A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #171
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For February 10-16, 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. Lots of scary, cold storms around the country lately: please be safe, take care of yourselves, and take care of each other! We've taken the extra step this week of putting down salt on all of the pieces we selected, to keep you from slipping while you read.
What We Enjoyed This Week
420 Credit Score Almost Worth It by Patrick Coyne (The Hard Times) This piece is a reminder that even the silliest ideas can make for great short humor pieces. Crisply written and richly explored, Coyne gives the reader so much of the backstory and the implications behind a dumb joke.
A Field Guide to Heart-Shaped Foods by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker) We like to feature funny writing from outside the short humor world from time to time, and this is a great example. Framing this as a "field guide" is apt: Rosner's roaming piece is very thorough, an almost stream-of-consciousness exploration of all types of foods that can be contorted into one shape.
I’m the Guy Who Wears Shorts in the Winter, and One Day You Will All Bow Before My Bare Weatherproof Legs by Graeme Carey (McSweeney's) "I'm the Guy" is a common framing to quickly get into a monologue about a general archetype, and what makes pieces like this stick are their specifics: to tell the story of the character, or to build their backstory, or to show us a slice of their life, or whatever. Here, Carey uses the monologue to address criticisms that the winter-shorts guy would likely get, and mine the strained logic of his answers for jokes.
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 #42.
This Diet Isn't About Losing Weight, It's About Feeling Well in a Vague Way by Lucy Huber (The Belladonna) This isn't just a hilarious piece, it's a piece that makes us all think--namely about society's hilarious history of fad dieting. Remember the Atkins Diet? Remember how you could eat a bunch of hamburgers, but as long as there weren't any buns, you were good? Those were the days.
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
Our newsletter cofounder, good pal, and great writer Brian Agler would have been 32 tomorrow, and to celebrate his birthday, his wife Claire is raising money for Brave Like Gabe, an organization dedicated to rare cancer research. Claire posted a thread on Twitter about why she decided to set up the birthday celebration, and the outpouring of support has already been tremendous! If you have $32 to spare, consider donating to Brian's birthday gift!
Because the first one sold out so quickly, Luke's adding another section of his multi-session workshop, "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece"! 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. Schedule and signup form right here!
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!