Inside Jokes: A Comedy and Creativity Manual for All Writers

by Caitlin Kunkel, Elissa Bassist

Overview

A step-by-step practical guide to all types of comedy writing, filled with invaluable advice, exercises, interviews, tools, and jokes that will turn anyone into a funnier writer and person, from authors/editors/teachers/perfect 10s Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel.

Comedy writing is hard. Or is it?

Not with INSIDE JOKES.

INSIDE JOKES is a masterclass in a book that teaches you how to write anything funnier, from short humor to essays to psychiatric in-take forms. Each chapter has technical and practical advice to turn comedy outsiders into insiders, comedy readers into writers, and nonfunny nonwriters into funny writers. Included at no extra cost: interviews with professional comedy writers, brainstorming and writing exercises, prompts, and assignments that will take your writing from nonexistent to shitty first draft to award-deserving.     
 
INSIDE JOKES is a blend of writing guide, creativity bible, and therapy session with secrets that most writers learn through trial and error and professional humiliation. It’s the The Artist's Way for the funny soul. 

Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel have taught thousands of classes to thousands of students at thousands of institutions, including people who are now writers for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Onion, Reductress, The New Yorker, film, TV, their own books, and more, a lot more. They’ve taught nationally and internationally at universities, improv centers, writing conferences, and popular online schools. INSIDE JOKES collects their experience, lectures, step-by-step replicable processes, and no-fail techniques to make comedy writing accessible to anyone with something to say. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538770771
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	03/10/2026
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Elissa Bassist is the author of the memoir Hysterical, a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the creator of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus. She’s worked in media and publishing since 2007, as a managing editor, an associate editor, an assistant editor, a TV and film writer’s assistant, a producer, a performer, a speaker, and a barista. Her humor and sad essays have appeared in over 30 publications and anthologies, and she’s taught for over 20 writing programs. Elissa lives in Brooklyn and is probably her therapist’s favorite.

Caitlin Kunkel is the co-author of the gift book New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay and co-founder of the comedy and satire site The Belladonna. Her comedy writing has appeared on public radio and in The New Yorker's “Shouts & Murmurs,” The New York Times, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Caitlin created The Second City’s online satire writing program that has trained and continues to train thousands of writers. She co-founded the Satire and Humor Festival, was named one of the “Fifteen of the Best Humorists Writing Today” by Paste Magazine, and serves as a judge for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. She was raised in the wilds of Rhode Island.
 

Editorial Reviews

Elissa and Caitlin are incredibly knowledgeable and giving. I loved their classes. I’ve taken writing classes before, but theirs was the most inspiring and real-world helpful. I love that they’re bringing their skills to a wider audience. No one should live without this book.”—Sarah Cooper, comedian and author of Foolish

“I absolutely, 100%, would not have sold my book without Caitlin's guidance and advice. My editor and agent both were like, ‘Wow your proposal was so great!’ and I was like, ‘I truly cannot take credit…’” —Taylor Kay Phillips, Emmy Award-winning writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and author of A Midwestern Guide to Conversation

“I guess it’s not enough that Caitlin and Elissa are both monstrously talented, hilarious writers; apparently they have to stick it to the rest of us by also being warm, big-hearted educators with a knack for breaking down the dark art of joke craft in a way that even a dummy like me can understand. Did I mention they’re both hot? RUDE.”—Emily Flake, cartoonist for The New Yorker and author of That Was Awkward: The Art and Etiquette of the Awkward Hug

“I felt every emotion reading this book by Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel: joy, bliss, euphoria, horny, cheese-hunger, gigglefits, delirium, horny. Work wives Elissa and Caitlin are true comedy masters, alongside French clowns and a dog looking directly into the camera.”—Janine Brito, writer and actor on Girls5Eva and Mr. Mayor

“It is easy to know when something is funny (man falls down, a dog wears those weird socks for the snow, that painting of Jesus that Spanish lady “restored”). It is much harder to craft something funny. I can’t think of anyone funnier, better, or kinder to break down the unholy mix of alchemy, science, and necromancy required to craft a funny thing than Caitlin Kunkel and Elissa Bassist.”—Felipe Torres Medina, Emmy Award-winning writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

From the Publisher