Comedian, author, and humour academic Justine Sless has spent over a decade researching, performing, teaching, and producing stand up comedy – you might have caught her on some of Funny Women’s online Round the World International Women’s Day show last year and other events. Now Sless has written a book, Mistress of Mirth’s COMEDY Tour, which is semi-autobiographical and promises to be intellectually compelling and frightfully funny.
Published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, the book will be available from 9th April, Mistress of Mirth’s COMEDY Tour is set in Melbourne and takes the reader on a comedy tour beginning at Bourke Street Mall before diving into the world of amateur stand up comedy.
Sless’s “genre fluid” book blends comedy fun facts, darkly funny short stories, and a cornucopia of
comedic research to escort readers through the quagmire of invective that has been directed at funny
women for a millennium.
Sless says: “I am a Mistress of Mirth having written, performed, researched and taught stand-up comedy for many years and together with millions of other women across the globe we have enacted a mirthful mutiny taking on the unwieldy and historically (or is it hysterically?) male dominated world of stand-up comedy. COMEDY is an acronym for Call Out Male Entitlement Daily Y’all,
“The genesis of the book was the hostility I encountered in Melbourne’s stand-up comedy scene. My
research links humour as a power construct within a gender-based violence lens and Mistress of Mirth is an unapologetically feminist response to the male topography of the stand-up comedy scene.”
You can order Justine Sless: Mistress of Mirth COMEDY tour here!
