Is It Hot in Here (Or Am I Suffering for All Eternity for the Sins I Committed on Earth?)

Zach Zimmerman’s essays move like stand-up with a soul. He tries to bring a salad to a Southern Thanksgiving, tiptoes from stage kisses to real ones, and gets dumped on a plane after two trips to Paris. He quits a corporate job that’s paying the bills, revisits the death of a friend to understand faith and doubt, sits down with his mom over Olive Garden to test the limits of unconditional love, and even interviews Satan to ask what any of it means. Along the way, he wrestles with panic, prays to meditation, and learns to forgive himself. It’s a coming-of-age story told in punchlines and prayers.

• Listeners who like memoirs that balance comedy with heart
• Anyone deconstructing faith, family, or identity with tenderness
• Queer listeners seeking stories that feel true and kind
• Fans of stand-up who want the jokes plus the why beneath them

Zach Zimmerman is a Brooklyn-based writer and stand-up comedian whose work appears in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and The Washington Post. A Time Out NY Comic to Watch, Zach’s album “Clean Comedy” debuted on the Billboard Top 10. When not onstage, Zach is probably meditating, texting Halcyon, or negotiating with a mouse that refuses to leave his apartment.