A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For December 30, 2020-January 5, 2021, 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're thinking of all of you and hope you're all doing well.

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What We Enjoyed This Week

Hibernation Insomnia by Teddy Wayne and Kate Greathead (The New Yorker) The narrator's voice is unique and compelling, and the insomnia details--and the bear details--are all well-observed. A very fun piece.

The House Is Finally, Completely, Totally Clean by Jane Driver (McSweeney's) Futility and existential angst caused by chores is a subject near and dear to our heart--and this piece is a great exploration of that material.

Wanted: Competent Mattress Store Employee by Ian Moore (Points In Case) A satisfyingly thorough exploration of a very simple, very silly premise.

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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 #6.

Welcome to Infinity World by John Harris (Pendulous Breasts Quarterly)
We first heard this piece at an Evening of Humorous Readings show. We didn't stop laughing the whole way through. It's vintage John Harris—which is to say, somewhere on the borderline between wildly creative and just basically insane. But, it works. It works so well. ​

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. 

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Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

James was on the radio in the UK, talking about his security envelope collection, the upcoming Dull Men's Club calendar, and a bit about short humor.

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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