Lightness and Weight: Making a Serious Essay Funny, Making a Funny Essay Serious

How do essayists find the right balance? How do you keep an essay about weighty topics from grinding the reader into the dirt; how do you keep a light comic essay from floating off into nothingness? We’ll discuss a few examples of essays from writers who measure that balance in different ways, then try a few exercises ourselves. Bring a piece you’re working on that feels like it could benefit from a few jokes—or some ballast.