A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For January 26-February 1, 2022, 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. No time for a long intro this week: We're both currently dangling from the hour hand of a huge clock at the top of a very tall building. It was easy to hang on at 9AM, when we first got ourselves into this predicament, but it's been getting trickier as it gets closer and closer to noon.

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What We Enjoyed This Week

They’re Flamin’ Hotting Everything Now by Jaya Saxena (Eater) We are currently working on the technology to make the newsletter Flamin' Hot, but until our formula is perfected, including this article is the next best thing. (Also our notional Flamin' Hot Newsletter of Humorous Writing is NOT just an "an easy way to appear innovative without doing any work.")

What’s the Worst that Could Happen? by Alex Watt (The New Yorker) This piece strikes a delicate balance: The consequences of each seemingly innocuous decision are nicely heightened, but never get so over-the-top that they start to feel random.

New AI Paint Colors by Janelle Shane (AI Weirdness) These AI-generated paint color names just roll off the tongue: "Redses," "Horrific Violet," "Poseidon's Belly Button," the list goes on. Very funny, very satisfying to say out loud, and a testament to the curatorial skill Janelle Shane brings to all her AI Weirdness projects.
 

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An Old Favorite

How You’ll Be Punished in Hell, Based on Your Tipping Practices by Taylor Garron (The New Yorker) Using the circles of Hell as a way to structure a piece is just fantastic–it provides a super-clear build and so many nice details to draw on. Each circle is combined with a different bad tipping practice in a meaningful and well-earned way. The different tipping sins that land you in each circle, and the punishments you receive once there, are all clever, surprising, and very funny. (Friendly reminder: This newsletter ALSO has a tip jar--link at the bottom, ahem.)

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

There are a few spots left in each of Luke's February short humor workshops! There's one section of "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece" on February 12th, and two sections of "Let's Write MORE Short Humor Pieces" on February 10th and February 12th, respectively.
 

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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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