August 24th, 2009 / 10:09 am
 Uncategorized

What’s Up, Rumpus? Looking for Funny Women–PLUS–Stephen Elliott Explains Why He Writes

funnygirl460

OPEN CALL: The Rumpus is looking for funny women:

Elissa Bassist talks about the under-representation of women in humor. Her consideration of this trend happily includes links to all seven (only seven!) female-authored Shouts & Murmurs columns of the past year. After you’ve read about the problem, you, too, will likely be hankering for a solution. Well, be your own solution! That is, if you’re a woman, and if you’re funny. Read the Guidelines for Funny Women Submissions to the Daily Rumpus . It says the deadline is September 15th, and then the “additional deadline” is never, because you should never stop writing. I’m not sure if that means this Funny Women thing will recur at Rumpus or if it just means you should love and believe in yourself–but stop bothering Elissa about it after September. Seems like the easiest thing to do would be to write something funny now, and not have to worry about it later. But that’s just me–and I don’t qualify.

Also, this is less by women, and less funny, then above, but it’s still really good. From “Why I Write,” by Stephen Elliott (click thru quote to essay).

In my junior year I dropped out of college to go to Amsterdam, where I found work as a barker for a live sex show. I wrote my first short story about that experience and, back at school, entered it in the undergraduate fiction contest. The story won first place out of 80 entries. One of the professors told me it was a good story, “but I can tell you’ve never been to Amsterdam.” I laughed at him. But now I can see what he means. The Amsterdam in the story wasn’t real—it lacked the specificity of detail that brings a location to life. But it was different from the other stories in the contest.

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21 Comments

  1. August 25th, 2009 / 12:17 am jereme—

      the problem is women do not know how to be funny. most female humor alienates a male audience. lisa lampanelli is the only woman i can think of in the comedy realm who does not fit the stereotype.

      i wish more women would be like lisa and less like judy tenuta.

  2. August 24th, 2009 / 8:17 pm jereme—

      the problem is women do not know how to be funny. most female humor alienates a male audience. lisa lampanelli is the only woman i can think of in the comedy realm who does not fit the stereotype.

      i wish more women would be like lisa and less like judy tenuta.

  3. August 25th, 2009 / 12:50 am chelsea martin—

      dick

  4. August 24th, 2009 / 8:50 pm chelsea martin—

      dick

  5. August 25th, 2009 / 1:13 am elizabeth ellen—

      haha. see, chelsea’s funny, jeremy. i wish more men would suck my dick.

  6. August 24th, 2009 / 9:13 pm elizabeth ellen—

      haha. see, chelsea’s funny, jeremy. i wish more men would suck my dick.

  7. August 25th, 2009 / 1:59 am reynard seifert—

      is that chelsea martin in the photo?

  8. August 24th, 2009 / 9:59 pm reynard seifert—

      is that chelsea martin in the photo?

  9. August 25th, 2009 / 7:26 pm Gian—

      Does anyone know why some comments are posted at The Rumpus and some are not? They don’t screen them, do they? I’ve sent a few in and they have only published one of them. I haven’t been weird in any of them either.

      No one’s probably going to look at this post again anyway so fuck it.

  10. August 25th, 2009 / 3:26 pm Gian—

      Does anyone know why some comments are posted at The Rumpus and some are not? They don’t screen them, do they? I’ve sent a few in and they have only published one of them. I haven’t been weird in any of them either.

      No one’s probably going to look at this post again anyway so fuck it.

  11. August 25th, 2009 / 7:41 pm Lincoln—

      The Rumpus does moderate comments.

  12. August 25th, 2009 / 3:41 pm Lincoln—

      The Rumpus does moderate comments.

  13. August 25th, 2009 / 7:51 pm Gian—

      Okay. Weird. I don’t think I wrote anything bad. Maybe they don’t like me.

  14. August 25th, 2009 / 3:51 pm Gian—

      Okay. Weird. I don’t think I wrote anything bad. Maybe they don’t like me.

  15. August 25th, 2009 / 8:06 pm Gian—

      Do they ban people too?

  16. August 25th, 2009 / 4:06 pm Gian—

      Do they ban people too?

  17. August 25th, 2009 / 8:09 pm Lincoln—

      ha man I don’t knwo about all that. I assume they just moderate for racism and stuff like that. But a lot of sites like that have spam filters, so maybe yours is going in the spam folder for some reason (like using a fake email address that looks like spam to the computer?)

      This is just general speculation not specific to the rumpus

  18. August 25th, 2009 / 4:09 pm Lincoln—

      ha man I don’t knwo about all that. I assume they just moderate for racism and stuff like that. But a lot of sites like that have spam filters, so maybe yours is going in the spam folder for some reason (like using a fake email address that looks like spam to the computer?)

      This is just general speculation not specific to the rumpus

  19. August 27th, 2009 / 4:09 pm little vamp « Good Jobbbbbbbbb—

      […] aspect. Funny male writers can stray into neutered Demetri Martin territory more easily. [link] [attribution […]

  20. September 11th, 2009 / 7:59 pm Elissa Bassist—

      Hi Justin,

      I just wanted to let you and your readers know that Stephen and I decided to make the “contest” a new Rumpus column (because contests end and columns rarely die). I want people to bother me all the months of the year. I updated our submission guidelines to reflect these recent changes (I just turned into a corporate robot for that sentence): http://therumpus.net/2009/08/funny-women-submission-guidelines/.

      Thanks for spreading the word–

      Elissa

  21. September 11th, 2009 / 3:59 pm Elissa Bassist—

      Hi Justin,

      I just wanted to let you and your readers know that Stephen and I decided to make the “contest” a new Rumpus column (because contests end and columns rarely die). I want people to bother me all the months of the year. I updated our submission guidelines to reflect these recent changes (I just turned into a corporate robot for that sentence): http://therumpus.net/2009/08/funny-women-submission-guidelines/.

      Thanks for spreading the word–

      Elissa