A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For May 17-23, 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's a little life hack for our readers: If you're ever finding the Newsletter overly tough, try soaking it in lukewarm water for 15-20 minutes before reading. That usually does the trick.

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What We Enjoyed This Week

Someday, Sarah, Our Ship Will Come in and We’ll Move Back to the Neighborhood We Used to Live in Before We Got Priced Out by Hallie Pritts (McSweeney's) There's a lot to like here: The narrator's tone is fantastic, the piece is full of great specifics, and the satire is on-point--but our personal favorite part would have to be the running joke about the rats.

Ways to Say No to Drugs While Still Looking Cool by Tyler Gooch (Points in Case) This piece features some really great joke writing, and though it's on the shorter side, it's still a fully satisfying exploration of the premise. It includes a lot of fun different angles on the main joke, and it gets out before it ever has a chance to overstay its welcome.

I’m in Love With Joey Chestnut by Jamie Loftus (Eater) If you've read even just a handful of these newsletters, you surely know all too well what big fans we are of writing related to hot dogs. This excerpt from Jamie's new book, Raw Dog, delivers the hot doggy goodness that we love in a big big way. And, fun fact: Luke has met one of the competitive eaters mentioned in the piece. Ask him about it sometime! (It's not Joey Chestnut.)
 

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-- AD --

Have you dreamed recently of:

a tooth inside an egg, a croissant with an exoskeleton, an ant carrying a booger, a microphone made of human flesh, a squash, a paper door, a lawyer in a hot tub, a salmon head crushed by a crockpot lid, etc.?

If so, you may have an important part to play in the future destruction of the Burlingtonian Empire as prophesied in the book of webs.

Find out more by attending a free book reading and conversation at Unnameable Books, 615 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY, on May 26th, 7pm. Featuring Jesse Kohn and Ian Dreiblatt.

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An Old Favorite

Every Star Wars Easter Egg You Missed in My Apartment by Grant Mulitz (Hard Drive) Grant perfectly captures the tone of, and turns of phrase found in, articles about movie Easter eggs, and uses those elements as a way to build out a very funny portrait of a Star Wars superfan, their apartment, and a party they threw in that apartment.
 

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

On June 12th, James is going to be on a panel at the Tribeca Festival talking about Scriptulated! the podcast he and Luke created! The event features a ton of great audio creators sharing insights into their very cool projects, so you'll definitely want to check it out. (Luke will be there too, just in the audience.)

Luke's also got two short humor workshops starting in July! One is an intro class for those new to McSweeney's/New Yorker-style comedy writing, and the other is an advanced class for more experienced humor writers. Check out this thread to see some of the great work that's come out of past classes.
 

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Other Humorous Writing News

And in WGA Strike news this week: The weird launch of not-HBO Max and their decision to flatten everyone involved in a production by crediting them as "creator" has brought the Hollywood unions even closer together in solidarity, a turn of events that has a kind of mythic quality to it. David Zaslav, who is bad as a businessman and worse as a guy-who-never-takes-off-his-sunglasses, was heckled at B.U. commencement by students this weekend. The strike has proved extremely effective at shutting down productions -- keep it up!

If you're looking for a way to support the strikers, a donation to the Entertainment Community Fund is a great way to help, as is showing up on the picket line!
 

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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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