A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #169
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For January 27-February 2, 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 spent all Tuesday writing a brand new short humor piece in the snow, and we couldn't be happier with how it turned out. The only problem is now we have to find an outlet that will run it before spring--and that is also willing to figure out how to run a specific patch of actual physical snow in their publication. We know we could transcribe the piece into a document but the jokes just work better in the snow. If you'd like a sneak peek before (fingers crossed) it gets published, head out to the big abandoned lot in between the old supermarket and that new condo that just went up.
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Art of Conversation For Eloquent Sophisticates by Sean McGowan (McSweeney's) This piece builds beautifully, effortlessly weaving in callbacks and running jokes, and culminating in a terrific button. And we truly admire how hard it commits to its very specific, very weird, utterly delightful central element.
The Art of the Cover Letter by A-J Aronstein (The Paris Review) A witty, sardonic look at a form of writing that almost everyone is forced to try, but which almost no one actually enjoys.
Now That I’m Getting Married, I Need a Bamboo Cheese Board by Claire Friedman (The New Yorker) Great specifics and great joke writing. We have just one nitpicky complaint about this piece: For consistency's sake, it would have been great if the title had started with "The Art of".
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 #63.
I Am From The Future And I'm Here To Sell You Magazines by Rachel Keller (Weekly Humorist)
If this newsletter were in magazine form, would you buy it? Ok, what if it was just one humor piece, and the rest was in-depth articles about fascinating subjects and an extensive list of goings-on about town. And what if David Remnick was the editor. Crazy? Stupid? Yeah, you're probably right.
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 and Luke (and a bunch of other fantastic guests) are going to be performing on SpeakEasy, a show started by Brian about comedy and speechwriting, TONIGHT (Thursday 2/4) at 9:30PM EST on Twitch! They'll be co-reading a brand new piece they co-wrote, and it's gonna be an all-around great time. (Also it's presented by The Squirrel Theater--a great organization you should be sure to check out.)
Luke's doing a multi-session workshop, "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece", starting at the end of February! In it, you'll write a write a short humor piece over the course of four weeks, taking your ideas from brainstorm to full draft, working with a small group so you can get personalized notes and feedback every step of the way. More info and signup form right here!
James and Friend of the Newsletter Lucas Adams' map-zine, "An Atlas of Valentine's Day Island" is printed and on its way to James' house! Barring any shipping issues (fingers crossed), copies of this fold-out newsprint map about this fictional, romantic island should be on its way to you soon. You can order a copy for $5 here and take a peek here, on Twitter!
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!