We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stacy Dymalski a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Stacy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?
As a comedian and writer, I’m always asking friends, family, social media followers, colleagues, even new people I meet while out and about to come to my shows and/or buy my books. I had to get over the embarrassment of asking people to support my creative endeavors a long time ago. It just comes with the territory if you want make a living as an artist. I’ve had a lot of success using social media, specifically Instagram, to get the word out. I have a modest, but mighty, following on both Instagram and Facebook, mainly because the demographic of my audience tends to skew older. The biggest piece of advice I’d give any artist when it comes to promoting yourself is to use the social media platform where your audience hangs out, which may not necessarily be the social media platform that you prefer. I also suggest starting a newsletter and collecting emails, because that’s something you can control in terms of promotion. When you send a newsletter out to your email list, you know exactly how many people will receive your newsletter. When you send out a blast on Instagram (for example), you’re at the mercy of the algorithm to determine who sees your post.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
A native west-coaster, I started my professional storytelling career as a standup comic at age 19 when I did an open mic night at a comedy club in San Francisco. After that, I spent every weekend onstage at comedy clubs. Three years later I graduated from UC Berkeley with a mathematics degree, and became a technical trainer and sales support engineer for companies like McDonnell Douglas, Computer Associates, Arthur Andersen, IBM, and Adobe. By day I honed my corporate speaking skills, but at night I continued doing standup in clubs like The Comedy Store, The Improv, and countless small clubs around the country. I was also a member of the improv groups The Fault Line Players and Off the Top Comedy. A few years later I enrolled in the UCLA post graduate professional development screenwriter program, and then found my niche as a script doctor and feature writer. Today I own my own story development business (branded as The Memoir Midwife), in which I help everyone from studios to retirees find, write, and share their stories. I also teach story development at LA Valley College, and I work with writers and authors privately as a consultant and writing mentor. I still perform standup and currently I’m onstage anywhere from three to five nights a week. I also co-produce (with my producing partner Christine Picón Van Duzer) a monthly standup comedy show called Third Act Comedy, which showcases GenX and Baby Boomer women comedians, and it’s been a huge hit in L.A. I’m a single mother of two grown sons, and I know what it’s like to struggle to put kids through college. However, I’ve always kept my sense of humor, as shown in my bestseller humor book, “Confessions of a Band Geek Mom.” On February 6, 2024, I launched my new comedy book series on Amazon called “Class Talker,” which is a series of my short-read humor books. (A short-read book, also called a Kindle single, is a book that can be read by the average reader in less than an hour. Think of it as a half-hour sitcom episode, but in book form). Book 1 in the series is called “Do We Have to Buy Gifts for Everybody?” and shot up to #2 in the One-Hour Humor & Entertainment Short Reads category on Amazon in less than a week of its release. It’s a funny (true) story about a friend’s crazy wedding shower that, for me, ended in hilariously embarrassing results. You can find “Do We Have to Buy Gifts for Everybody?” (as well as my other books) by searching on “Stacy Dymalski” on Amazon.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of making a living as an comedian/writer is when I find new and creative ways to make money, so that I can continue to do what I love (standup comedy, in my case). For example, since the WGA Strike of 2023, the entertainment industry has had a slow start to get back on track. Therefore, I’ve had to figure out other ways to pick up the financial slack, which is how I decided to create a book series on Amazon. Creating my own streaming series without the help of a network or streaming platform is way beyond my financial capability. But creating a book series, well, that I can handle. Granted, it doesn’t make as much money as a steaming series, however, it does help enough to keep me going doing what I love. For me, everyday that I don’t have to compromise my time doing something that isn’t fulfilling is a total win. That is my goal for everyday, and every year.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I met my Third Act Comedy Show co-producer, Christine Picón Van Duzer at an open mic at Tao Comedy Studio in Los Angeles. Tao Comedy has a great women’s mic on Monday nights, and Christine and I both love to attend that open mic whenever we can. One of the best things about standup comedy is the comedian “hang” after a show. One night, after the ladies’ mic at Tao Comedy, Christine and I stood on the street corner of Western and 2nd Street in L.A. and chatted for at least a half hour about comedy and some of our standup comedy goals. When we realized we both wanted the same things, and that we were both doing similar things, we decided to join forces. The result was our Third Act Comedy Show, and it’s been a huge success ever since. My advice to anyone who is looking for collaborators is to look no further than “your own backyard.” Start by considering the people around you, or the people you’re already socializing with or working with. Chances are they are also looking for someone to collaborate with, and then before you know it, you’ve got a productive team!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thememoirmidwife.com/
- Instagram: @stacy_dymalski
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stacy.dymalski
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacydymalski/
- Twitter: @StacyWriteNow
- Youtube: @Stacy_Dymalski
- Other: TikTok: @stacydymalski_comic Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StacyDymalski Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Do-Have-Buy-Gifts-Everyone-ebook/dp/B0CV6T68RL?ref_=ast_author_mpb
Image Credits
Photos by Liz Barlak, Justin Gill, Stacy Dymalski; book cover design by Michelle Rayner, book photo by Quinn Dymalski