A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #408
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 27-September 2, 2025
Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. In accordance with the old rhyme, “August sunflowers bring September superpowers,” we hope this new month is off to a great start of flying around and zapping things with your eye lasers.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Is Your Refrigerator Running? by Luke Herzog (Points in Case) This is some really impressive heightening. Pieces that hinge on one turn of phrase can often get stuck looping back to that phrase, but Luke goes beyond “Is your refrigerator running?” to have fun exploring and subverting other classic phone pranks.
An Honest Beach Invitation From Your Friend Who Won’t Shut Up About The Beach by Emily Kling (Slackjaw) We’ve gone on the record to admit to being beach Grinches many times before in the Newsletter, and so this cri de coeur from Emily warmed our staying-in-the-shade-the-entire-day hearts.
I Got Tenure and Now I Can’t Seem to Form Simple Declarative Sentences by Aarushi Ahuja (McSweeney’s) At first blush this piece appears to be working in more of a short story mode—but if you look a little closer, you can see that it has the structure of a premise-based humor piece. If you want to write more scenic short humor, this is a good one to look at. Aarushi introduces new comedic beats quickly, giving you plenty of jokes and heightening, but still finds time to sit in the moments in a grounded way. It’s well done!
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DAF is partnering with The Onion for a weekend not only stacked with curriculum to help you hone your satire skills but also full of real-world career guidance for marginalized writers who aspire to someday join the ranks of America’s most famous satire publication or launch a career in comedy writing. The application deadline is September 8, 2025, at 11:59:59pm Eastern.
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It’s a Jungle in Here: The Mental Gymnastics Show!
Come see NYC’s funniest writers read satire + humor about mental gymnastics. Feat. Colin Nissan, Josh Gondelman, Lillian Stone, and many more hilarious people.
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 9:30PM @ Caveat (21A Clinton St.)
Get $5 off at checkout w/ code BRAINFLIPS---
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An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite is a special back-to-school Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #109.
Ashton Kutcher Fan Fiction: "The Middle School Dance" By Melissa Bell, Age 13 by Teddy Wayne (McSweeney's)
Last week, Luke and Brian performed at the launch party for Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something, a compendium of 21 years of McSweeney's Internet Tendency humor. Teddy Wayne also read--specifically, this piece. It absolutely destroyed. No wonder; it's a classic. We can't recall another piece that so feels like it was written by the "narrator." What really does it for us are the past tense synonyms for "said" that "Melissa" clearly just learned. For some bonus content, check out this video of "Melissa" herself, reading the piece.
Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Luke’s got a few spots left (including scholarship spots) in his upcoming advanced short humor writing workshop starting September 13th! And check out this thread to see some of the great work that’s come out of previous workshops and gone on to be published in places like The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and more.
Thanks to everyone who came out to our hang last night! Hope you had as much fun as we did!
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
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