A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #163
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For December 16-22, 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. We hope you've had a chance to rest this holiday season, and reconnect with friends and loved ones! We've enjoyed all the holiday cards we've gotten at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), though our favorite is the one we got from the Library of Congress' lawyers with the lovely note, "please stop sending us this 'funny' writing, the Library doesn't take submissions."
What We Enjoyed This Week
AITA for Being Mad at My Husband’s Weird Family Member for Turning Water into Wine at Our Wedding? by Samantha Cheh (McSweeney's) A really well-done parody! Great specifics, but the attention to the details of a Reddit post is really impressive. Samantha includes everything from the "throwaway account" note at the top, to multiple edits on the post, to the comments.
2020 Gift Guide: Something for Everyone on Your List! by Claire Friedman (The New Yorker) We won't spoil it for you, but Claire leans hard into one specific joke in this piece, and it's all the better for it.
Are You Baking Cookies with Children or Starring in a Gritty Crime Procedural? by Audrey Burges (McSweeney's) We've said it before, but the best list pieces find two specific things that are very dissimilar in order to start with a really big contrast, and then surprise you with unexpected similarities. Audrey's point of comparison here is very fun, and the best moments of this piece are when it really nails the tone of gritty TV procedurals.
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #118.
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Colin Nissan (McSweeney's)
Colin read this piece at our last show, and man did it kill. There's a lot to love about it, but what we think is most interesting is that there isn't necessarily a weird, wacky premise to this one. The conceit is logic; wouldn't it be strange if we just took this song literally. What would happen? Colin follows through to figure it out--and gives us a narrator with personality in the process. Like the song, everything about this piece is classic. It's ten years old and it really holds up.
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
Sure, you've read plenty of humorous writing, but have you ever played a humorous... board game??? Friends of the Show Jed Feiman & Nehemiah Markos are going to let you do just that. They're putting out an update of a board game from 1970, tackling racial inequity in real estate -- and it's funny! It's called Blacks & Whites: 50th Anniversary Edition. A portion of the game's proceeds will be supporting the National Urban League's Housing Division, so each purchase also benefits a great cause. They've launched a Kickstarter campaign, be sure to check it out!
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!
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 subscribe to our paid tier, or 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'd like to place an ad in the Newsletter, please fill out this form.
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!