A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #197
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 11-17, 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. We've been cleaning out our fridge here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) and have found some tupperware with labels we can't decipher. Let us know if "PoBaKa," or "Holiday Chum," or "Meadballs" means anything to you and if they're worth keeping!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Oedipus Learns of the Term “Oedipus Complex” by Evan Allgood (McSweeney's) A great premise for a monologue in the classic McSweeney's "high brow meets colloquialisms" style. Lots of fun specifics and turns of phrase take this well beyond the expected jokes.
We Need a Woman President to Show Little Girls That One Day They Can Have a Bowling Alley in Their House by Dima Kronfeld (Reductress) Some of the most difficult pieces to pull off are those written from a very specific title or headline that is itself already a solid joke. Dima skillfully takes one piece of White House trivia and spins it out, leaning into the tone and exploring and expanding the set-ups before steering us, each time, back to the bowling alley punchline.
Here’s How To Overcome Perfectionism — So You Better Not Screw It Up, Moron by Rachel Reyes (Slackjaw) This piece is a nice exploration of the observation that well-meaning advice can often tap into and enact the very thing that the advice is meant to help with. The irony levels are well balanced--it never winds up being too on-the-nose or overly subtle.
Romantic-Logic Puzzles by Olivia de Recat and Julia Edelman (The New Yorker) Every puzzle satisfyingly explores its own mini romantic story. Each has a different protagonist, which keep the reader from getting ahead of the piece, and they range from the genuinely confusing to the deeply silly (like someone with poor boundaries with their mailman).
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Kurt Zemaitaitis, a comedy writer and musician in Rhode Island. Thanks for writing in, Kurt!
Okay, Babies Don’t Always Land On Their Feet by Jim Stallard (McSweeney's) Kurt writes: "A great example of a clueless narrator justifying a shocking act. The absurd cat references add to all the fun."
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
There are five spots left in Luke's "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece" workshop starting on Sept 11! Check out some of the writing that's come out of past workshops here, and the full schedule and signup form 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!