Experience the education, camaraderie, and opportunities provided by a live writing conference without ever having to leave your home!
Writer’s Digest University is pleased to present a one-of-a-kind online event for anyone wanting to inject humor into their writing! On August 15, 2026, our WDU Humor Writing Virtual Conference will provide expert insights from FOUR award-winning and bestselling humor authors on the finer points of how to write humor. Spend the day learning techniques for honing your craft from four different published humor authors
My Three Tips to Making Your Writing Funnier
Humor on Purpose: Crafting Intentional Comedy on the Page
The Secret Rules of Writing Comedy (AKA - How to Be Funny)
The Delicate Balance of Writing Comedy-Tragedy
Meet the speakers
Bob Eckstein
Bob Eckstein is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning illustrator, whose work has appeared in MAD, McSweeney’s, National Lampoon, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Playboy, Reader’s Digest, SPY, and publications worldwide. His work has been exhibited in the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco, Smithsonian Institute, The Cartoon Museum of London, Sordoni Art Gallery at Wilkes University. Eckstein has spoken in over a 200 TV and radio shows and at The Mount, Mark Twain Museum, Milford Readers & Writers Festival, Stroud Mansion, NYPL, Miami Book Fair, MOCCA Arts Festival, NCS, Norman Rockwell Museum, Millbrook Literary Festival, The Norman Rockwell Museum, and The Grolier Club. He is Contributing Editor at Writer’s Digest, was the editor of the series The Ultimate Cartoon Book by the World’s Greatest Cartoonists, and taught writing and cartooning at New York University, Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, Yonsei University in South Korea, and many other learning institutions.
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Ilana Long
Ilana Long is the author of the pickleball romantic comedies Pickleballers and Pickle Perfect. Her love for comedy is rooted in performance - and her writing reflects techniques she learned in her comedy practice. After a combined linguistics, theater, and writing degree at the University of Pennsylvania, she studied and performed improvisational comedy at Second City in Chicago, where she learned, “there is no such thing as acting, only reacting”; a precept she brings to her creative process. As an actress and writer, Ilana created and performed sketch comedy for the TV program The Night Shift, and for the Seattle Sketch Fest, with her show Broad Comedy. Additionally, she performed stand-up comedy in Chicago and Seattle and was crowned the last woman standing. Before becoming a full-time writer, Ilana taught high school for 32 years, where she really honed her comedy skills.
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Katie Love
Katie Love is a professional stand-up comedian and emcee, comedy producer, public speaker, writing coach, and the author of three books including the award-winning memoir, Two Tickets to Paradise, from Cult to Comedy, currently in development as a television series. Katie was the Grand Prize winner of the 4th Annual Writer’s Digest Personal Essay contest for her essay, “Killer Punchline: Comedy-Tragedy in the Dating World.”
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Karim Shamsi-Basha
Karim Shamsi-Basha immigrated from Damascus-Syria to the United States in 1984 at the age of 18. He attended the University of Tennessee and acquired a degree in Mechanical Engineering. After that, he pursued what he loved – Photojournalism and writing. His photographic work has taken him to over 50 countries including China, Turkey, Chile, Mexico, France and Italy. Karim’s work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, Coastal Living, People, Time, Southern Living, NJ.com, The Alabama News Center, al.com, Aramco World magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post and many others. Karim’s children’s book, The Cat Man of Aleppo, won the 2021 Caldecott Honor, the Middle East Book Award and five starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly among others. Currently, Karim works as a Food & Culture Columnist / Photographer with nj.com and The Star Ledger in New Jersey. Karim is a single father to three precious human beings: Zade, Dury, and Demi. He lives by the motto, Carpe diem, seizing every moment of this beautiful life.
