A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #193
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For July 14-20, 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. Nobody took us up on our idea for olive tapenade potato chips, so here's another one: Anchovy potato chips. Come on, people, let's get ludicrously salty and savory with our chips.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Introducing Our Water Park’s Newest Attraction: The Productive River by Casey Peta (Slackjaw) There are a lot of different directions you could take the "productive river" idea, and it would have been very easy to let all the different possible versions of the piece get muddled together, or to not push much beyond the reversal in the title. But the piece has a clear and unique focus and explores the details of this co-working space/waterpark really nicely.
Infamous 'Lost' Nintendo Mean Girls Game Now Fully Revealed by Ari Notis (Kotaku) If you've ever wondered what an adaptation of Mean Girls for the Nintendo DS would be like (and who among us has not?), wonder no more! Not a traditional humor piece, but very funny and charming just the same.
The Lost Episodes of I Love Lucy by Julian George (McSweeney's) The period-specific details and deep cuts are extremely sharp and provide a unique angle for the premise, while the descriptions of how each episode devolves into farce keep things moving and keep the piece from becoming a mere laundry list of references.
An Old Favorite
Are You a Landlord or Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide”? by Natalie Holt (McSweeney's) When we first had the idea to start a newsletter, we knew it was either going to be about short humor or Fleetwood Mac. And while we usually don't spend a lot of time thinking about what might have been, sharing Fleetwood-Mac-related material always eases the small, nagging pangs of regret we feel about this not being "A Newsletter of Mackulous Fleetwoods".
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
Luke's got four spots left in the August section of his "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece" workshop. In it, you'll write a McSweeney's-style short humor piece over the course of four weeks. Full details and signup form here! And you can check out some of the writing that's come out of past workshops in this thread.
Other Humorous Writing News
Janine Annett and Ali Solomon's book, I Am "Why Do I Need Venmo?" Years Old, came out this week! If you enjoyed their McSweeney's piece of the same name, you'll surely want to check out the book.
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!