A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For March 22-28, 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. Here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), we can't wait for the start of the Spring short humor piece migration. It's the magical time of year when short humor pieces return from their winter abodes in warmer southern climes to make their nests here up North. To be honest we've only ever seen ONE migrating short humor piece, and people keep telling us that it was "just an old issue of The New Yorker that got blown into a tree" -- but we're keeping our binoculars handy all the same!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

A Guide For Estimating the Cost of Your Upcoming MRI in 59 Simple Steps by Viktoria Shulevich (The Belladonna) The mention of "59 Simple Steps" in the title is a great joke, and it also makes a bold implicit promise to the reader: The piece will be a list of 59 different things, and, yes, that might sound like a lot for a short humor piece, but you're gonna be with it every step of the way. Viktoria delivers on that promise, giving the piece a satisfying narrative arc that keeps us reading without getting too plotty.

I Don’t Eat Gluten or Dairy Anymore Except for When I Do by Alexis Pooley (McSweeney's) Once again, Alexis shows her talent for great sentence-level joke writing, a quality that also stood out in "Gonna Pop These Overripe Bananas in the Freezer Until I’m Ready to Take Them Out and Throw Them in the Garbage", which we highlighted in an earlier newsletter. We also appreciate the care taken to make it clear that the narrator is the butt of the joke, not people with food intolerances.

A Guide to Discussing March Madness from a Man Who Just Wants to Fit In at Work by Banzelman Guret (Points in Case) More great sentence-level joke writing here. As the piece goes on, Banzelman paints a clearer and clearer picture of one particular man who "just wants to fit in at work," revealing that the character is hilariously sweet and earnest: "When someone asks what you 'need from the game,' they mean for your bet to win. Don't say, 'For the players to share a fun memory.'"
 

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-- AD --

Emmy-award winning comedian and writer Taylor Kay Phillips has written her debut humor book, A Guide to Midwestern Conversation, based on her McSweeney's article series of the same name. This funny, loving, and beautifully illustrated guide to the language of the landlocked is available for purchase on April 11 and for pre-order RIGHT NOW from wherever you buy your books! How bout that! A Short Humorous Writing that turned into a Long Humorous Writing. (Hi, this is Taylor. It's been me the whole time! Please pre-order my book, I really think you'll like it. Okay, love you! Don't be a stranger.
 

(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form!)

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An Old Favorite

The Great American Bison: A History of Death and Resilience by John Moe (McSweeney's) A very funny riff on American and natural history, this piece features STILL MORE great sentence-level joke writing, and is filled with a ton of hilarious images. A sample: "Back in the early 1800s, there were billions of bison roaming the great plains. They covered the very ground in a thick blanket of fur or hair or whatever they have. In fact, all of Nebraska was once covered up with bison. Every square inch. During that time, there were so many bison in Nebraska that new bison were forced to walk around on the backs of existing bison because there was nowhere else to fit."

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 Newsletter

Luke's got just THREE spots left in BOTH of his April short humor workshops, which start on April 15th and April 18th (respectively)! And if you sign up for one of them, you can also get a FREE spot in his single-session workshop on how to give and get helpful feedback and notes on humor writing.
 

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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.

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