A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 31-September 6, 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. We hope you all had a nice Labor Day weekend! We spent it the same way we always do: wearing, as a last hurrah until next year, layers upon layers of all our white clothes.

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What We Enjoyed This Week

The Average Contestant on British Baking Shows vs. the Average Contestant on American Cooking Shows by Rebecca Turkewitz (The New Yorker) A terrific example of heightening on two tracks. Both the British and American sections have such great details and specifics they could practically stand on their own--but juxtaposing the two adds an extra layer of laughs and makes everything hit that much harder.

Reviews of New Food: Buffalo Wild Wings’ Legendary Long Island by Evan Allgood (McSweeney's) In most McSweeney's "Reviews of New Food" the descriptions of the titular new foods are the main attraction. And while the food descriptions are also great here, this review is particularly memorable because of two very funny, well-drawn side characters, the server and the server's assistant.

The Stork Who Delivers Babies on Why It’s No Big Deal That He Dropped One by Evan Waite (The New Yorker) It's very funny to have a baby-delivering stork run through a litany of familiar "apology tour" excuses and deflections, and the reveals about the stork and what the stork's workplace is like are very satisfying. This piece is also a terrific model for how to write a short humor piece in dialogue form without it starting to feel too much like a sketch.

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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 #94.

I'm the Founder of "Word of the Day" Calendar and I Feel Vexation and Chagrin by Meredith Dietz (Points in Case) The title says it all (in so many ways!) Fantastic premise for an article that really delivers. Or gives. Or distributes.

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 still spots left in Luke's single-session short humor workshop on editing, polishing, and how to get and give helpful feedback. It's chock full of helpful tips and tricks for making sure your work is in the best shape possible before hitting submit. September 18th at 1PM Eastern!
 

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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!