Submissions

These formats are just suggestions to help get you started. We’ll give serious consideration to pitches in any format on its merits. No points docked for being experimental or creative (funny poems? a funny manifesto?); maybe some given.

(However, we’re not looking for personal essays or timely pieces.)

1. Short comedic prose article: ‘The classic.’ A funny idea explored in several paragraphs. Examples we like:
   1. My Undoing
   2. I Have Invented A Cute Animal Mascot Named ‘Genocide Camel’ If Any Corporation Would Like To Use Him As The Face Of Their Company
   3. A Perfect, Preëmptive Obituary for My Ex-Boyfriend 
2. Bad fan fic: Fictional prose lampooning any characters recognisable to pop culture (Wendy from Wendy’s; Donkey Kong; Jesus from the Bible, e.g.). Examples we like:
   1. Liberal Dude Erotica
   2. Coda to “Piano Man”: Paul and Davey
3. Dialogues: Two people talking. Could be an interview, Q&A, movie dialogue (cut or imagined), customer service call, conversations, Socratic dialogue… An example we like:
   1. Socrates and Glaucon on the Home Shopping Network
4. Widget guide to…: Follow a list format using whatever sort of list works best for you, like study guides, ‘trivia’, or hacks, e.g. Either a simple unordered list (like example ‘a’ below) or a funny listicle (like example ‘b’ below). Examples we like:
   1. The Wonderful World of Probability
   2. Here’s How to Cut Your Own Hair, a Bad Idea That Nobody is Making You Do
5. (Fake) Oral histories: People involved in a thing describe how that thing came about. Examples we like:
   1. An Oral History Of ‘Mad Men’
   2. A (Fake) Oral History Of Mike Parker, Typographer Who Made Helvetica Famous

Have a brilliant idea in a format we haven’t thought of? Let us know and if we like it we’ll steal it figure something out.

• Fiction only, please. It’s great to include aspects of your personal experience in your piece, but we’re not looking for personal essays.
• Social/political messages aren’t required in your piece. Go ahead and submit your inner monologue of a dog sniffing its own butt, you don’t need to convince us it’ll end fascism 
• Your experiences as a member of a marginalised group don’t have to be part of your POV. They certainly can be, but we appreciate that you might want to talk about other stuff, too. (See the dog-sniffing-butt note, above.)
• See our Monthly Themes for more info on content

1. A mythical character gets a regular job, like Medusa working at Supercuts
2. A mythical character with human foibles/flaws/quirks — what if Thor was scared of thunder; or Aphrodite was on SSRIs?
3. Make up a fairytale or bedtime story for modern times
4. Write from or about a mythical character’s unusual perspective — like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast being a conspiracy theorist
5. Write about a myth or fairytale from your cultural background
6. Rewrite a folktale/legend for modern times — a Poe story set in 2020? A Bible story in 1977?
7. ‘Interview’ a character from myth or folklore – Frost/Ixion?
8. An unlikely character goes through the Hero’s Journey – a Walmart greeter visits the underworld? Cornel West fights a dragon?
9. Aetiological myth – tell us the legend of where something mundane or unexpected comes from
10. Gods/spirits from a made-up mythological tradition

1. Write from or about the point-of-view of a ‘foodie’ or other snobs like that – like this piece about craft beer
2. An (absurd, strange or interesting) recipe – a 12th-c. monk’s take on pot brownies; Dracula’s “what I eat in a day”
3. Does your culture treat food in a unique or interesting way? Elaborate (and exaggerate)
4. A travel guide to a place that doesn’t exist
5. Write about destinations from fiction, film, fantasy – did someone leave a one-star Expedia review of The Shire? Why?
6. Write about space-travel…but make it weird. What about a martian’s travel blog? Best dining on the International Space Station? Weird Hubble photos?
7. An alien’s guide to Earth/some unexpected or mundane part of Earth – what if a martian had to learn about the electoral college, the poor bastard?
8. Silly travel posters/tourism campaigns
9. Lists or ‘listicles’, like: made-up roadside attractions, boring must-see landmarks, etc.
10. A food critic who shouldn’t be a food critic (e.g. a picky eater)

