A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For November 3-9, 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. This week we realized that "Walt Whitman" has the same meter and number of syllables as "Goldfinger" so naturally we started working on a song parody. All we have so far is "Walt Whitmaaaaan/He's the man, the man with the Leaves of Grass" but we'll keep you updated as more develops!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

Fun Ways to Get Spiders on You This Fall! by Kathryn Kvas (The New Yorker) A great example of the benefits of getting hyperfocused in your humor writing. You could easily imagine a version of this piece with a broader premise ("bad things that could happen during fall activities"), but it just wouldn't hit as hard as it does with the specificity of spiders.

Windows Were Never on the Table by Tom Wallenberg (McSweeney's) There are an impressive number of things that heighten in this piece: The type of building being designed, the person designing it and their relationship to Warren Buffet, and, of course, the weird thing about the design of the building. Having so many different tracks of heightening helps keep a piece fresh, assuming all the elements are well-balanced--which, in this case, they are.

Cranberry Ginger Ale Season Should Last All Year by Amy McCarthy (Eater) Not a traditional humor piece by any means, but here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) we're suckers for highly specific love letters to esoteric foods and beverages.
 

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Tyler Gooch. Thanks for writing in, Tyler!

Wonderful Occurrences in National Basket-ball: The Defensive Three-Second Violation by Pasha Malla (McSweeney's) Tyler writes, "This piece does an incredible job of taking one of the most absolutely mundane plays in professional basketball and turning it into a thrill ride. The narrator has never seen basketball but, in this moment, loves nothing more in the world than what he is seeing."

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.

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Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

We have a new show coming to a new venue next month! It's called Space Council, and it's a choose-your-own-adventure sci-fi comedy where the audience plays as Space Council, advisors to the King of Mars, and must tackle key issues facing Mars using the power of VOTING. We are excited to bring it to you live, with a truly phenomenal cast:

Dylan Adler as the King of Mars
Nicole Adsit as the Speaker of the Space Council
and Corin Wells as Every Other Character You Meet Along the Way

The show will be happening twice next month on December 8th and 18th at 7 pm at Super Secret Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn! An added bonus: Your ticket will let you see BOTH Space Council performances (and the show is different every time, so why not see 'em all?), AND it will also allow you to see ANY OTHER SHOW at Super Secret Arts from now until the end of the year! What a deal!
 

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Other Humorous Writing News

The Belladonna has just announced the next entry in their series of free workshops for underrepresented writers! This edition is being run by Allie Rubin and is designed for "people who identify as trans or gender non-conforming."
 

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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.

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