A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #231
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For April 6-12, 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. This is the 231st edition of the Newsletter, but we're happy to announce that today also marks the long-awaited arrival of A Message In A Bottle of Humorous Writing #1! We tossed it into the sea years ago and are excited to say to the crew of the oil rig Petrojarl 1: Hope you enjoy the water-logged humor!
What We Enjoyed This Week
An Open Letter To The 9 Year Old I Saw Practicing Karate In Line At McDonald’s by Mitch Russell (Slackjaw) The open letter is typically a form used to complain, both in humor and non-humor contexts. Mitch inverts this expectation and writes a letter of praise, which leads to some fun heightening in an enthusiastically positive direction. This choice leaves space to call out the silliness and annoyance of a kid shadowboxing in a fast food line, without making it the main focus, which might make the piece feel like it's punching down at a kid having the time of their life.
Daily Itinerary of Me, a Millennial City Resident, According to Nearby Suburbanites on NextDoor by Jessica F. Lillian (The Belladonna) Writing the stereotypes of a character as seen through the eyes of another character can be a tough juggling act, which forces a writer to pass all their details and jokes through a series of specific lenses. Jessica sticks the landing, using those perspectives to get to some really heightened places.
I’m Not Afraid of Stephen King Books Because I Know Maine Isn’t Real by Rachel Keller (McSweeney's) This is a very simple and silly premise that is filled with solid jokes and plenty of fun specifics for fans of both King's books and Maine. And structurally, you couldn't ask for a cleaner execution; Rachel paces this piece nicely, resting the premise before finding new and varied ways to return to it.
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Jeff Bender, a writer who lives near Philadephia. Thanks for writing in, Jeff!
The Oral History of This Oral History by Kevin Seccia (McSweeney's) Jeff writes, "Oh, it's so funny! I love the self-importance of these narrators. It's a real hidden gem on the McSweeney's site."
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 spots left in his Let's Write a Short Humor Piece workshop starting on April 30th! If you’ve got ideas for short humor pieces but aren’t sure how to get them on the page, this workshop is designed to help. For both beginners looking to do hands-on learning and experienced humor writers looking to do focused work on trickier ideas. (Hot tip: he's also got just two spots left in his other April workshop.)
If you want to learn more about parody, James is teaching another Introduction to Parody course again for Pandemic University! You'll leave class with a workshopped draft of a short piece, or a plan for a longer parody project! The course will be over four sessions from May 19th to June 3rd, but there's lots more info and a link to sign up here!
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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.
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!