Kurt Pankau Dot Com

🤐 I'll Never Forget About Larry... As I've mentioned a few times, I work with a lot of new writers, and something that happens not-infrequently is that someone has joined the group because they want to write their memoirs. And I'm not one to talk down to someone who wants to develop their craft as a writer. If someone just wants to collect the stories of their life and are planning to self-publish it and only their family is going to read it (but I repeat myself), that's fine . But if you are actually hoping to make some money from your writing, there's something you're going to need to come to grips with... No One Wants to Read Your Goddamn Memoir Before the pedants descend upon me, let me acknowledge that the words "memoir" and "memoirs" mean different things even though most people use them interchangeably. Technically a memoir is an individual story, and a memoirs is a collection of them. I tend to use whichever word feels right in the m

✒️ But I Want to be a Paperback Writer... Hey all, couple of things coming up that I wanted to throw at y'all. A.I., M.D. has been reprinted in the Spring 2024 Dragon Gems Anthology . This story about a misanthropic medical robot originally ran in Unidentified Funny Objects Vol. 8 . Next weekend I will be attending 4th Street Fantasy  and will be appearing on the 10:00am Sunday panel Dwelling on Redemption  alongside Aja McCullough, Aimee Kuzenski, Vivian Shaw, and John Wiswell. If you're there, come say hi! A new story called A Pin Drops is in the June issue of  Flash Fiction Online . It can purchased through their website, and it will appear for free online later this month. It is--hands down--the strangest story I have ever sold. Is it funny? Yes. Is it traumatizing? Also yes. Which is more prominent? I will leave that as an exercise for the reader. Thanks, ]{p

🤐 Boy, What a Joker, What a Funny, Funny Guy... There's a lot that goes into telling a joke. Picture yourself at a party, standing around the kitchen, shooting the breeze, and then people start trying to make each other laugh with jokes. It's your turn--all eyes are on you. So you start with the setup. You're hamming up the absurdity a little, and you're taking note of how your audience is responding. If they're enjoying it, you lean in and stretch things out. If their attention is flagging, you move ahead more quickly. You're gesturing, you're doing voices, and you're building up to the big finish. And then you get there. You pause for emphasis. While you deliver it, you raise your voice by a few decibels so every knows that this  is the punchline. And the people laugh. They reward your effort, because, as noted above, there's a lot that went into telling that joke. Now throw all of it away, because none  of it works on paper... You Aren't Funn