In March of this year Ulysses Press out of Berkeley, CA, will publish a second volume of my puns to follow last year’s edition, “The Ultimate Book of Dad Jokes.” This year’s volume, going by the title, “Born to Pun,” contains some 1,400+ puns of similar nature, those groan inducing, head-slapping, eye-rolling gems to haunt you in your sleep and bring dread to your waking hours…! 

There’s a funny story behind this new publication. I chuckle over it because it is so like an introvert to have this kind experience.

Following submission of the final draft for the printing of “The Ultimate Book of Dad Jokes” a year ago, but before the printing came out, I went into a tailspin of doubt thinking that some or many of those submitted for publication might be found unsuitable for publication for a variety of reasons thus creating the need for “replacement puns” – I fell into a whirlwind of enormous productivity generating so many “new” puns that I ended up with a large batch of gems in the rough with nowhere to go with them – When I inquired with my editor the status of my original submissions I was told that there were very few that were felt shouldn’t be included, and I should relax. Well, having started with this new batch of puns I continued pursuing more and more, and eventually ended up well over a thousand puns just sitting there.

In a later email with my editor I inquired as to the status of my original contract, whether it was still in effect now nearing the end of the two-year life of the contract and was told the original book was doing well in sales and they decided to extend the original contract something done when a volume is doing well. Ok, so that was a good thing. I told my editor my little episode of anxiety following the submission of the final edited text for the original volume and how humorously I now was holding over a thousand new puns in hand. This interested her with the possibility of a second volume of puns and would I be interested in pursuing that possibility. Of course I said yes, and that’s how we ended up with the publication next month of “Born to Pun.”