About

Carlos Greaves is an Afro-Latino electrical engineer turned comedy writer — a career move that haunts his parents to this day. He’s a former contributor to The Onion, teaches online satire and personal essay classes at The Second City, coaches at Hillside Writing, and runs the humor newsletter Shades of Greaves.

His writing has been featured in The New Yorker, NPR, and he’s a frequent contributor to the humor site McSweeney’s — so frequent that the editors decided it would be easier to pay him a flat monthly rate as the site’s topical satire columnist. In 2023, he was a writer on the Peacock special, Back That Year Up, hosted by Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. He is currently developing an animated series, Fuerza, about an undocumented Latina with superpowers, through Yes, And Laughter Lab.

His debut book, Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter and is available wherever you get your books.


Writing

Shades of Greaves

Here’s What Surprised Me Most About Becoming a Parent

How to Find Joy After Last Week’s Election

This Newsletter is Now Sponsored by Raytheon

NPR

Even I, Satan, Am Appalled by the State of the Republican Party

A Visit From the Tune Squad

The New Yorker

Excerpts From a Sitcom Set in New York City by Writers Who Are Clearly from California

Script of Every Movie Set in Boston

Work E-Mails During an Apocalypse

An Episode of “Euphoria,” Based Solely on the Jokes I’ve Seen About It on Social Media

Plots of Nineteen-Eighties Movies if Their Protagonists Had Been People of Color

McSweeney’s

A Typical Episode of Sesame Street as Imagined by Conservatives

How to Become a Professional Writer

Are You Allowed to Criticize Simone Biles?: A Decision Tree

Schedule of Speakers for the 2020 Republican National Convention

Sure, the Velociraptors Are Still On the Loose, But That’s No Reason Not to Reopen Jurassic Park

As a 28-Year-Old Latino, I’m Shocked My New Novel, Memoirs of a Middle Aged White Lady, Has Been so Poorly Received

Film and Television

Pilots

Fuerza (half-hour, animated sitcom script)

Logline: Esperanza Fierro wants to become America’s greatest superhero. But when her immigration status gets in the way of being hired by the country’s top teams, she is forced to take a job with the only crew that will hire her, The Amazings, who are anything but amazing.

2024 Yes, And Laughter Lab Fellowship

Television

Back That Year Up (2023) – Writer


Commercial

FlutterFlow for PS5 – April Fool’s Video (2022)

TikTok:

@shadesofgreaves What other moments would be in the remake? #sketchcomedy #humor #funnyvideos ♬ original sound – Carlos Greaves

Books

Spoilers

Book cover for Spoilers depicting well-known movie characters waiting at the DMV

Highlighted in Vulture’s Best Comedy Books of 2023

Do you enjoy movies? Sharp satire? Laughter in general? If so, this book was written for you.

Spoilers is a collection of satirical stories that poke fun at thirty of Hollywood’s most famous films and franchises. The Little Mermaid writes a not-so-happily-ever-after, tell-all memoir about marrying into the royal family, Princess Leia wonders why the Jedi are always the underdogs against the Dark Side, whose political views ought to be way less popular, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover slowly loses his mind as he investigates a troublemaker who keeps popping up everywhere named Forrest Gump.

A hilarious debut from frequent New Yorker and McSweeney’s contributor Carlos Greaves, Spoilers will leave you laughing at hitherto unexamined plot points of your favorite films, at the sorry state of the world we live in, and definitely at whoever’s idea it was to open a theme park full of people-eating dinosaurs.

Spoilers is available wherever you get your books! (But if I had to pick a place, I’d prefer you bought it from your local independent bookstore)