The Thurber Prize for American Humor is the most prestigious honor for humor writers, awarded to authors who do something extraordinary: Make us think, laugh and cry — often in the same sentence.
In 2023, Elissa Bassist, AB ’07, was one of five semifinalists for the Thurber Prize for Hysterical, her 2022 memoir about her decades-long journey navigating her physical and mental health and eventually learning to speak up. Bassist is an author, editor and teacher who shows others how to be funny and find their own voices. The woman has stories, and she’s not afraid to use them.
Tragedy plus time equals comedy, and I teach that math in my writing classes. I learned it in my mid-20s, when I was in graduate school for creative nonfiction and doing improv at the local comedy school. In my MFA program, I used every comedic trick I’d picked up from improv, and my sad writing became funny and thus, readable (and publishable). I found that people listen to a joke but ignore a sob story, so when I can’t say something straight (when it seems too preachy or harrowing), I say it slant. For a career, I wanted to teach other writers to copy me. My class prerequisite is being in therapy; happy endings are burned; and every assignment is to make readers laugh while punching them in the heart.
To laugh when all I want to do is cry, first, I cry. Crying and laughing are two emotional reactions that I love equally. Crying has a bad reputation, but crying hurts us only if we don’t do it. Or I pet my dog. My dog has the best sense of humor, and he makes it impossible for me to cry too much. Whenever I try, he brings me his toys or looks at me in the funniest way that nips every emotional meltdown in the bud.
Therapy is the best therapy, but writing and comedy are second-best therapies. Writing has many personal, public, financial and health benefits. I write comedy to process tragedy — and to get tragedy out of my system and exorcise it, to do something with it and not waste it. Sometimes, the only way to tell a story you don’t know how to tell is to joke about it (and publish the joke). Writing can be the place where we do all kinds of work: think, decipher, laugh, grieve, recover, ask our stupidest questions and answer them. In writing, we can put our life in the context of other people’s lives so we may understand and/or forgive ourselves. Writing can make sense of nonsense and kill isolation, bringing writers and readers closer, so close they’re almost kissing. All of which may help writers and readers heal, but no promises.
My first book, Hysterical, is about every definition of the word. More specifically, it’s about how a woman’s voice develops (or doesn’t) in a culture where men talk and women should really keep it down — and how this expectation of a woman’s silence makes women, including me, sick. (Please buy one to 10 copies from your local bookstore.)
I came to WashU as a pre-law student. Then I took a course in logic, and I had to withdraw because I was getting a D. My mind did not work or think that way (logically), and it was devastating. My whole life, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because I could write and being a lawyer was the best job a writer could have. Then I took a writing class and wrote my autobiography through the lens of grilled cheese because that was my favorite food. (I was a picky eater.) And I got 100 percent on it. The professor even shared it within the department, and I felt famous and like writing could be my life.
