The Writer – June 2022
By Melissa Hart
“An Open Letter to Whoever Keeps Hacking My Grandma's Facebook.”
“Fact About Toddlers or Fact About Tornadoes.”
“All the Flights are Canceled, Including the One You're Currently On.”
These are some of the titles you'll find on the website for Points in Case, a daily digital humor publication founded by editor-in-chief and comedian/producer Court Sullivan. Fellow comedian James Folta is managing editor; together, they publish smart concept writing, entertaining literary humor, funny essays and articles, lists, and humorous one-liners. “We want things that are really, really funny,” Folta says.
“That's our raison d'etre.”
Tone, editorial content
Save your satirical news stories for The Onion and similar publications. “We're less interested in quick-twitch, fast-response, newsy, topical stuff,” Folta says. “We want to be a place that runs more evergreen stuff that's even weirder and funnier.” He notes that a humorous submission to Points in Case can take many forms. “It can be a straightforward essay or a monologue from a character or a parody of a specific style of writing,” he says. “It can be a list or comparison piece or a quiz.”
He and Sullivan are particularly interested in writers who make use of unexpected formats. As an example, he points to Emily Knapp's “Auto Reply: OUT OF OFFICE: For the Rest of Eternity” (Feb. 18, 2022). “It's really fun, just a series of automatic replies,” Folta explains. The writer gets into the extreme reasons why this person won't be returning back to the office ever, and it gets more and more absurd.”
He and Sullivan also appreciate frequent contributor Allie Rubin's “An Encyclopedia of Uncles” (Feb. 18, 2022), which offers made-up definitions of different types of uncles (i.e., the “Funkle: An uncle who loves fun” and the “Runcle: An uncle who loves to run. Even when he's sleeping, the runcle runs”).
“It was a really fun format with very fun words and very quick, succinct definitions,” Folta says. “We look for pieces like this with an inventive structure so that we can give our audience a variety of reading experiences.”
Contributors
Both emerging and professional writers are welcome to submit work to Points in Case. Frequent contributor and actor Simon Henriques contributed “You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover, Because They All Just Have the Same Colorful Blobs These Days” (Feb. 24, 2022), a response to the trend of book covers illustrated with colorful amorphous shapes.
Editors also published Lucas Gardner's piece “Well, Gang, We Completely Failed to Save the Rec Center” (Jan. 24, 2022). “It's riffing on the tropes of a feel-good movie with an expected ending in which the kid saves the day… only in Lucas's piece, that doesn't happen,” Folta explains. In the piece, Garner writes:
I am only just now realizing that “Come watch an adolescent rock band that was formed three days ago play live for the first time in a very small recreation center” is a hard sell. Not a lot of people came and we only charged $2.00 for tickets. In hindsight, we would've had to sell 10 million tickets in order to save the Youth Center.
Folta and Sullivan admire writing by frequent contributor Lillie Franks — most recently a piece called “That There's Oil. Texas Tea. Economy Slime. Hot Rockolate” (Oct. 7, 2022). “It's a monologue from somebody who is using all the euphemisms imaginable for oil, this character who's kind of a down-home oil baron type who has an infinite supply of ways to describe and name oil,” Folta says. “It's just so simple, and it's so silly.”
He and Sullivan are excited to publish Alex Griffiths' piece titled “Network Notes for the Upcoming Frasier Reboot” (May 18, 2022), written as a series of short notes from a network executive talking about details in the 2022 version of the hit TV comedy that ran from 1993 to 2004.
“Alex is making up things that are happening in this show and then responding to them through the voice of a Paramount executive, which is a really fun format,” Folta says. “It lets the writer play with the tropes of a network executive, which become judgments of what's happening in the show. Alex plays with that tension really nicely; it's a smart, fun piece.”
Advice for potential contributors
Send your best proofread and polished work via Submittable at pointsincase.submittable.com. Folta and Sullivan urge writers to grab their attention with a compelling title that gives them a sense of both the story topic and the comedy that informs it. “We look for strong titles that give us a sense of your premise and the joke,” Folta says. “Do you have a sexy enough title that's going to pull someone off of Facebook or Twitter and over to our site to read your work?” Getting good at titles, he adds, is an invaluable skill for all writers.
He and his editors are open to everything from a l0-word joke to an 800-word humorous article on any topic and written in any format. They encourage writers to think out of the box for their website… just make sure the piece is really, really funny.