Stu Cassell was raised in a traditional Jewish household, something's he's always wondered about since his family is Italian! He is a professional stand-up comic, writer, and teacher who has appeared in over 300 nightclubs and colleges in the U.S. and Canada. Stu's articles have appeared in the Detroit Free Press and he was a weekly columnist at Highlands Today. Stu has opened for Jim Carey, Bob Saget, Tim Allen, Gary Shandling, and dozens of other big name headliners. He taught joke writing, performing, and selling at the L.A. Learning Network, and L.A. Learning Tree. He has sold jokes to Joan Rivers and Rodney Dangerfield and was a founder of the Detroit Comedy Society and the Los Angeles Comedy Repertoire. His work on overcoming writer's block is based on Freud's article on the Comic and the Subconscious and the term "wit-gap" is of his own invention. He is also credited with having coined the expression: "No one ever got a hernia from carrying a grudge."