Your Caption Has Been Selected: More Than Anyone Could Possibly Want to Know About The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest

A behind-the-scenes look at The New Yorker cartoon caption contest, its history, how it's judged, and the secrets to writing a winning caption

Every week, tens of thousands of people enter The New Yorker cartoon caption contest in hopes of seeing their name and winning caption in print. But only one person has taken the prize an astounding fifteen times and counting: Lawrence Wood, also known as the Ken Jennings of caption writing.

What's Wood's secret? What makes a caption good or bad? How do you beat the crowd? And most importantly, what makes a caption funny?

Packed with over 150 of the magazine's best cartoons and captions and featuring a foreword by the contest's creator Bob Mankoff, Your Caption Has Been Selected takes you behind the scenes of the contest, its history, the way judging works, and more. Lawrence divulges his own writing process and shows readers how to generate the perfect string of words to get a laugh. Zippy and practical, this book is perfect for fans of the contest, readers interested in how humor works, and anyone who dreams of the day they receive the letter that "your caption has been selected."

About the Author

LAWRENCE WOOD has been a finalist in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting fifteen times and won eight contests. For more than twenty years he was a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught a class on housing and poverty law that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed as a “waste of time.” Lawrence is currently the supervising attorney at Legal Action Chicago.