A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #187
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For June 2-8, 2021, a roundup of the week's finest prose 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. Summer is really heating up at the Humorous Reading Headquarters (HRHQ) and so we've begun our yearly ritual of cutting the legs off of all our pants to turn them into shorts. Pro-tip: always save the pant legs! You'll need them for when you have to sew your shorts back into pants in the fall.
What We Enjoyed This Week
What Not to Expect When You’re Expecting by Kennedy Weible (McSweeney's) Long, specific anecdotes from a dopey and over-confident dad serve as a great juxtaposition to the sober pregnancy advice.
Best STEM Toys For One-Year-Olds, Also, Calm Down by Keith James (McSweeney's) Parody pieces that wink and break the fourth wall can be tough to pull off convincingly; if you're too coy with your commentary, the piece might not read as satire, and if you're too heavy-handed with the asides, the piece can feel overly preachy. Keith manages this tight-rope walk nicely, with a balance between the brief, grounded toy descriptions and the chiding sass.
Fun facts about fun guys by Janelle Shane (AI Weirdness) We love the funny AI experiments Janelle does on her site. This one, AI-written facts about contestants on The Bachelorette, is particularly fun because it uses the AI to make new versions of something that, in real life, already feels like it was written by a robot. It makes for a particularly satisfying use of these AI writing tools. As a bonus, this article features a cameo from Friend of the Newsletter, Nicole Boyce!
Why Do You Want to Unsubscribe? WHY?! by Emily Flake and Elissa Bassist (McSweeney's) A simple premise and a straightforward format can let the writer concentrate on the writing more granularly -- individual jokes, character voice, and details -- without having to worry about keeping the reader on board with the who, what, and where of the piece. Emily and Elissa use those recognizable and opaque unsubscribe pages to jump right into confusing details, short runners, and silly callbacks.
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Eli Burnstein, a Toronto-based writer and editor. Check out Eli's work on his website. Thanks for writing in, Eli!
Eat Them, I Don't Know: John Mayer's Guide To Foraging #2 by Courtney Maum (Barrelhouse) Eli writes, "This John Mayer parody is so expertly written and keeps up such a relentless pace you don't have time to stop laughing. The voice, the detail, the imaginative left turns--it's all gold."
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.
Other Humorous Writing News
You may have seen that the New Yorker's Union has been negotiating with management for two and a half years now without a deal, and have announced that they intend to go on strike soon. The strike is not currently happening, but in anticipation of one, they've put together a website with their demands, testimonials, and lots of other good info.
If you're reading this and are a contributor or aspiring contributor to the New Yorker, they have some requests for us about not crossing the picket line if a strike does happen: don't pitch new work, don't edit work, ask that any of your accepted work not be published during the strike, and more. The Union's site has more info on how to support, but keep an eye on their Twitter and the Freelance Solidarity Project's feed for updates!
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!