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By Teri Rizvi

Many people might like to turn back time and redo 2020, but not Diana Aydin, who found her stride as a humor writer.

Aydin, a New York writer and editor, entered a funny essay in the Nickie’s Prize for Humor Writing Competition — and won.

As part of the prize for the 21 winning writers, she received a complimentary registration to the virtual Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, where she threw her name in the hat for the opportunity to pitch a book concept at Pitchapalooza. She won that, too.

“Prior to this, the only thing I ever really won was a wildly contested work pie-baking contest, so it’s been a pretty thrilling past few weeks,” said Aydin, a senior editor at Parents Latina magazine who performs improv and writes sketch comedy in her spare time.

Her entry for Nickie’s Prize was her first attempt to publish a piece of humor writing. “It’s been my lifelong dream to be a comedy writer,” she said.

For the competition, she wrote about an ER visit with her roommate sister that she blamed on her mother’s chicken. “This reads like a script from a funny indie movie. It also makes me hungry for spicy food — and for travel to New York,” one judge wrote.

For Pitchapalooza, described as “American Idol for books, only kinder,” she pitched a funny, multicultural book entitled, Are My Parents Cousins? An Immigrant Child’s Survival Story, that made judges Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry laugh out loud. She often wrote about her “quirky Middle Eastern family” for Guideposts magazine, where she previously worked as an editor.

“When the voice of a pitch comes through, that’s when a pitch shines,” said Arielle Eckstut, a literary agent and co-founder of The Book Doctors. “A pitch is like a poem where every word counts.”

Over the miles from where she lives in New City, New York, Aydin described her book in this way at Pitchapalooza: “In the style of Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, this book of short, humorous connected stories would chronicle my struggle as the child of Middle Eastern immigrants, from my parents' intense fear of egg salad to clues that they are not just husband and wife, but cousins.” 

“Blame It on Mom’s Chicken” will be published by the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in a humor anthology about sisters, and Eckstut and Sterry will help Aydin find a publisher receptive to Are My Parents Cousins?

“One of my first introductions to comedy writing was through my mom’s dog-eared copies of Erma Bombeck’s books,” said Aydin, who is eying a future filled with laughter. She just started a one-year comedy filmmaking program at Second City’s Harold Ramis Film School.