Bring in the Clowns: The Literary Uses of Humor with Rich Chiappone

Date: Saturday, November 15, 2025

Time: 10am-2pm AKT

Format: In Person | Kaladi Brothers Coffee Community Room, 6921 Brayton Dr, Ste 105, Anchorage, AK

Price: $80 for Members | $100 for Non-Members

Description:

If the first objective of any writer is to keep the reader reading (and it should be), there are only so many ways to make them turn the page. One of the most reliable is humor. Because everyone likes to smile.

In this interactive, hands-on workshop, we’ll look at examples from the funniest pros in each field, writers who know you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar; great humorists like T.C. Boyle, Elmore Leonard, and Flannery O’Connor in fiction, David Sedaris and Sloane Crosely in nonfiction, Billy Collins in poetry. We’ll talk about sarcasm, irony, parody, satire, impertinence, vulgarity, and all-encompassing foolishness.

Then we’ll look at our own work (bring pages) and see what we can borrow (steal) from the pros to make our writing more smile-inducing.

This course is open to members and non-members.

About the Instructor:

Rich Chiappone has been teaching writing classes for University of Alaska Anchorage since 1995. His short stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous mainstream magazines including Alaska Magazine, The Sun, and in literary journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, Catamaran Literary Reader, Mississippi Review, ZYZZYVA and others. He is the recipient of an Alaska State Council of the Arts literary writing award and grant, and has published three story collections, one essay collection, and one novel. His next novel will be published by Coffeetown Press of Seattle, an imprint of Epicenter Press.

Rich, a long-time writer of outdoor stories and essays is currently a contributing editor at Gray’s Sporting Journal. He lives in Homer with his wife, cat, and two goldfish–the only two fish in the world he hasn’t tried to catch with a rod and reel.