A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 5-11, 2020, a roundup of the week's finest prose humor and prose humor-related news.

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. This week's newsletter is #144: A perfect square. Did you know that if you go back through all the newsletters whose numbers are perfect squares and take the first letter of the first word of the title of the old favorite in each one, you'll get the letters "GSTNEAIUAPNN"? When rearranged, these letters spell out the secret password that allows you to get into Humorous Readings HQ (HRHQ): "NEPTUNIAN GAS." We didn't mean to do that!
 

What We Enjoyed This Week

4 Tight Pencil Skirts That Will Keep the Thousands of Tiny Spiders That Make Up Your Body in Place by Alyssa Feller (Reductress) Slideshow articles can sometimes be a letdown. If we have to click FOUR whole times to get to the end, the end had better be good! But this piece does a good job of heightening in a satisfying way, revealing more and more details of the spiders' sinister plan with each new slide.

Blood Donation Clinic Email Subject Line or Orc Battle Cry? by Jacob Pacey (McSweeney's) Precise, carefully-considered framing is an essential element of all short humor, but one becomes most vividly aware of just how crucial it is when reading or writing a list piece. This piece is made up of found texts, and the humor comes from recontextualizing them. There's no room for additional authorial insertions beyond the title. But the title does all the work it needs to in just ten words. No mean feat!

What I Learned From the Worst Novelist in the English Language by Barrett Swanson (The New Republic) Though it's not a traditional humor piece, this article is funny! It's also a poignant character study of an elderly author of a satirical novel, and a moving evocation of a particular set of writing struggles and anxieties that we suspect many of our readers will relate to.
 

An Old Favorite

No, I'm From New York by Susanna Wolff (The New Yorker)

This newsletter is proudly made in NYC. We're New Yorkers through and through (Subways! Bagels!) So, it is for that reason that this piece speaks to us on a deeply personal level. But that's not why it's great. It's great because it does so much all at the same time. It has a simple, but perfect premise. The voice is unique. It builds so naturally. And, most importantly, it somehow turns the name/word "Ralphs" into an insult. Give it a read, unless you're from LA, at which point you can just unsubscribe because your kind aren't welcome here.

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

There are just TWO spots left in Luke's workshop, "Process, Process, Process: How to Get Yourself To Write Even When You're Stuck or Just Don't Wanna"! It's gonna be conducted via Zoom on Saturday, August 22 from 2-4PM Eastern. You can get more info and RSVP right here. (Or send Luke an email if you have questions!)
 

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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