 | | Photo: Satire and Humor Festival | | |
If you’re a comedy writer of any kind, you might want to get to New York this weekend. That’s when the Magnet Theater and Caveat will host the inaugural Satire and Humor Festival — three days of discussions, panels, workshops, and readings about how to make really great written comedy. We talked with organizers James Folta (editor-in-chief of Points in Case), Caitlin Kunkel (co-founder of the Belladonna), and Tulio Espinoza (artistic assistant at the Del Close Marathon) to get an idea of what one can expect and what one can gain from this here Satire and Humor Festival. What inspired you to start all this?
Folta: All three of us are deeply invested in the world of humor writing, and I think we had a sense that there was a community of writers and fans of written humor that is scattered across print and online publications, not to mention Twitter and other social media. I think writing can be a bit lonely at times and comedy writers aren’t typically the most gregarious, so we want to build a tent for a weekend that we can all hang out under. Kunkel:I created the online satire writing program for Second City, and as that course track continued to grow and expand, I knew hundreds and eventually thousands of people who were writing satire and humor on their own, looking to make connections with other writers in this form for feedback and community. The three of us wanted to create an event where people could meet the writers of some of their favorite pieces and see who they vibe with in person to potentially co-write and work together in the future. So what’s the big idea here?
Espinoza: Our main goal is to make humor and satire writing more accessible (that’s the theme of this first year), and we tried to invite people to our panels and shows who could offer that in a variety of forms — explaining submission processes for late-night shows, discussing editing for New Yorker–style pieces, writers who could speak to how they improved over the course of their careers. We really tried to include as many people as we could from different backgrounds — from TV writers, to stage writing, to online and print satire writing, to authors of humor books — in order for our festival attendees to get the best and broadest experience possible. Who’s going to be there?
Folta:On Saturday, March 23, we have Emma Allen, The New Yorker’s editor of “Shouts & Murmurs” and cartoons, in conversation with the hilarious Jen Spyra, who writes for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and has also written for the Onion. Right after that (on the same ticket) we have a diversity panel (moderated by Tulio) with Milly Tamarez (Flexx, DaF Festival), Karen Chee (Late Night With Seth Meyers), X Mayo (The Daily Show), Taryn Englehart (Problem Areas With Wyatt Cenac), Felipe Torres (McSweeney’s), and Evan Waite (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). Kunkel: That night, we have a Supersized Evening of Humorous Readings, which will include prolific New Yorker writer Riane Konc; Amateur Hour author Kimberly Harrington; comedian and author of How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings Sarah Cooper; McSweeney’s extraordinaire Colin Nissan, and writers of various shows, like River Clegg and Chrissy Shackelford. Folta: On Sunday, Caitlin is moderating a panel on writing, selling, and promoting humor books at Magnet Theater. We also have a weekend-long comedy bookstore at Caveat. That evening, we have the final programming block at Caveat, which is a Writing for the Screen panel, where we speak with writers from Full Frontal (Nicole Silverberg and Mike Drucker), along with other shows. Following that, the final event (on the same ticket) is a networking social hour — we’re bringing in editors, illustrators, and writers from across the spectrum so attendees can meet and ask them questions. Then we’re done by 5:30 p.m. so we can all go home and sleep — it’s a lot of socializing for introverts! How will this differ from other writers’ conferences?
Espinoza: This is, to my knowledge, the first festival in New York dedicated solely to satire and humor writing. We wanted to be as specific as we could, and we’re looking at the Satire and Humor festival as a way to complement the other comedy and writing events in NYC — as an additional tool to have. We also kept the price point pretty low ($75 for all six panels/performances) as a way to try [to draw] a variety of people. What do you hope attendees get out of it?
Kunkel: I love to hear about process and people’s creative journeys, so I’m looking forward to hearing the plethora of different ways people came to write for TV, The New Yorker, how they came up with ideas for viral pieces, where their careers have taken unexpected turns, etc. All that stuff is catnip to me. Folta: We’re hoping folks get to laugh and hang out with like-minded comedy fans. We’re also hoping this will be a chance for people to share and inspire each other — there is so much knowledge and energy in the writing community and we’re hoping that this festival will help attendees find some new tools and connections. If some new writing projects and writer’s groups come out of this, we’ll be over the damn moon. What are the unique challenges of writing humor and satire in 2019, when real life is a darkly comic nightmare?
Espinoza: Topical humor has become a challenge, and I am constantly outraged by the state of the world. As a Venezuelan immigrant living in the U.S., there’s very little about the news cycle that I find particularly funny, and everyone has a hot take within seconds anyway — or everyone is trying to explain my own experience to me, which is incredibly frustrating. My identity is being kind of pulled apart by the reality of leaving my home country and by my life in the U.S., so I’ve tried to pull from the dualities and contradictions of my own life to try and write more universal or evergreen pieces that speak to that reality. Kunkel: I’m angrier than ever, and so are a lot of other writers. I want writers with more diverse backgrounds and points of view than we have traditionally had writing satire and humor to be able to write about their lived experiences. I personally think gatekeeping and lack of information is still a massive issue in this field, and so starting a festival like this with James and Tulio is a way and try to bring more voices into it. The Satire and Humor Festival runs March 22-24. More info available right here. Subscribe for $5 and get unlimited digital access to Vulture, New York, Intelligencer, the Cut, and Grub Street. | 
