Tips On Writing and Publishing Funny Personal Essays
Some things I've learned, tips from others, and a few places to submit
Today’s post is part of my “Writing Resources and Tips” section. Friendly reminder that if you are not interested in writing topics you can adjust your subscription preferences by visiting this link and toggling off any sections that don’t interest you.
Also, I’m going to run a humor writing challenge in January where we write one funny line a day. Interested? Learn more about it here.
My origin story for writing funny personal essays is probably familiar to other writers of the form: I was inspired to try them after reading a collection of essays by David Sedaris. I had studied fiction writing and journalism as an undergrad but was unaware of the humourous personal essay genre, and Sedaris’s books introduced me to it.
I was living in Seattle then and went to a bookstore signing with Sedaris where I got the inscription above and remember that he was allowed to smoke in the store (the early aughts were a wild time!).
This is a long way of saying I have been writing and submitting humorous essays for a long time and have found some things that help with publishing them.
In this post, I’m going to share some of my tips, share tips from other funny essay writers, and highlight some potential markets to submit to.
Tips for writing funny essays for mainstream markets
The below tips are specific to essays you want to submit for publication in mainstream markets. There are plenty of other venues for essays (like Substack, contests, or lit mags) but these tips are specific to essays for publications geared at more general audiences because those are the type of funny essays I most frequently write.
A funny essay isn’t just an anecdote
Shortly after starting to (try to) write humorous essays I moved to New York, took my first humor writing class, and learned some more techniques and tips on submitting.
This led to me publishing a couple of humorous essays (like this one and this one), but my rejection rate was high and I found it hard to find a lot of places that ran personal essays if you were not already a person famous for writing funny personal essays.
Several years later I had an aha moment while reading the book Naked, Drunk, and Writing. In it, Lara discusses the difference between a funny anecdote and an essay.
Plenty of people have stories that are good funny anecdotes to tell at a party but they don’t make for good essays because there is no change, realization, or takeaway in them.
I had previously been building a lot of essays around funny stories and sometimes I could pull off making some meaning or a full piece out of them, but when I shifted to focus on what change, realization, or takeaway could come from the funny story I had more success in selling them.
Sometimes the anecdote can be a part of a funny essay, but it often doesn’t cut it on its own. And I think starting from an epiphany or change you had about something is just a good technique for personal essays whether they are funny or not.
In fact, now the first draft of an essay I write is typically not all that funny but I go back in and add humor to it when revising.
There are different kinds of personal essays out there and more literary ones don’t need to be so obvious about stating the takeaway but many of the mainstream markets want them and sometimes even hint at it in the headline (e.g. “I had X experience. Here’s What I Learned From It.")
Most mainstream digital markets want short pieces
There are some exceptions, but most mainstream online markets want something in the 600 to 800-word range so it’s better to aim for that if your goal is to submit to those markets. This is not a lot of words so you’ve got to get in and out quickly.
When I started out writing funny essays I was writing longer ones which I think made them harder to place. Places like lit mags or Modern Love go a bit longer, but a lot of digital markets seem to want shorter ones.
Essays can have varying amounts of humor
I think when people hear “funny essay” they sometimes imagine something where the subject is light and it is packed with jokes. But the amount of humor in humorous essays can vary.
I often try to get at least a little humor into the essays I write (and sadly some of this humor gets cut in the editing process) but it’s sometimes only one or two jokes. I think being open to writing pieces with different amounts of humor can help sell pieces.
Studying writers whose styles you like to see how they are using humor can also help get an idea of the different ranges of humorous essays.
Sometimes finding a home for something takes time
When I was first starting out, I took some personal essay writing classes and wrote and refined several pieces but some of those pieces took a long time to sell. I would submit and revise and then submit again.
One such piece was this one that I wrote about my time working at Amazon in the early days of the company. I had been revising and submitting it for years when a timely hook about the company popped up and it was finally accepted. (Also Salon is a site that is willing to go a bit longer in some of the essays they run.)
Humorous essay craft tips from people who are not me
I asked for tips on writing humorous essays from readers in a previous newsletter and got some good craft tips:
Humor writer and teacher Sarah Garfinkel said
“1) I like to start with a small embarrassing moment and then think of everything that exists in the world of that moment, so the reader gets a peek into how I felt in that moment, even if it was only a split second and the essay is hundreds of words! I also like to share the personal/social stakes to heighten the details and add goofiness.
2) In addition to teaching, I’m a freelance editor! I’ve edited hundreds of personal essays (funny, serious, and combo!)—feel free to reach out if you’d like support with drafting/revising/editing/encouragement!”
Humor writer, teacher, and Substackerwrites funny personal essay and wrote the tragicomic memoir Hysterical. She outlined her top tips for humor writing in this post.
I co-sign her first tip in the list:
“Stop telling yourself you’re not funny. Stop thinking it. Stop right now.”
Writer Andrea Askowitz who has written funny essays said:
“Let your humor come as a surprise. So, instead of writing witty sentences, that can come across as trying too hard, tell what happened from your uniquely funny point of view.”
Markets for funny personal essays
I think that most markets that publish personal essays are open to essays with some element of humor in them. How much humor probably depends on the topic and the market but because so many personal essays often deal with heavier subject matter I think humor is often welcome. And even serious topics can mix humor in.
Here are a few potential markets:
Insider has been running a lot of personal essays lately and some have humor in them. Several editors there frequently publish calls for submissions on Twitter and the site has a useful How to Pitch guide online.
Huff Post Personal runs a lot of personal essays and they have been known to run humorous ones (like this one). Here are their submission guidelines and Freelance Writing Direct, the podcast
co-hosts, has a helpful episode with one of the editors that you should check out here.Romper and Bustle will run essays with humorous elements and they both have good online pitching guides: Romper Guide and Bustle Guide [Fun fact: I once met with an editor for Bustle at a freelancing conference and she recommended freelancers look at the online guide and I then used it to successfully pitch them, so it really does outline what they want].
There are many more markets that run personal essays and the best way to learn about them is to read potential publications that might be a good fit for the topic of your essay. I see essays in travel pubs, food pubs, and many other types of pubs.
If you want a compiled list of some options, I’ve got a pitching guide for over 40 publications for paying subscribers here.
The two other things that can help are:
Twitter editor calls for pitches. I am currently spending very little time on Twitter, so I subscribe to Sonia Weisner’s Opportunities of the Week newsletter to get pitches emailed to me to save me time searching for them. You can also search Twitter to try find editor names/older pitch calls to get ideas on where to send things.
Following other funny writers who publish personal essays to see where they are publishing. I think this is especially helpful if you can do it for writers who have a similar style to you and who are not super-famous. Samantha Irby and David Sedaris are both great, but at this point in their careers, they can probably publish a lot of places that may be harder to break into for other writers.
Pitching help
If you need more tips on pitching, I wrote more about pitching personal essays and included a successful example of mine in this post.
Do you have other funny essay-writing tips or questions? Feel free to post them in the comments.
Just chiming in to say it's a MUST to bring/buy a book to a David Sederis show/appearance. He writes personalized messages or drawings for every person! And it's fun to stand in line and listen to the conversations he has with attendees.
This is incredibly helpful thank-you. It's the genre I'm into and have completed a series of essays about aging, 'My eyebrows have jumped ship,' and looking to publish. I'm going to check out your recommendations.