A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #265
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For November 30-December 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. The New York Times Guild is staging a walkout today and has asked Times readers to boycott the paper until 11:59PM EST tonight (Thursday 12/8). That means no buying the paper, no clicking on Times articles on social media, no recipes, no Daily, no Wordle (gasp)! You can get the full details here. Don't cross that picket line, dear readers!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Every Single Website's Holiday Gift Guide for Dad by Scarlet Meyer (Points In Case) Instantly relatable to anyone who has ever consulted a gift guide while holiday shopping for their dad. This piece nails all the details and specifics that you come across in this type of article, and puts a comedic spin on them while still keeping things grounded--and there's even jokes in the pricing parentheticals!Are You Decorating for the Holidays with Children, or Playing the Lead in a Heist Movie? by Audrey Burges (McSweeney's) Generally in this type of piece (The Belladonna calls them "This or That" pieces) the tone is kept neutral and ambiguous in order to preserve the mystery about which of the categories in the title each listed item will fall into. But here, Audrey keeps the tone firmly in the "Heist Movie" category throughout, while still making sure that each new beat can read as both "heist movie thing" and "decorating with kids thing". Much like it would in a heist movie, this bold choice makes things trickier to pull off, but ultimately pays off big time: The voice of the narrator adds a ton of extra laughs to an already very funny premise.
Terrible Game Shows That, for the Love of God, Should Never Be Created by Dan Caprera (Points In Case) In a piece like this, with a fairly broad title and premise (there are a lot of different ways for a game show to be terrible, after all), every beat has got to be killer to keep the reader hooked. Dan delivers with great, wacky specifics and terrific joke writing.
An Old Favorite
Spice Up Your D. & D. Game by Mike Drucker (The New Yorker) Here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), we'll admit that we've been known to play an RPG or two--but you don't have to know anything about D&D to enjoy this piece. It's really fun to see these highly specific, unusual-but-still-grounded character types in a fantasy setting. Though frankly, we wouldn't be surprised if some of our readers, many of whom we know are comedians who also play a little D&D now and then, have also come up with some characters in this vein in games of their own. If you've got a funny RPG character you're proud of, send us the details.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
If you've been interested in writing short humor yourself but haven't been sure where to start, Luke's got a workshop coming up in January just for you. In "Where to Start With Short Humor" you'll learn the essentials of short humor and write a draft of your very own piece. Get a jump on those New Year writing resolutions and goals! (He's also got a more advanced workshop starting in January as well.)YOUR AD 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!