Writing Funny: Maeve Dunigan on Satire, Skiing & Spaceballs

By Hannah Truby

In addition to mastering the art of shotgunning a beer, Maeve Dunigan—journalist, satire writer, and contributor to Mountain Gazette—studied the intersections of humor and media at NYU. Though she holds a master’s in journalism, Dunigan sees her background as more of a toolkit than a defined career path. These skills inform her satirical work, allowing her to shape a career on her own terms."

“What I Think Will Happen if I Go to a Bar and Order a Whiskey Neat” and “My Husband, I Vow to Honor You Always—Unless We’re Playing Scrabble, in Which Case I’ll Destroy Your Ass” are among Dunigan’s articles that regularly appear in The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs column. Her work isn’t limited to the digital space, either. As half of the musical sketch duo Pigeon on the comedy variety show Pigeon Presents, and as co-host of Some Fun Lines, a monthly open mic and quarterly show dedicated to prose humor, Dunigan regularly performs her work live—which is how you know she’s really funny.

Hannah: My first question for you is a tough one: what movie–or other piece of media–has been most formative to your sense of humor? 

Maeve: Okay. Wow. That's a good question. [laughs]. So I have never had any interest in, like, sci-fi, in Star Wars, in Star Trek. it's never been my thing. However, when I was probably seven or eight, my parents showed me the movie Spaceballs. I had never seen anything like it. Like, I could not believe that they made a whole movie that was a joke, essentially. It was funny, because, like, I understood it to be satire, but I didn't know any of the references, but it almost didn't matter. I was just so charmed and excited by the idea that they had made this whole thing that was, like, so silly and dumb. It really opened my mind up to ‘Okay, this is the sort of thing I’m into.’

What was the journey from studying journalism to working in satire and humor like? Did you always know you wanted to incorporate humor into your writing?

At the University of Maryland, I was a journalism major and was very involved in the university's sketch comedy group. I always sort of joke that I majored in SketchUp because I devoted so much time to it, perhaps more than anyone should. I was really interested in both, but journalism seemed like the more tenable choice in terms of job options. I ultimately graduated and could not get any jobs in journalism, and so I moved to New York where I got a job at NYU in an admin position. I ended up just having a lot of time on my hands and I started going to these satire reading open mics that were hosted by a friend of a friend, and I ended up meeting a lot of friends in the satire community and people who had been published in places where I really wanted to be published and I thought, ‘Huh, maybe this is something I could do.’

Is that when you started pitching to The New Yorker?

Obviously I knew about satire publications for a long time [like The New Yorker] but didn't really think I was cut out for them. But I read a piece that I had written at one of these open mics, and after this guy comes up to me and says I should submit to The New Yorker. I was like, ‘Well, obviously pigs should fly, but they don't. He would later become my boyfriend, actually. We’ve been dating four years now. But he helped me get that process started in terms of figuring out what to send and fine tuning my writing.

When developing satire pieces like those featured in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, what kind of stories do you write? And how do you balance humor with the more structured elements of journalism? 

For those publications, I exclusively write humor for them, so it's less of a balance and more kind of just giving them what they want [laughs], which is great. But because I only ever write for the “Shouts and Murmurs” section, I only really interface with that editor, so I have this sort of narrow experience with the magazine, but being a contributor to The New Yorker is one of my favorite things that I've ever gotten to do. I’m very lucky.

You also perform live sketches and music acts as part of the comedy duo "Pigeon". What’s the experience like sharing your humor in person, and how does it differ from writing for an audience online?

It’s strange, it’s very different. But one of the reasons I love it so much is because it gives satire writers, who are typically people who like to live in their little hole, a chance to come out and actually hear a response to their work and be able to workshop it in a setting where they can hear direct feedback.

So often you publish something and people comment ‘Haha’, but that's very different than hearing laughter, and I think often what is funny to you in your head might not land. But in both cases you have to trust yourself–but in different ways. Either you have to trust yourself to sit down and write and produce something or you have to trust your instincts and your ability to engage a live audience. I think both are really useful, and I enjoy both, but at the very tail end of the day, I think I'm certainly more of a writer than a performer.

