A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #183
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For May 5-11, 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. Sorry we haven’t responded to your fan letters yet! Our mailman keeps saying, “There aren’t any.” Once we resolve the issue, we’ll send our replies straightaway.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Experts Agree, Wine is Good for You (Unless You Pick The Glass I Poisoned) by Gwen Coburn (The Belladonna) A coy and villainous narrator who is threatening the reader, also within a parody of a wine guide, is certainly a lot of balls to keep in the air, but Gwen balances them with careful pacing and a clear pattern.
QUIZ: Is This A Quote From My 5-Year-Old Or An Old Timey Expression That Fell Out Of Style? by Alice H. Lahoda (Slackjaw) Alice heightens this dense list to very silly and fun places. The piece is just jam-packed with fun specifics and fake etymologies! (This piece is also a top 10 finalist in this year's Slackjaw Humor Writing Challenge--keep an eye on the site in the coming days to see the full list of winners.)
Welcome to Our Microbrewery Tour! by Eddie Small (The New Yorker) We might sound like a broken record here about specifics, but the specificity about this brewery and its owners is what makes this piece. It's not enough that they are entitled beer snobs, the fun is in how entitled and snobby they are.
Human Teeth Development Meeting Notes by Emily Delaney (McSweeney's This piece is funny, but it's also a sobering reminder that teeth are super weird.
An Old Favorite
Who I Am, In Order by Sam Weiner (McSweeney's) Friend of the Newsletter Sam Weiner is great at pieces about spiraling, down-on-their-luck narrators. This piece cleverly uses a punchy list format to weave a narrative composed of runners and callbacks. These set-ups and pay-offs make this piece much more substantive and satisfying than your typical list.
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
Both Luke and James wrote postcard games for the Wish You Were Here Postcard Jam. Luke wrote A Rash and Bloody Deed, a stabbing-centric collaborative storytelling game inspired by Hamlet. James' game is called Buried Alive!, and is a solo game about trying to escape a shallow grave and discover who is trying to kill you. Print 'em both out and mail them to pals!
Luke is offering the very first weeknight edition of his "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece" workshop! It will meet Tuesday nights at 7 PM ET, and starts on June 8th. Check out the full schedule and sign up right over here!
The St. Nell's Humor Writing Residency for Ladies is currently soliciting pitches for workshops and classes! If you ever dreamed of teaching with a very cool writing residency, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for! The submission form is here, and pitches are due May 20th.
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
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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!