A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #255
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For September 21-27, 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. If you can believe it, yesterday was our five-year anniversary of starting this newsletter! It turns out the traditional gift for the fifth anniversary is short humor, so no need to send us anything, it's taken care of itself.
On a more earnest note, we're so grateful to all of you who read this dispatch every week. We have a great time putting it together, and your kind words and support make it worth the sweat many times over. And of course, none of this would have been possible without Brian Agler, who, still smelling of condiments after just having done a "human hot dog" bit on stage, asked us what we thought about hosting a live show of just short humor readings. We miss you all the time, bud. Happy five years.
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Queen I Knew by John Kenney (The New Yorker) This is such a clever piece. If you swap out the main character for anyone other than the Queen, it's a pretty straight-ahead story about a pal. The story is packed full of specifics and charming details, but what really makes the humor pop is that this is about one of the richest, most powerful, most famous people in the world.
Famous Chess Matches, If Some of the Players Were Cheating Using Vibrating Anal Beads, a Thing That Is Allegedly Happening in the Chess World and Is Not Something Random That I Made Up by Alexandra Petri (McSweeney's) What a title. Usually, keeping things succinct is the way to go, but sometimes a 33-word title is the only option. For the readers of this Newsletter, Alexandra needs no introduction, and her trademark excellent joke-writing is on display here. And the reversal at the end really got us.
The People My Fiancé and I Must Invite To Our Wedding, According To My Parents by Emily Kling (The Belladonna) A simple premise, explored via great specifics. Emily finds a lot of interesting and surprising variations on the premise, all while keeping the piece contained and focused. (A side note: it's tradition that the writers of any newsletters you subscribe to should get invites to your weddings, hint hint.)
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Laura Foody, a writer who is based in LA. Thanks for writing in, Laura!
Listicles For People Exactly Like You: 8 Signs Mark Strom From Math Class is Way Into You by Rufi Thorpe (McSweeney's) Laura write, “This piece is one of a series of listicles that Rufi Thorpe did for McSweeney's a few years ago. This list, in particular, has details so specific and so familiar that the whole piece almost aches to read. It's hard enough to develop a full character in such a short piece but to do it while balancing a pitch-perfect Buzzfeed parody is an inspiration.”
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 workshop, "Where to Start With Short Humor", starts on October 29th! It's designed to give beginners and newcomers the tools they need to get started writing short humor. Over four weeks you'll learn the essentials of short humor writing and write a draft of your very own piece in a supportive environment getting feedback every step of the way.
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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!