1. What’s your ridiculous take on common themes surrounding family & community, like sibling rivalry, feuding neighbours, family dinners, family traditions, or chosen family?
2. Local businesses / ‘mom & pop’ businesses
3. Write about the idea that ‘Pets are part of the family’ – maybe your teenage brother is a Pomeranian? Maybe your cat comes on family vacation?
4. “These are the people in my neighbourhood.”
5. The family business
6. Family dynamics in unexpected places – like a workplace that (pretends to) treat workers like a family? Or the family dynamics of the ’86 Mets? Or the Spice Girls?
7. Write about a community that doesn’t really exist but should
8. Articles from a fake community paper or online forum
9. (Funny, silly or strange) wisdom and advice from parents/parent figures
10. Loss/grief, if there’s a funny & tasteful way to tackle that! What if Super Mario was brought to the Goomba people’s Hague? What if a ghost had strange advice from beyond the grave?

1. Write a dialogue from the schoolyard – maybe in the middle of a game of tag? Or addressing some ‘great scandal’ from the kindergarten class?
2. Write a silly, strange or ridiculous syllabus or lesson plan for a university course that doesn’t exist.
3. Write a post-mortem of a failed after-school program
4. Write in the format of a test – a multiple choice test by a teacher with an obvious gambling problem? Essay prompts from a teacher who’s clearly a time-traveling H.G. Wells protagonist?
5. Life lessons: Write about something that can’t be learned in a classroom
6. Pick someone from history/movies/books. What would happen if they were a teacher? Or a student?
7. Book reports: a 6-year-old reports on some academic text, a philosophy scholar reports on Goosebumps. Create some comedic contrast between topic and speaker.
8. (Silly, strange or woefully inept) guides: “ace your exams without studying”; “memorise these 5 equations to ace any math exam”; “lesser-known themes of Great Expectations”
9. Absurd high school cliques, potentially with seating charts?
10. Write in the format of a speech, like a Valedictorian speech, or a candidate for Class President

1. “Millennials (or younger generations) killed the [x] industry”
2. Show us your (made up) investing, personal finance or budgeting hacks — using funny pie graphs or chart? Sure!
3. Absurd take on a hot topic from the world of work (finances, gig economy, retirement, etc.) – How can things get even more dystopian? What is the future of retirement?
4. An interesting want ad…
5. Does your dream job have a down side? Or your ‘nightmare job’ an upside?
6. Comedic explainers for common sayings about work & money (like ‘Money is the root of all evil’)
7. The (surprising/silly) history of a major company or organisation – what if Northrop Grumman started as a ‘mom & pop’ fruit stand? Or Amazon started as an anarchist co-op?
8. A fictionalised, heightened account of the worst job you’ve (n)ever had
9. Silly jobs through history. What was Genghis Khan’s first job? 
10. Guides, hacks and tips: how to hustle, how to stretch your dollar, how to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, how to slack off on Slack

1. Terrible elevator pitches for amazing shows/movies, or amazing elevator pitches for terrible shows/movies
2. Silly book clubs – create a dialogue, notes or rules from the world’s worst book club
3. Famous works done in different genres – if “Titanic” was a quirky rom-com; or X-Men were a soap opera? (One trick you can consider: “Low” art done as “high” art / “High” art done as “low” art.)
4. Silly movie or music festival posters
5. Concert reviews: review an imaginary concert. (By imaginary bands, if you want.)
6. Adapt a book that’s unadaptable, like maybe a chemistry textbook as a summer blockbuster
7. Give an incorrect or silly guide to some part of music or art history
8. Give your ‘fancast’ of some media property. What about Nate Silver as the rebooted John Wick? Alice Munro as Janis Joplin in a new biopic? Defend your choices! What will they bring to the role?
9. Invent and pitch a TV show relating to your community or cultural background
10. Invent a cinematic universe – what about the breakfast cereal cinematic universe? The Saturday morning cartoon cinematic universe? The Sackler family cinematic universe?

