top of page

Making an Impact: Ethan Berlin

Writer's picture: The Reston Letter StaffThe Reston Letter Staff

By Chuck Cascio, Author and Former South Lakes Teacher



Ethan Berlin is a pretty funny guy. Photo contributed by Ethan Berlin

As a student at Hunters Woods Elementary School, Ethan Berlin had a problem: “I

kept getting in trouble for making jokes in class.” That “problem” has become Ethan’s

trademark characteristic in a career of “making funny things because that is what fulfills

me.”


In fifth grade, Ethan transferred to the Gifted & Talented program at Sunrise Valley

Elementary School where “my teacher, Mr. Bromley, was both funny and emotionally

supportive. He made me realize it was not only okay to be weird and funny, but it was

also an important part of being a person. Those experiences validated and grew what was

already inside me.”


Living in the Deepwood Community within Reston, “there were so many kids, there

was always someone to joke with!” Ethan spent summers at the Reston Community

Center’s Young Actors Theater “where I continued my love of performing and comedy.”

That affection developed further at South Lakes High School: “I took Theater Arts with

Ms. Harris and Film Production with Ms. Belt.”


Ethan graduated from SLHS in 1995, and went to the University of Virginia, but he

says, “I never quite found my community there. Things I valued – creativity, silliness,

compassion, humor – were not valued by many of my peers.” Spending his junior year at

Ireland’s Burren College of Art, he “found a collective of fellow artists and weirdos! I’m

pretty sure I wouldn’t have finished college without that experience.”


After graduating from UVA, Ethan plunged into a creative journey. He worked the

Jumbotron at Capital Center, then moved to Los Angeles and “achieved my dream of first

becoming an overworked TV assistant, writing for TV shows, and eventually being

nominated for some Emmy Awards.” He eventually moved to New York and continued

working on TV while cultivating his pursuit of children’s humor. Then a critical event

occurred: “I made a funny iPhone calculator app and showed it to another parent at a

kids’ party. She thought the app was funny and said she was a children’s book editor, and

asked if I had ever thought about writing for kids.”


Ethan grabbed the opportunity to pursue a lifelong goal of making kids laugh: “I sent

her several manuscripts for children’s picture books. She ended up buying ‘The Hugely-

Wugely Spider,’ about a spider that is too big to fit up the waterspout with the Itsy-Bitsy

Spider. I was always the biggest kid in class, so I wanted to write a story about a big

character who ends up saving the day.”


Since then, Ethan, who has two children and now lives in New Jersey, has had six

children’s books published, the latest being “How to Draw a Brave Chicken” that “starts as

a typical how-to-draw book and then goes off the rails! My fifth-grade self would

definitely have found it amusing.” That same natural humor led Ethan to create the

children’s monthly magazine, The Journal of Nonsense: The Funny Magazine for Silly

Kids, which is filled with “ridiculous activities, weird jokes, absurd games, and the

occasional picture of hippopotamuses” and more.


As Ethan reflects on his love of humor, he admits, “It has long-felt that making funny

things is the only thing there is; it is the language I speak and just feels like what I am

supposed to do.”

50 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page