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Send in the Clowns: Using Humor for Emotional Impact
About This Event
Many people believe that tragedy is a higher art than comedy, but those people are wrong. When skillfully applied, humor can illuminate the human condition just as much as—if not more than— solemnity. In this one-night workshop, we’ll look at how to apply humor in every genre with the aim of adding complexity to our voices, depth to our characterizations, and sophistication to our themes. In particular, we’ll explore how, paradoxically, the effective deployment of comedy can make the sad parts of our writing even sadder and how levity can actually lead to greater gravity. As Kuno Fischer said all the way back in 1889, a joke “must bring forward something that is concealed or hidden.” Thus, through readings of short examples of funny writing followed by generative prompts, participants will walk away with techniques that will allow them to reveal hidden potential already present in their work.
Featured Author
Kathleen Rooney
Kathleen Rooney is the nationally bestselling author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, as well as Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and From Dust to Stardust. She has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from Poetry magazine and the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books. Kathleen’s criticism can be found in The New York Times, the Star Tribune (Minneapolis), The Brooklyn Rail, Chicago magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and beyond. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University.
About the Venue
Bookends & Beginnings
Eclectic indie store in the heart of downtown Evanston. New & used books and gifts. With an outstanding cookbook section and kids’ books in foreign languages.
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