A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For April 13-19, 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. We had a lot of stuff on our calendar this weekend and, long story short, we apologize to the IRS for sending them a bunch of painted eggs; we're going to send in our tax returns as soon as we find them in the backyard.

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What We Enjoyed This Week

New Reservation Rules for the Restaurant That Hosted the Last Supper by Eli Grober (McSweeney's) Finding an unexpected point of view through which to explore a familiar situation is a classic way to build a short humor premise. In this piece the narrator doesn't have to be wacky or over-the-top to generate laughs, they just have to articulate the plausible concerns a restaurant might have after dealing with a Last Supper situation.

My Best Guesses About What’s On This “❤Drivin’ Mix 2004❤” CD by Laura Foody (The Belladonna) "Guesses about what's on a mix CD" is a clever and clear framework for this collection of fun early-aughts specifics and details. Sometimes list pieces can wind up feeling a bit insubstantial, but the extended penultimate beat adds some extra satisfying weight.

I’m The Angel Who Made Those Trees That Smell Like Cum, And I’m Sorry by Audrey Clark (Slackjaw) It's often helpful to clarify which aspects of a piece are meant to be unusual, lest the reader think that the premise is overstuffed with too many weird things. Here, Audrey wisely chooses to let the reader know right off the bat that these trees are real, which nicely sets her up to explore the backstory of the (fictional) angel who created them.

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #56.

Original Stories of M.L.B. Team Names by Blythe Roberson and Dave Holtz (The New Yorker) Resident baseball fan, Brian, here! I'm a sucker for baseball humor. That sounds pretty niche, but remember, the most famous sketch of all time--"Who's On First"--is all about baseball. So who's the weird one now.
 

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

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. Check out this thread of 50 pieces of writing that have come out of previous workshops!

Want to learn about parody? James is teaching an 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 on Zoom from May 19th to June 3rd, but there's lots more info and a link to sign up here!

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"This is BS and so can you" is a newsletter that's written by a nervous guy with a few dumb jokes and a few dumb dreams. And what he may lack in mental clarity he makes up for with a superb credit score and an acidic grasp of the English language. So if you enjoy marginally funny jokes, convoluted rants, surprisingly educational explainers, or clicking a subscribe button, please check it out.

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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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