A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #270
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For January 4-10, 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. We want to start this new year by soliciting some feedback from you, our beloved readers. We've put together a very short 2023 Newsletter Survey, and if you have a second to give us your thoughts on what we do here, we'd be very appreciative!
What We Enjoyed This Week
REPORT: If You Haven’t Brushed Your Teeth Yet You May as Well Wait ‘Til Tonight by Damien Kronfeld (Reductress) Damien is one of our favorite writers around here, and if you read Reductress at all, you've definitely read one of his hundreds of headlines and pieces for the site. He's especially good at keeping the wheels from flying off of really wacky premises, but Damien's also great at pieces like this one that operate the other way, where a small and relatable observation is spun into a bigger and sillier world.
As Your Employer, I Insist You Return To The Office Because It’s Scary In There by Laurie Bolewitz (The Belladonna) Laurie writes a boss character for the ages, who manages to be both misleading and oblivious. Which is to say, a pretty good representation of every bad boss we've ever had.
This Book Will Destroy You by Troy Doetch (Slackjaw) This riff on the way we sometimes talk about books goes on very satisfying deep dives into its metaphors. Troy builds each beat into its own little world, starting from innocuous phrases and ending up with stuff like "But in our book club, we know that the glass castles crumble into the sands of time."
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From New Yorker and McSweeney's contributor Lillian Stone comes EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE, a brand new book of essays about being your disgusting self, officially available for pre-order! We have it on good authority that HarperCollins is holding Lillian in a cold, musty pit until each and every one of our readers pre-orders the book. Please do your part to free Lillian from the pit. Pre-order now!
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Greener Pastures is a comedy and satire site run by a bunch of writers obsessed with out-writing, out-joking and out-funnying each other. While their work has been published all over the web on sites like McSweeney’s, The Belladonna, Points In Case, Weekly Humorist, Little Old Lady, etc, their work has also been rejected so many times, they had no choice but to seek greener pastures. If you’re interested in writing for us, we’d love to hear from you! Check out our submission guidelines here and follow us on Twitter & Instagram at @greenerpastsat.
(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form!)
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 #112.
I'm More Than a Mother by Bizzy Coy (The New Yorker) Longtime readers will know that, here at the Newsletter, we're big-time Bizzy Coy fans. There's any number of pieces we could have chosen to highlight her writing, but we think this one does the best job. It's perfect version of the classic humor writing style that melds (with a logical voice/thought process) the "normal" thing with the "zany" thing. When done poorly, this style can feel predictable. When done well (as Bizzy does here) it feels organic and fresh. It all just clicks, which any writer, or reader, will tell you, is easier said than done.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Newsletter
Luke JUST announced his short humor workshop lineup for February, so there are still plenty of spots left in his single-session workshop on form and narration, and in his two advanced workshops, one on Saturdays at 12PM and the other on Saturdays at 3PM. Spots go fast, so grab one now!
Once again, our 2023 Newsletter Survey is right here. It shouldn't take too long to fill out, and it will help us immensely in delivering the best humor newsletter that we can. Thanks in advance!
Other Humorous Writing News
The Diverse As Fuck Comedy Festival and The Onion are teaming up for another round of writing workshops centered around writing for The Onion. The workshops will be in-person in Chicago and virtual on March 25-26, 2023. They're specifically looking for "comedy writers from historically-excluded groups to learn from an established comedic institution without financial barriers." If that sounds like you, there's more information and an application here!
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!