Sometimes we laugh so we don’t cry. Author Nancy Stohlman shares how to go from hysteria to hysterical when writing humor and satire.

I wrote “The Bad Thing,” the opening piece in After the Rapture, in 2015, in a world spinning from the Sandy Hook shooting, the latest in a disturbing and increasingly horrible trend. Both my children were school age at the time, my youngest in elementary school, and active shooter safety drills and lockdowns had become commonplace for American children.

Like many others, I was frustrated with what felt like limited options to respond–yelling into the echo chamber that is social media or sending thoughts and prayers. Neither were doing a whole lot.

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