79 Writing Jobs, Internships, Volunteer Opps, Fellowships, Pitch Calls, and More
Jobs for Writers (3.14.25) | How to break into the world of satire; $500 for pitches on writing breakthroughs; open opps at Write or Die, A Public Space, and more
Welcome to Sub Club’s Jobs for Writers!
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How to Break In
For this week’s How to Break In, I chatted with Amy Estes, a writer and freelance satire writing teacher. I fully and totally admit that my interest was selfish: I love all things comedy and haha, and I’ve been longing to feature someone in that space—the haha space, as I will now be calling it.
Amy, for her part, has been in the haha space (I already know this isn’t catching on, but I will persist) for as long as she can remember. “I was raised in a family where jokes were currency and teasing was encouraged, and I’ve always had a good sense of humor,” she wrote. And now? “I've found that being a satirist is helpful in nearly every area of my life,” Amy said. “Having a sense of humor while teaching middle school is imperative and learning to creatively satirize everything has made me a better and more thoughtful writer.”
Below, Amy walks us through what one of her satire classes looks like, the difference between satire and personal essays that are just funny, and how she juggles teaching 7th and 8th grade English full-time with a low-residency MFA. Phew. Maybe… one can have it all?
rachael vaughan clemmons: When did you start getting interested in satire and humor?
Amy Estes: I don't know if there's an identifiable moment when I turned to humor writing, but I started performing stand-up comedy in 2017 as an outlet for my rage, to be heckled by strangers, and to get drink tickets for free Diet Coke (I don't drink). I completed the full Writing Satire for the Internet class series at Second City to strengthen my joke writing, and it was hard: I'd never struggled with writing the way I did with satire.
Satire differs from being funny. The best satire is smart, witty, and irreverent instead of just being sarcastic or cruel. It took me a while to understand the difference and to be able to write satire effectively. It uses a different part of my brain, and I like the challenge.
I like a challenge, so I kept at it until I was published. My first publication [was] in McSweeney's: "I Am The Trader Joe's Parking Lot. I Am Here To Destroy You." Since then, I have been published multiple times in McSweeney's and on other humor publications.
rvc: Satire and humor have so many similarities, but they’re also distinct from one another. How do you know when something is more suited to satire versus something like a humorous personal essay?
AE: Humorous personal essays tend to be easier because they are usually taken from real life. Humor is my strongest coping mechanism, and my humor can be dark. Even in challenging or sad moments, I can usually find something to laugh at. I'll take notes on it and ruminate on the events until I can make meaning from it or use it in a larger piece.
Because I'm mining my own life, it's easier—I've been querying a memoir of humorous essays that takes the tragic-comic traumatic experiences I've had and developed them into cogent pieces about everything from my disastrous wedding night as a virginal Christian raised in purity culture to the agony of learning to be kinder to myself. If something happens that I want to remember to write about, I make notes on it and wait until I have enough distance to lean into the funny moments and develop it further. For example, I wrote about my second date with my now-wife in which I mentioned that I'd read an article about a man who enjoys sex with horses (it was on The Cut! I'm not insane!). It took me some time to figure out why it was meaningful and not just funny, but eventually, it became one of my favorite things I've ever written.
For satire, I like to think about things that make me angry and build on them. I got the idea for my first McSweeney's publication,"I Am a Trader Joe's Parking Lot and I Am Here to Destroy You"from the blistering rage I feel every time I go. Instead of doing a rant, I decided to personify the parking lot itself for a short imagined monologue. It was silly, but it struck a nerve—it still goes viral every once in a while and even though it's a first-world silly problem, I'm not alone.
The most serious satire piece I've written is "How To Be A Good Fat Friend". When I existed in a fat body, I got tired of the way that my "friends" discussed my body, and the incredibly wild things that people say to you when you're fat, and ways to "be good" at being the fat friend. I've lost a significant amount of weight recently, so now I'm currently working on a piece about what it feels like to lose weight and hear the comments people make about that. The role of body and body image is something that I have a lot of feelings about!
In short: if it's a funny story from my own life that I can narrate, I'll save it for a humorous essay; if it pisses me off, I'll try to find a way to satirize it.
rvc: How did you end up teaching satire?
AE: I had an in from my instructors [at Second City] who became friends. They knew I had a lot of experience teaching and teaching writing (to MIDDLE SCHOOLERS!) so I could probably run an asynchronous class fairly well. They passed my name on to Second City, and I was trained to teach using their curriculum and methods. I've been teaching for them since 2020.
Later, someone who had taken my class at Second City suggested me for teaching at The Porch. I've taught other writing classes for them, too, and taught satire writing privately and for other opportunities.
rvc: Can you walk us through what your satire classes look like?
