The Christopher Hitchens Award for Humour Writing

HELLO SWEET FRIEND.

My name is Sophie Kohn and I'm fundraising the cash prize for THE FIRST EVER, HOPEFULLY ANNUAL, CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AWARD FOR HUMOUR WRITING!

WOOHOO! WAIT: WHAT IS IT?

A *NEW* annual award for the best piece of satire or humour writing by a Canadian woman or non-binary writer, created by me, in partnership with The Second City.

GREAT! WHY IS IT CALLED THAT?

Christopher Hitchens famously used his precious time on this earth to try to convince everyone that women are inherently not funny. In 2007, he wrote an entire Vanity Fair essay about it. Then everyone flipped out and told him he was a tool. Did he listen? Nah. In 2008, he doubled down and wrote a whole second Vanity Fair essay about how women being upset that they’re not funny is somehow proof of their unfunnyness. Give it up for this guy! He died in 2011.

TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE CRITERIA!

-Writers may submit a short piece of satire or humour writing like the kind you might see in The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs, McSweeney’s, Reductress, The Beaverton, etc.

-Their story must not exceed 1,000 words

-They must not put their name or any other identifying information on their story

-Their story can be on any topic and take any format (eg. open letter, news story, list, rant, satirical obituary, satirical 911 transcript, anything!)

-Their story cannot be published anywhere else

-They must live anywhere in Canada

-They must identify as a woman or non-binary person

WHAT CAN WRITERS NOT SUBMIT?

-Sketch comedy, stand-up bits, or anything intended to be performed live. This contest is for humour on the page, not the stage.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

Despite producing an astonishing number of hilarious individuals, Canada has a notable lack of opportunities for those individuals to be recognized, celebrated, and compensated for their genius. This sucks?

More specifically:

There are several awards for serious writing, but nothing for funny writing. Okay, there’s one award for funny writing – The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour – but it’s for entire books, which makes the award pretty intimidating as well as inaccessible to emerging writers who perhaps don’t yet have an agent or the skill or financial privilege to go write an entire-ass book.

There are also some programs and incubator workshops and awards for comedy on TV and comedy on the stage. But there is nothing for written comedy meant to be experienced on the page.

There’s also just a general lack of places for Canadian satire writers to put their writing, especially when compared to our American neighbours. We’ve got The Beaverton….and….uh….the, like….Walking Eagle News, maybe? Is that still running? You can see the problem here.

WHY IS THIS ONLY FOR WOMEN AND NON-BINARY FOLKS?

Like all other industries except for invisible labour, comedy in general and satire writing specifically has been historically dominated by male writers. This has created two problems:

We don’t hear from lot of women and non-binary people;

We don’t see issues that affect women and non-binary folks satirized, because men probably aren’t going to write about them (and shouldn't).

This award seeks to encourage women and non-binary folks to speak up, build some name recognition and momentum in their career, and get compensated for their work.

WHAT IS THE PRIZE?

-The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize and a free writing class at The Second City. Your generous contribution will go toward that! Anything over $1000 will be used to compensate the judges and anything significantly over $1000 will be socked away for the 2025 award.

-The winner will be invited to attend an awards ceremony at The Second City in Toronto in November 2024, with the option to participate virtually for those unable to attend in person for whatever reason.

WHEN DO SUBMISSIONS OPEN?

Submissions will open on Monday, June 3, 2024.

WHEN DO SUBMISSIONS CLOSE?

The submission period ends Monday, September 30, 2024

WHEN IS THE WINNER ANNOUNCED?

The winner will be announced on Friday, November 1, 2024.

HOW DOES THE JUDGING WORK?

A group of judges will evaluate all submissions on the basis of:

-strength of writing

-strength of premise

-strength of jokes

-strength of commentary on society

This will be a blind judging process, so the judges won’t know anything about the author of each piece.

WHO’S JUDGING THIS?

The judging team will be comprised of members of the Canadian comedy community who have a demonstrated track record with satire writing specifically. Their names and bios will be made public when submissions open in the spring of 2024.

WHO EVEN ARE YOU, O MYSTERIOUS CREATOR OF THIS AWARD?

Sophie Kohn is a longtime satire and humour writing instructor for Second City Toronto and Los Angeles, as well as a graduate of the conservatory program in sketch comedy and improv. Pre-pandemic, she performed stand-up comedy at local venues all over Toronto and produced a monthly show called Forever Jung where stand-up comedians did a set and then got analyzed by a therapist live on the stage. Sophie is a longtime writer for CBC Radio in Toronto, where she’s written for radio shows like q, Because News, GO! with Brent Bambury, and television shows like George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. Her humour writing has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and Reader’s Digest. One of those humour pieces, “If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear To God I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth”, was turned into a short film voiced by Jon Hamm. Her first children’s book, Katrina Hyena, about a laughing hyena who laughs at the wrong times, will be published with Owlkids in September 2024.

Sophie wants to give a massive hat tip to Rachel Matlow, who came up with the name for the award. Go read their darkly hilarious memoir, Dead Mom Walking! And another massive hat tip to Kevin Ball, who designed the contest logo.