COVER REVEAL Designed by Natalie Peeples Written with @caitlinkunkel.bsky.social The first-ever comedy writing craft book for humorists, satirists, essayists, memoirists, novelists, and everyone else August 4, 2026 Preorder: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eliss...

INTRODUCING: monthly virtual writing sessions, via Substack subscription, on topics like: short humor & satire funny personal essays memoir tragicomedy being funny when nothing is funny watching TV to write better the art of rejection dismantling patriarchy elissabassist.substack.com/p/a-life-cha...

I don't know who needs to hear this but elissabassist.substack.com/p/declare-em...

Don’t threaten us with a good time

EVERYTHING IS BAD. Let's write about it. Take my new seminar to use your fears, secrets, lies, truths, and farts to write more and better in order to survive life right now (and win writing awards). writingworkshops.com/collections/...

Learn to write funny stuff about your life in @elissabassist.bsky.social's @storystudiochicago.bsky.social class, no matter how unfunny your life your life may feel sometimes… One class, Zoom, May 1! www.storystudiochicago.org/classes/clas...

Attended a *fabulous* online seminar last night on writing comedic memoir, run by @elissabassist.bsky.social (take her classes!!). Was reminded that she has a book on comedy writing called INSIDE JOKES forthcoming with @caitlinkunkel.bsky.social—can’t wait!

Next class 4/26: one of my favs, Write Like an Athlete! We mix creativity with sports psychology concepts to create a warmup routine, tinker with your environment + explore goal setting, tapering, and lots of other elements. Two hours, recorded if you can't come live, and you get the slides after!

Send us some shit. Open 4/20 - ???. we pay $150 for prestigious works of literary merit. We got the Paris Review at home and it's called the Taco Bell Quarterly, just as good, cheaper, actually free and completely made up

I'm teaching at The Kennedy Center. A staff member and I started planning this class last April. After T**** took over and fired the board and senior staff this month, I could have canceled my class. 1/?

My friend fixed her daughter's homework:

This is the first short humor class I've taught in years—I've refined it down to 2 hours while writing INSIDE JOKES with @elissabassist.bsky.social! On Zoom, you'll get the slides/recording after if you can't make it, learn a repeatable process to brainstorm, draft, and rewrite a short humor piece.

I made a list!

tbh "do whatever you want" would be a helpful statement to tattoo on myself

Not caring what other people think is a writing skill. Please read/share/frame/tattoo/memorize:

You know you’ve found the right person when they buy you a spot in @elissabassist.bsky.social’s workshop on writing a/b violence as an early v-day present. How’d I get so lucky with you, @kevinrmaloney.bsky.social ??? (P.S. her workshops are lit. Highly recommend. Join me?)

Stop worrying and entrust @caitlinkunkel.bsky.social to help you WRITE THAT BOOK PROPOSAL Feb 8th: www.writingco-lab.com/classes/stop...

This is a late addition to my favorite books I’ve read this year. @elissabassist.bsky.social artfully weaves research, literature, and media criticism in with her personal story and it’s phenomenal.

"Preserve Energy: We have a finite amount. And decision fatigue is real (so wear the same writing outfit, which is a robe, every day)." Funny and very practical #writingtips from Elissa Bassist

I'm taking a comedy writing class w/ the hilarious @elissabassist.bsky.social & it's giving me so much confidence that I (an overly earnest person) can be funny in print. My plan with this new power? Trick people into reading a funny story only for them to realize (too late) they learned science.

Last class of the year: Comedy Writing for Non-Comedians! Learn to use the tools of comedy to write funnier copy, emails, dating profiles, speeches, and whatever else you need to spice up. Sunday, 12/8 online, but you can also sign up and watch the recording later. Details here:

I made a starter pack of humor and satire publications as they start to come over to Bluesky—let me know additional ones I should add!

When I was on maternity leave I created a referral sheet of people I recommend for fiction, book proposal, humor, and satire feedback and editing—sharing it here in case people are looking for these resources now: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Happy publication anniversary to my first (and only!) humor piece about (the chaos of) querying a novel. Pubbing with @therumpus.bsky.social was one of my big-dream goals last year, and I so enjoyed working with @elissabassist.bsky.social 🥰

It’s really pretty cool that one thing you can do to support people you like is ask your local library to get their book because it doesn’t cost you anything, it helps them, and the librarian gets to know someone actually wants to read a book and not just use the computer for Roblox

Goodreads is owned by Amazon & there is an AMAZING alternative‼️ The StoryGraph is a black women-owned competitor to GoodReads with better UI in my opinion. When you sign up you can even transfer your data from Goodreads to StoryGraph!