A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #269
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For December 28, 2022-January 3, 2023.
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. Happy New Year! We're very excited about our one big resolution for 2023: To finally confront the mysterious knight we encountered at the end of last January, who mysteriously survived a strike from our swords that should have been fatal, and who promised to return in one year's time to inflict upon us the blow that we dealt him. We're really looking forward to catching up with that guy and seeing what he's been up to!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Honest New Year’s Eve Party Invitations by Emily Knapp (Slackjaw) This piece nicely balances heightening for humorous effect with fidelity to the grounded, relatable core of the premise. The visuals of each invitation also nicely compliment the text and perfectly match each party's distinct vibes.A Hearty Fuck You from Cream of Tartar by James Klein (Points in Case) There's something particularly delightful about this title. It not only does the work of setting up a specific point of view for the narrator, but on the level of the sentence the juxtaposition of "fuck you" and "cream of tartar" is very funny, and there's a compelling resonance between the words "hearty" and "cream." Most importantly, though, the piece itself very much lives up to the expectations set by the headline.
"Kiss Me, I'm Irish" T-Shirts for Those with Partial Ancestry by John-Clark Levin (Points in Case) A fun addition to the canon of pieces riffing on a familiar phrase, and a great example of heightening on two tracks. The variations on both parts of the original sentence ("kiss me" and "I'm Irish") build in a big way, and it pays off with a final reversal that brings the piece to a satisfying conclusion.
An Old Favorite
Actual Similes (and One Metaphor) Found in Teacher Education Texts by Elizabeth Cunningham (McSweeney's) We love list pieces that are curated catalogues of real-world weirdness--particularly when the material is drawn from a source we probably would never have encountered ourselves. (See also "Ways In Which the Midwest Express In-Flight Catalog Describes Shirts That Won’t Wrinkle".) It's a type of piece that lets a writer show off their powers of observation and eye for specific 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 Newsletter
Everybody's Favorite, a new book of humorous essays by Friend of the Newsletter Lillian Stone, is NOW available for pre-order. We're big fans of Lillian's work--we've featured her writing in this newsletter many times over the years--so we're very excited to check out the book!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!