Jonathan Caws-Elwitt is a freelance humorist, playwright, neologist, palindromist, parodist, and wit. His one-act farce The Can of Yams is in publication with Baker’s/Samuel French, and his full-length comedy As Long as It’s in the Script: A Sex Farce within a Sex Farce has earned finalist honors in both the Mountain Playhouse Comedy Playwriting Contest and the Cheshire Comedy “Funniest Play on Earth” contest. His whimsical essays appear in Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, and his one-liners have been often quoted in the Shoecabbage comic strip.

In the 1990s, Jonathan was a finalist (under a pseudonym) in the prestigious PEN Imitation Hemingway Competition, and his zany prose appeared in advertisements promoting records by the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Frank Sinatra, and other major artists. His work has been used by celebrated entertainer Steve Allen and popular one-panel The Family Circus. A prolific composer and lyricist, he is the founder and longtime linchpin of indie-pop musical legends The Silly Pillows, whose recordings have been acclaimed by aficionados around the world, reissued by a major label in Japan, and praised by MTV and the Village Voice.

As a child, Jonathan sold material to the original ZOOM television program and wrote new sight gags into his local community-theater company’s production of a Jean Kerr comedy. He holds a B.A. cum laude from Harvard University—because he’s afraid if he sets it down, he’ll forget where he left it.

Jonathan and his wife live in northeastern Pennsylvania, just across the border from Binghamton, New York.