You’re also a staff writer at Vox Media where you cover pets and wildlife for "The Dodo". What inspired you to take on this column?

I love animals. I have a cat right now, and I would have many more pets if my apartment building allowed it. In my lease it says I can have one cat, and so I have the one cat that I can have. But I have always been into animals, and I like learning about them, and actually a lot of my satire has ended up being about animals. On our site, it's sort of this interesting blend between writing an editorial piece and also, like, it offers a creativity that a lot of journalism jobs don't have. There's a lot of  thinking on behalf of the animal, and trying to create a narrative arc around their story that is compelling and draws the reader in. So it was something that I found I was weirdly uniquely suited to do.

In school, you hear a lot of ‘you’re gonna have to take some crap jobs at first, and might have to write about things you don’t care about for a while, but that’s just how it goes.’ But your career–the way you’ve kind of patched together these sort of disparate things that you’re passionate about–is really awesome, like this girl knows what she wants and she's doing it.

Oh, that's nice of you to say! You know, I think of myself as a humorous writer in general, but I've started to see my journalism background less as a hard, concrete title that I abide by and more as just a toolbox that I can take out and use for various writing jobs, no matter what they may be.

I feel like you do have to be a little craftier than in other professions. It is hard out here, I will say, but I think if anything could be learned from my meandering path that continues to meander is just that: viewing my background as not one specific thing, but as a toolbox. I've had a lot of fun in my career figuring out all the different avenues in which I can write.

Your story for Mountain Gazette 202, “The Wrong Way”, is an essay about your experience having to take the ski lift back down the mountain. What made you want to tell it, and tell it in Mountain Gazette?

So my friend, Ari [Schneider] who I actually met in my grad program, told me about this incredible magazine he writes for, and that people like Steve Martin and Harry Bliss contribute, and he thought I’d be a good fit. I was trying to think of a personal essay idea that had some outdoor-related angle, and my friends and I have started these annual ski trips. It's the one time a year where I'm forced to be athletic. There’s something so funny about the situation to me–anywhere else, you can sneak away and hide when you’re embarrassed but not on the mountain. You’re literally paraded through the air [on the lift] so that everyone can see what happened to you. I really liked the idea of zeroing in on that emotion.

I loved the story, and your line about how the mountain doesn’t allow for Irish goodbyes. What are your feelings about skiing today? Will you go back?

[Laughs]. I will be going back. Nevertheless, she will go back because ultimately I do enjoy skiing and I love being up there. Despite the cost, despite how scary I sometimes find it, being up there in those mountains is just peaceful and beautiful, enough that I’ll go back. This year will be the third ski trip with my friends.

Can you share anything about your forthcoming book, “Read This To Look Cool”?

Basically, it's a collection of satire, similar to the types of things I’ve written for The New Yorker, but they’re all personal essays, something I've only just started publishing–one of which being the one I wrote for Mountain Gazette 202. They’re all kind of about perception anxiety and the futility in trying to change yourself to impress others. I once wrote a satire piece called “What I Think People Think About Me When They See Me Reading a Book”, and it’s a lot of stuff like, ‘Oh, that girl must look so beautiful when she cries’, etcetera. You have this vision of yourself when you're doing certain activities that you think you are emanating a certain vibe and so often that is just not the vibe that you are emanating. There’s also a lot of stories from my life about that impulse and all the funny things it's made me do.

Awesome! I look forward to reading it. Care to add anything else?

Just that I was so excited to be in the magazine. It's the first time I've been in print since being in my college newspaper. And it’s just really special that print media is coming back. I feel so lucky to be a small part of it. 

Maeve Dunigan's debut satire and essay collection, Read This to Look Cool, is slated for publication in summer of 2025. For the latest on Maeve and her upcoming projects, be sure to follow her @maevedunigan.