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W&L Alum Joins SNL Writing Team

When “Saturday Night Live” opens its 38th season this weekend, some of the jokes you’ll hear will have been written by a Washington and Lee alumnus.

Josh Patten, of the Class of 2003, has joined the show’s stable of writers. A politics major at W&L, Josh may call upon some of that background, since he’ll be writing for the show’s Weekend Update segment.

Josh started his improv career with Washington Improv Theater in 2005. He moved to New York in 2007 and began training with the Upright Citizens Brigade, a sketch comedy troupe that began in Chicago with four comedians, including Amy Poehler, an SNL alum.

Since 2008, Josh has been performing with a number of improv groups, and you can see his work on some videos at UCBcomedy.com.

You can also follow Josh on his tumblr page or, for a steady stream of one-liners, check out The Josh Patten on Twitter. His Twitter feed was featured earlier this year on the Follow Friday feature of the Splitsider website.

To show you what you’ll get by following Josh, here are a few of our recent favorite tweets:

  • The special skills portion of my resumé includes coming within two tacos of ordering the right amount of Mexican food.
  • A great place to stash a shirtless corpse is on a sun-dappled park lawn.
  • I am currently strangers with everyone who ever told me not to be a stranger.

If you know any W&L alumni who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.