A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For November 4-10, 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. Here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), we had originally planned to spend this week making a big pot of stew. You see, at this time of year, we cook up enough stew to last us all winter, using a pot so big we have to stand on each other's shoulders to put ingredients in, and a spoon so big it takes at least two people to stir. But it just wasn't quite cold enough this week to get the big cooking fire going, so we had to put all our big cooking supplies back in our big cupboard. Oh well! Maybe next week.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Diary of a License Plate Designer by Sean McGowan (Points in Case) A truly original premise and point of view, and a very relatable, very funny exploration of the highs and lows that come with working in a creative field. 

The Quickest Bite by Julia Alexander and Zoe Schiffer (The Verge) This is by no means a traditional humor piece (and if it were a fictional piece, we might be inclined to say that jokes dunking on Quibi are a little played out), but the details are irresistible. You can't make this stuff up, folks. In some cases, the truth really is funnier than fiction.

On Dostoevsky’s 199th birthday, here’s Nabokov insulting him. A lot. by Walker Caplan (Lit Hub Daily) Looks like Raskolnikov wasn't the only one with an axe to grind! (We'll see ourselves out.) Once again, reality proves to be more hilarious than anything you could invent.

An Old Favorite

It is often said that veracity is more risible than even the wildest fabrications, and this piece bears out that familiar axiom. The humor in this list comes from masterful curation, and also from the very relatable struggle of having to find different ways to say the same thing.

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

James is teaching a class on parody writing this December! Through the wonderful Pandemic University, the three-week course will give you an introduction to techniques for analyzing and writing parody, and we'll workshop a short piece from concept to first draft. It'll be very fun, very hands-on, and very supportive! More info and sign up details are here! 

James and Luke are BOTH going to be doing short humor readings at a Tufts Alumni Comedy Night show. (Did you know James and Luke and Brian all met in college? Another piece of our mysterious backstory revealed!) The show is Friday, November 20th at 9PM EST, and you don't have to be an alumni to check it out.

Halloween may be over, but you can still play Luke's "A Series of Interactive Stories Where No Matter What You Do You Are Immediately Killed by a Werewolf". It's a short humor game parodying the conventions of Choose Your Own Adventure books.

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.

This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to ​Stand Up To Cancer.

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!