AE: At the start of class, I focus on helping students find what makes them angry (even the petty stuff), then guide them to turn those rants into sharp satire. While we brainstorm, we look at a variety of pieces in different formats. Typically, I try to pick multiple formats for students to see: lists, open letters, and short imagined monologues so that we can take them apart and see what it is that makes us laugh and what makes the piece effective satire. Humor is personal and specific, so there are frequently different opinions on whether or not a piece is successful, which is helpful!
From there, we focus on getting a first draft down. Once we have writing to work with, I like to look at their pieces and make sure they're satirical and not just funny! We work on heightening jokes, tightening language, making sure the piece ends with a great final joke, and cutting what doesn't work. Students share work so they can help each other punch up their jokes and offer new perspectives.
Right now, I’m on a break from teaching while I finish my MFA—I'm at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and I'm a dual-genre student, so I will graduate in July with a degree in fiction and CNF—and I miss it. My favorite thing about teaching satire is watching my students succeed. Some students are great at satire right off the bat, and that's always fun to see; however, I love it when people work hard and see the ideas click and turn into great finished pieces. When students share that they've gotten published, I am almost as excited as they are. It's so rewarding!
rvc: Was there anything specific that made you think that this was the perfect time to go for your MFA?
AE: After I'd published some satire and performed stand-up for a few years, I took some TV writing classes to nurture my short-lived dreams of being in a writer's room. I've been a middle school English teacher my entire adult life and I love the kids (and the stability), so I decided against pursuing a job in a writer's room more seriously, but screenwriting classes helped me hone my skills in storytelling. That experience reminded me of how much I loved writing as a kid and helped me develop a regular writing practice.
In 2020, I applied and was accepted to a year-long memoir writing class taught by the brilliant Megan Stielstra which gave me a focus for a long-form project and helped me find my voice. Megan built my confidence as a writer and showed me that this "silly hobby" that I was reasonably good at in school could be something more in my life. I was accepted to Kenyon's Writing Workshop in 2022, and I had the chance to work with the incredible Melissa Faliveno, and a group of writers that I still trade work with. That week changed my life and made me want to pursue an MFA.
With Melissa and Megan's encouragement, I decided to apply to some programs. I attend a low-residency program, so I don't get to do it all the time, but I do get to spend a lot of time doing it! So much of an MFA program is about being able to write and create on your own, and I'm glad I waited until I had developed some of that on my own. I don't know what I will do with my MFA or if it was the "right time" but I'm leaving having written the majority of a humorous memoir-in-essays and a solid draft of a novel that I'm proud of.
rvc: Where do you want to go from here, career- or writing-wise?
AE: My long-term goal is to publish a novel. The novel I'm working on is not necessarily humorous; however, the memoir-in-essays I'm working on is a collection of humorous essays. Writing humor helped me learn how to do that.
I am also still teaching middle school full-time, and plan to potentially move into administration next year. Freelancing is not the life I want (I'm a boring Taurus with Virgo rising!) so I will likely stay in a "safe" job. But writing humor is fun, and teaching it is awesome.
While I don't have ambitious goals of being a TV writer (though I did, temporarily!) and I quit doing stand-up, I do hope to keep teaching humor writing in some capacity when I finish my MFA. We need laughter, especially now. And satire is a language of the oppressed, a language that needs to be used and shouted right now in this world.
rvc: Lastly, do you have any advice for people who might want to pursue satire—either as a writer or as a teacher?
AE: Read a lot of satire. I read McSweeney's regularly because it's my favorite and the work is consistently funny and sharp. I think taking a class is the most helpful thing, and there are so many amazing satirists to learn from right now: Caitlin Kunkel, Elissa Bassist, Carlos Greaves, and Luke Burns come to mind (and little old me when I start back up). I think it's helpful to find a class and connect with other people who are writing satire and trade work. Also, SUBMIT! Get your work out there, see what editors say whether they accept or reject it, revise it, and send it elsewhere. Conversely, I think it's wise to make sure that you're only submitting the best, especially if you're sending work to the same editor repeatedly. I frequently share Chris Monks' (the editor of McSweeney's) article "Don't Be a Jerk to Your Online Humor Editor" for good tips and tricks.
In terms of teaching, there are so many amazing places that are offering online classes — many of them accept pitches for classes. Satire is not offered as frequently as it could (or should) be so if you're a successful satirist, reach out and ask them about how to start teaching for them!
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79 Writing Jobs, Internships, Lit Mag Opps, Fellowships, Pitch Calls, and More
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