Never written a pitch? Cool! Welcome to Pitch School – not to be confused with Spinal Täp’s song of a similar name.

Here’s some general advice on pitching.

• Generally, you may want to address your pitch to us editors by name (Sam & Janet) – This is good practice when you’re corresponding with serious editors, though personally, we don’t give a shit. “Hey Widget” is just fine. We’re not cops.
• Flesh out your idea in advance – What’s really funny or interesting about your idea? What takes it out of reality? Can you make it even sillier, even weirder, even more impactful? Nothing half-baked, please, unless you’re a beginning (comedy) writer and want some help cracking your idea.
• Figure out why this is a good fit – Can you see your idea working for Widget? If not, can you tweak it till it does? Are you someone we’d encourage to submit? (See ‘Who Should Submit’.) Well, c’mon then, get in touch.
• Take your time – Does your pitch feel unfinished? Undercooked? Vague? In that case, keep working on it. No rush.
• Relax! – A rejection from a Canadian comedy website no-one’s ever heard of doesn’t (necessarily) mean you’re a bad, unfunny person whom we hate! Pitch us again, especially after considering why we didn’t accept the last ones. And if you’ve got a promising idea that’s not quite there yet, we’ll work with you to punch it up.
• Take advantage of available resources – We’ll have free comedy writing lessons available soon! Additionally, you can ask us for advice, join our forum (work-in-progress), and/or can also check out other useful pitch-writing resources here (most comedy sites don’t accept pitches, so these aren’t comedy-specific):
  • Contingent Magazine “How to Pitch Us” 
  • Wanderlust “5 Tips for Pitching Your Article”
  • Masterclass “How to Pitch an Article to a Magazine” 
  • Smashing Magazine “Pitching Your Writing to Publications”

Multiple pitches are fine – Send us as many pitches as you like until you’re successful! But…

We’ll pay each author only once – This applies during our 6-month grant period, January 2021-June 2021. In the interests of giving opportunities to as many people as possible, we won’t be publishing any contributor more than once.

Original pieces only – Nothing that’s been published already. You trying to start beef between us and Daily Shouts?! SMDH. 😣

We’ll respond within 2 weeks – AKA a fortnight.

Pitches only – Please no complete drafts of pieces. 1-3 pitches, defined above (but you know that already, don’t cha?)

Feel free to show us other work – No cover letters, thanks, but you can share a website link if you want. Don’t have one? First-timer? Don’t worry about it at all, we wanna hear from you!

We pay a flat rate of $200 USD for your contribution to the site.

We’ll also ask one contributor a week to read their piece on our weekly podcasts, Work It and Overtime. There’s an extra US$50 in it for you! Opt in or out through the online submission form. We’ll help you through the actual recording process (TL;dr: voice memos is fine, so it’s super easy).

All posts during this 6-month grant period will be Creative Commons licensed. This means other people can quote the piece (even in full), ‘remix it’, do whatever they want with it – with attribution. Hopefully, the tradeoff is a) reaching a wider audience; b) supporting creativity and content creation, and knowing you’re on the other side of history from Disney et al.

We won’t monetize your work into, say, a line of Widget-branded lingerie or swim apparel, without an additional agreement. But we might use it in promotional materials – such as free zines, free posters, so on. Always with links and/or attribution.

• Please proofread your stuff! Spell check it (unless bad spelling’s part of the gag??); make sure it’s clear; check for sentence fragments and so on. We use Canadian English.
• We’re also inchoately interested in multilingualism and translation… If you’re comfortable/fluent in other languages and want to send a translation as well, let’s talk.
• Send questions via our Contact page.