Friday Five: Q&A with Witcraft founder and editor Doug Jacquier

Eidtor’s note: Witcraft founder Doug Jacquier announced February 19 , 2025,that this literary site would cease publication effective March 31, 2025. Read more.

Tired of wading through the negativity flooding your social media and news feeds? Why not shut down X and Facebook for a while and visit Witcraft, an online journal that offers a daily dose of comic relief, which is much-needed these days.

Founded by Doug Jacquier, an Australian writer who describes himself on his other website, Six Crooked Highways, as “a living Old White Man who used to have some status in some minor ponds in the not-for-profit ‘industry’ in Australia before I retired.” He founded Witcraft (tagline: “Because not everything has to be serious”) as a place to highlight and celebrate “skillful writing that is brief, humorous and engaging. … Whether your work is designed to raise a smile or a belly laugh, I want pieces that are a refuge from the relentless barrage of negativity, angst, war and climate catastrophe that dominates the web.” I’ve had a couple of pieces published on his website: “Publish or Perish – A Prayer,” published last December, and “The Bad Like,” published in January.

He sees humo(u)r as “the orphan of the literary world,” as he explained in his May 2024 essay on the Brevity Blog.

For some reason, many people look down on witty writing. They seem to believe that it requires little skill and zero writing craft and certainly won’t put you in the pantheon of the writing gods. Or make you rich. As Willy Loman says in Death of a Salesman, “Everybody likes a kidder but nobody lends him money.”

– Doug Jacquier

“But, happily,” he continues, “many writers ignore reality and write funny anyway, fame and money be damned.”

Jacquier has done well with his own writing. His fiction and nonfiction have found homes in dozens of journals, magazines, books, and other outlets over the past few years, as this list attests.

Read on to learn more about Witcraft, Jacquier’s philosophy on writing, his influences, and tips for getting your humor — or humour — published.

1 – Why did you decide to establish Witcraft?

I love humour, wit, absurdity, wry social commentary, and people’s funny moments in their life. I love writers who know how to craft their submissions to reach the audience they crave. I know there’s a market out there of people who want some daily relief from the gloom and doom that seems to pervade the news and the web. And I know writers who love to write humour.

Unfortunately, so much of what passes for humour, especially on the major U.S. “humor” sites, is infantile, derivative, punch-line driven, and consists mostly of put-downs, snark and adolescent obsessions with genitals.

In despair at being able to find a home for well-crafted humorous work, I decided (with a lot of encouragement from my wife, Sue) to be the change I wanted to see. Hence Witcraft.

2 – What kind of writing are you looking to include in Witcraft?

We’re looking for fiction, nonfiction and poetry that is founded on wit, humour, puns, absurdity and irony. Put away the sledgehammer, the cliches, the tired tropes and the nastiness. 

What we won’t publish are:

• Work that is gratuitously offensive. You know exactly what we mean, so don’t try us.
• Jokes and/or comedy routines. This is a site dedicated to longer written humour.

Hard sells will include the list below, which will no doubt grow longer with experience:

• If you think excretion or genitalia or four-letter words are inherently funny, this is not the place for you.
• Current political satire, including fake news.
• Shaggy dog stories (unless they’re about shaggy dogs).
• Snarky diatribes.

3 – You are one of a diminishing group of literary outlets that actually pays contributors, by offering three monetary prizes each month. How do you decide which stories are worthy of that recognition?

We look for the best we’ve published that month that: 

• Spans cultures and tap into the universal.
• Is well-crafted and use literary skills.
• Doesn’t assume that everyone is mired in consumer culture (food, fashion, binge TV, the Royals, etc.).

That said, at the end of the day it is my subjective opinion, as with all editors.

4 – What two or three writers have inspired you over the years and why?

Humour writers that have inspired me include:

• Spike Milligan, co-founder and writer for the British radio series, The Goon Show, because of his inspired sense of the absurd. “Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?“
• Flann O’Brien, author of The Third Policeman and much more, because he wrote like this: “The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”
• Danny Bhoy — actually a Scottish-Indian comedian rather than a writer as such but he is a great storyteller. Quote from Dave Jaffer: “A seasoned veteran who’s performed pretty much everywhere, Bhoy’s success is a confirmation of the value of craft and consideration. Whereas many comics seem interested in appealing to specific audiences and only those audiences (‘comedy now is very sectioned,’”’ he tells me), Bhoy remains committed to bringing something more complete and thoughtful to the stage.”

5 – Finally, what advice do you have for writers, especially for those who wish to write humor?

So, how do you learn from the best and hone your humour writing skills?

• Sounds obvious but read anything that you can get your hands and eyes on that other people think is funny. You might start with Oscar Wilde, Sue Townsend, Douglas Adams, Roddy Doyle, Nora Ephron, James Thurber, John Clarke, Spike Milligan, Terry Pratchett and Garrison Keillor, to name but a few.
• Send some drafts to kind but honest friends and listen to their feedback. (Under no circumstances bite their heads off if they don’t think you are hilarious.)
• Submit to mags and sites that say they are looking for humour, knowing that they are going to look for evidence that you know your craft and that this is not a first draft. (Nothing will get you sent to the junkpile quicker than a piece full of typos and spelling errors.)
• Develop a thick skin and know that if your work shows genuine talent, it will eventually find a home.

So where do you go to get published? Certainly not the alleged ”humor” sites that seem frozen in their undergrad past. Search humo(u)r sites on the web and the usual suspects are always near the top of the list. Let’s just say subtlety is not their strong suit.

Greener pastures are to be found in Witcraft, Little Old Lady Comedy, Defenestration, Funny Pearls and a handful more. Some “serious” publishers are happy to accept humour but they are hard to find.

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Witcraft 24, an anthology of pieces published between August 2023 and September 2024, is available for purchase.