Humor has been a constant in Marjorie Preston’s life for the past 15 years. It’s seen the local writer/journalist/public relations person/swimming instructor/standup comic/improv performer through a lot of life changes and offered her a constant creative outlet, as she participated in ensembles and then formed one of her own, the Angry Ladies of Improv, which is still a going concern. They, and the other group she’s part of, the Cleveland Improv Jam, are still performing via Zoom.
How she’s published her first book called OH! That’s Funny! 101 Hilarious Ohio Jokes, which has just come out on Cleveland-based publisher Outlandish Press, just in time to send to as a holiday gift to those friends who have moved away and still miss Ohio.
Like her sorta-first book Emmaisms, which was a collection of quotes from her then three-year-old daughter, whom she credited as author, OH! That’s Funny draws on outside collaborators: family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. She credits ‘Marjorie Preston & friends.”
She actually assembled the book eight years ago, when a friend suggested that other states had done such books and maybe Ohio should have one too. She reached out to people she knew for contributions.
“Phone calls, emails, Facebook posts on every group I was in. I reached out and said hi, I’m writing a joke book and if I use your joke, I’ll credit you. A lot of them are ones that get passed along. My husband contributed joke — I think it’s one someone told him.”
The jokes include old saws like “what’s round on the outside, high in the middle,” as well as jokes about specific regions of the state: Cleveland, Toledo, her native Bowling Green.
In the interim, she got busy and life intervened, including the birth of her son. Then the pandemic hit, and she took another look at the idea and revived it, hoping to bring some humor to people during difficult times. Other than changing a LeBron joke, she found most of the stuff she collected was still relevant. Sadly, three people who contributed jokes had passed on and she dedicated the book to them: musician Norman Tischler, technie/microbrewer Andy Craze and Plain Dealer editor Mark Rapp.
She also credits her improv background with giving her the confidence to take on new projects.
“I know I wouldn’t have felt as confident 15 years ago,” she says. “I started out as a straight writer doing journalism, then I started writing humor but I felt I couldn’t understand unless I got up and did it. I came back to Cleveland and watched people do improv and finally got the urge to get up and do it. It is like acting without a net. I had done ballet, theater, musicals, but with improv, you get up there — you have no script, no director, no score. If I had tried to write this ten years ago, I don’t know if I would have felt confident enough to do this, if I would have felt legitimate enough to do this.”
You can find OH! That’s Funny at local bookstores, including Mac’s Backs in Coventry Village, Appletree Books in Cleveland Heights and Fireside Books in Chagrin Falls, as well as at marjoriepreston.com. The book is also available in eBook format here.