A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 10-16, 2022.

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. One final reminder: Our interactive scifi comedy show, SPACE COUNCIL, is happening tonight at 8PM Eastern on Zoom! It's an unpredictable evening of lasers, robots, aliens, robot-aliens, and spaceships, where you decide what happens. Reserve your ticket now before all the hilarity below makes you forget!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

Thank You for Taking Care of Our Haunted and Enchanted Castle by Emma Marris (McSweeney's) The haunted/enchanted castle details and specifics are so satisfying, and the contrast between them and the more colloquial tone and turns of phrase is extremely funny. There's also a reveal about halfway through the piece that could have felt overly plotty (plottiness being something you generally want to avoid in short humor), but is handled perfectly.

Personality Quiz Reveals You Could Never Be a Sonic Character by Gabe Porter (Hard Drive) It's very funny when petty, esoteric grievances are treated with solemn seriousness, as in this piece, in which the narrator angrily inveighs against someone who has the audacity to compare themself to a Sonic character. The piece heightens nicely by revealing more and more about the extent of the narrator's knowledge of, and reverence for, the various characters.

What Happened When I Typed “Smacked In The Nuts With A Rake” Into A Headline Generator by T. Kent Jones (Slackjaw) A great example of the power of repetition (and further proof that short humor doesn't always have to be highbrow and literary). The phrase "smacked in the nuts with a rake" really rolls off the tongue (if you'll pardon the expression being used in this context), and hearing it over and over and over again to the point of absurdity generates a lot of laughs. Fans of Janelle Shane's AI Weirdness blog will be sure to get a kick out of this one.
 

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An Old Favorite

I Am The Snake Coming Out Of Your Toilet, And I PROMISE You It Is Worse For Me by Molly Kessler (The Belladonna) The reversal of expectations at the heart of this piece is very funny, and Molly takes it to the next level by really empathizing with the snake and how bad it must be for that poor creature to be coming out of the toilet. The narrator's tone--a very proper snake trying to maintain his dignity in a most undignified situation--ties everything together.

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

SPACE COUNCIL is happening tonight at 8 PM Eastern on Zoom! It's experimental interactive comedy that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home. If you like any combination of role-playing games, choose-your-own-adventure books, sci-fi tropes, and laughin', you'll get a kick out of SPACE COUNCIL. You can pay whatever you want for a ticket (including nothing, we won't mind), and you can reserve that ticket right here.

Luke is doing a whole mess of short humor workshops in September, including a single-session class on editing your short humor pieces! Generate new material, get feedback and advice, and meet a bunch of neat people who also enjoy short humor. Check out the full list of workshops right here.
 

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And feel free to send us an email if you have questions.

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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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