Continuing Education Course Finder: ENGCS08-1a

Laughing Matters: The Art and Craft of Humor Writing (ENGCS08-1a)

Status: Open

Fee: $400.00

Timing: 10 sessions from October 6, 2009 - December 8, 2009 on Tuesdays, 7:00-9:00pm

Course Description: Part workshop, part discussion, this course will cover the 3 P’s: the practical (finding your comic voice), the poetic (arranging the perfect words into the perfect order), and the philosophical (exploring the essence and elusiveness of humor).

Along with searching for ways in which we can make our writing more memorable, we’ll see how the strategic use of humor can help us when giving presentations and speeches, with interviewing, and with navigating ourselves through familiar (and not so familiar) social situations.

We’ll examine the various techniques for achieving humor on the page: exaggeration, juxtaposition, understatement, the rule of three, reversals, and wordplay. We’ll read humor pieces by Woody Allen, Julie Hecht, Dorothy Parker, Paul Rudnick, and David Sedaris. We’ll also look at sections from The Onion, sitcoms, and classic stage comedies. Weekly writing exercises will be assigned to help strengthen your funny bone, and guide you toward unearthing the comedian within.

Whether you write prose or poetry, emails or essays, blogs or biographies, this course will provide you with a sharper eye for details, a keener ear for the comedic, and a sophisticated knack for seeing the world through a comic lens. Open to all levels.

Instructor(s): Joe Caliguire

Instructor(s) Bio: Joe Caliguire is an MFA graduate of the Literary Arts program at Brown University. He has taught beginning and intermediate fiction at Brown, along with courses in the Summer & Continuing Studies program. Before arriving in Providence, Joe worked as a proofreader, copyeditor and fact-checker at dozens of publishing and advertising firms throughout Manhattan. His prose has been published in a handful of literary journals and was recently awarded Brown’s Weston Prize for Fiction. He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his short story “Closer.” Joe is now working on his first novel.