A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For June 7-13, 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. No bits this week, just the news that Luke and James' podcast Scriptulated! is now available to stream, and is already getting rave reviews! Check it out!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

Warheads Sour Soda by Laura Foody (McSweeney's) Another terrific Review of New Food from Laura, whose delightful report on "Van Holten’s Pickle-Ice Flavored Freeze Pop" was featured back in Newsletter #196. It's hard to choose our favorite line in this piece, but we're very partial to the one describing the Warheads logo as, “Kidz Bop Presents: Faces of Death”

All the Brands Think Your Dad Is a Bro by Jaya Saxena (Eater) A deft exploration of the question that is always on our minds at this time of year, "Why does every Father’s Day press release assume all dads are alcoholic taskmasters whose only desires are to eat steak and build fire?" This article is full of funny dad gift details, but it also makes an interesting, thoughtful point about gender roles, stereotypes, and advertising.

I Quit Drinking Coffee And I’ve Never Felt Better, Except For When I Drank Coffee by Graeme Carey (Slackjaw) There's a particularly great moment of heightening in this piece, a line revealing that the narrator's coffee obsession runs so deep that it's fully seeped into their language, and coffee is now the sole lens through which they view the world: "My mind is like a percolator on an unlit stove: absolutely nothing bubbling."
 

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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 #51.

I Wish to Speak to the Chef by Bob Vulfov (McSweeney's) The best pieces are the ones that commit to a strong idea and wring every last ounce of comedy out of it. This is a perfect example. It also makes us hungry. So, bonus points!

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

James and Luke's new comedy podcast Scriptulated! debuted last week at the Tribeca festival, and you can listen to it now! It's a lightly-scripted, heavily-improvised comedy podcast where each episode, a new guest goes on a hilarious adventure through a different movie genre (this one's a western)!

Luke's got spots left in his intro to short humor workshop starting in July (including scholarship spots)! Learn the essentials of short humor writing and come away with a draft of your own in just four weeks. He's also got spots left in his advanced workshop on Saturdays in July. Check out this page to see all of Luke's upcoming workshop offerings, and check out this thread of great writing that's come out of previous workshops!

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Other Humorous Writing News

Daniel Lavery (a newsletter favorite), Jo Livingstone, Joe Bernardi, and Daniel Shannon have launched a new blog, The Stopgap! If you're a fan of The Chatner, or pine for the glory days of The Toast, you'll want to check it out.

And in WGA strike news: The plan of shutting down productions with the help of the Teamsters and IATSE is continuing to work. A day of global solidarity was a big success! The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain's chair Lisa Holdsworth had some great things to say, and check out some pictures from around the globe. Plus, the strike got some coverage from The Onion's very best cartoonist.

As always, there's lots of info and ways to show solidarity on the WGA's Strike Hub!
 

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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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