Humor

Instructor: Erik Deckers
Date: Saturday, June 7
Time: 1-4 p.m.
Location: IWC
Cost: $57 Nonmembers, $39 members, $33 student/teacher/senior members

Humor lives in the gap between the ridiculous and the real. It's the humorist who can wedge themselves firmly in that gap and tell the rest of the world what they find. It's not a gift, it's not innate, it's something anyone can learn and use in their own writing.

Many writers don't realize there is actually a formula to humor writing, and so they don't attempt it. But all the jokes you hear on TV or read in books or newspaper columns follow some part of the formula, and everyone had to learn it.

Long-time humor writer Erik Deckers will teach interested writers how to crack the humor formula in a single day session at the Writers Center. He'll show you five secrets to finding humor in almost every situation (including the ones you're not supposed to), and the techniques professionals use to "write funny" without resorting to tired clichés and stereotypes.