A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For December 12-18, 2019, a roundup of the week's finest prose humor and prose humor-related news.
Our next show is January 28, tickets here.

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. The word "squall" was in the news yesterday, which gives us hope that other old-timey seafaring-y words are finally going to be making a comeback. We're calling it now: 2020 is going to be the year of "scuttlebutt."
 

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What We Enjoyed This Week

I Am Your Big Mouth Billy Bass, and I Only Sing Schubert’s “Erlkönig” Now by Gaby FeBland (McSweeney's) We would have been happy to read a full 19th Century British Novel version of this piece. It's a truly original idea for a character, and the voice and the story are compelling and well developed (and, oh yeah, very funny).

Please Turn This Piece of Long-Form Journalism Into a Screenplay by Eddie Small (McSweeney's) This is such a clever concept, one is tempted to say that this is the sort of piece that writes itself--but it didn't write itself, Friend of the Show Eddie Small wrote it. (Stop trying to take credit for writing yourself, piece!) And he did a great job. It heightens beautifully and takes a nice unexpected turn towards the end.

Translation of a Seemingly Pleasant Conversation Between My Two Aunts At Christmas by Rose O’Shea (McSweeney's) The language used in the translations is hilarious and delightful. The heightened tone is really funny in and of itself ("I had hoped the snow might consume you."), and the shifts from that tone into more informal speech generates a lot of laughs as well. Just some damn good prose writing.
 

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An Old Favorite

Luke here! I recommended this around Christmas in 2017, but it's so good I just couldn't resist picking it again. And I like it so much you should consider yourselves lucky that I don't pick it EVERY holiday season, or even every WEEK. This would be "A Newsletter of Christmas at Thompson Hall" if I had my way, so thank your lucky stars that James and Brian are here to stop me.

Anyway, this may be longer than the stuff we usually highlight, but you have to understand it seems incredibly short compared to other Trollope works. 60ish pages is basically the Trollope equivalent of a Tweet. Comical misunderstandings ensue when a woman attempts to procure a bit of mustard for her sick husband. It's all very charming and extremely 19th-Century British novel-y. A perfect comfort read, and just the thing if you need something a little bit more substantial to distract you over the holidays.
 

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Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

If you're a fan of Watchmen and/or Christmas carols, you won't want to miss Luke's latest piece, Dr. Manhattan's 12 Days of Christmas. There are no spoilers for the show, and if you've only read the comic, or if you've never read the comic OR watched the show, you'll still be able to enjoy it. (And if any of you have an in with Lindelof, please send it his way.)

Also Luke's piece Real Men Hate Toxic Masculinity was included on the list of 2019's "Not-To-Be-Missed Shouts." There are a lot of Friends of the Show on the list too, so it's definitely worth checking out.

See you next week!

@brianagler, @lukevburns, & @jamesfolta

Did we miss a piece you loved? Did you love a piece we mentioned? Let us know! This is an experiment and we're hoping to continue to make it better and better. If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is.