌍 Class Times by Time Zone: Los Angeles (PDT): 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM / Chicago (CDT): 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM / New York (EDT): 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM / London (BST): 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM / Berlin (CEST): 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

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Instructor Bio

Instructor Caitlin Kunkel's writing has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and on public radio. She co-founded the comedy site The Belladonna, created the online satire writing program for The Second City, and co-created the Satire and Humor Festival. Her first co-written book, NEW EROTICA FOR FEMINISTS, was published by Penguin Random House and named one of the 10 best comedy books of the year by Vulture (NY Mag). INSIDE JOKES, a humor writing craft book, co-written with Elissa Bassist, is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing in 2026.

Who is this class for?

This online writing workshop is for fiction writers at all levels who want to make their novels and short stories funnier — from premise to protagonist to the sentence on the page. Whether you're drafting a comedic novel, trying to bring more humor into your literary fiction, or looking for tools to sharpen a short story you already have in motion, this generative seminar will give you a working comedy toolkit.

What to expect:

In this two-hour generative Zoom seminar, Caitlin Kunkel — co-author of the comedy craft book Inside Jokes: A Comedy and Creativity Guide for All Writers — will break down how to make your fiction laugh-out-loud funny, from your premise to your protagonist to your line-level writing. The class opens with an overview of comedic novel subgenres: speculative, hyperreal, satirical, dark, and absurd. From there, you'll move into the elements of a high-concept comedic premise and learn the questions and techniques that help bake comedy into a novel or short story idea from the start.

The seminar then turns to comedic protagonists in fiction, with a focus on how contradiction and irony can wring comedy out of your characters' thoughts and actions. The final segment zooms in on the levers you can pull to write funny at the scene and line level: setpieces, character interiority, description, and dialogue. Throughout, Caitlin draws on advice from the interviews she conducted with comedic novelists for Inside Jokes, along with examples from contemporary comedic novels and short fiction.

This creative writing workshop runs live via Zoom, with a recording provided for anyone who can't attend in real time. Expect concrete craft takeaways, generative exercises, and a practical framework you can apply to work you're already developing.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will leave with a working comedy toolkit for fiction: a sharper premise for a comedic novel or short story, a clearer sense of how to build a comedic protagonist, and a set of line-level techniques for punching up scenes, description, and dialogue. Students will participate in generative discussion and craft prompts throughout the seminar and take home reference material they can apply to drafts in progress.

Readings

Readings may include excerpts from The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, Less by Andrew Sean Greer, Temporary by Hilary Leichter, My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, Like This, But Funnier by Hallie Cantor, and short stories by Simon Rich and Jen Spyra.

Class is recorded if you cannot attend live.

COURSE OUTLINE

Segment 1: Comedic Novel Subgenres and High-Concept Premise — An overview of speculative, hyperreal, satirical, dark, and absurd comedy in contemporary fiction, followed by the elements of a high-concept comedic premise and the questions and techniques that help you bake comedy into a novel or short story idea.

Segment 2: Comedic Protagonists — How to build characters who are funny from the inside out, using contradiction and irony to generate comedy from their thoughts, decisions, and actions.

Segment 3: Writing Funny at the Scene and Line Level — The specific levers that make individual scenes and sentences land: setpieces, character interiority, description, and dialogue. Includes advice from Caitlin's interviews with comedic novelists for Inside Jokes and examples from modern comedic novels and short stories.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A framework for identifying and sharpening a high-concept comedic premise for a novel or short story
• Techniques for generating comedy from a protagonist's contradictions, irony, and interior life
• Scene- and line-level craft tools for writing funnier setpieces, description, and dialogue
• A working map of contemporary comedic novel subgenres and where your project fits
• Reference examples and takeaways from Caitlin's interviews with working comedic novelists

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $99 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Caitlin Kunkel
• Begins Saturday, August 1, 2026
• Class will meet once via Zoom on Saturday, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET
• Class is recorded if you cannot attend live.
• Tuition is $99 USD.