A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #294
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For June 21-27, 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. With all the thunder and lightning moving through New York City this week, we decided, once again, to try to bring one of our humor pieces to life, Frankenstein-style. So far none of the experiments have worked, but we did manage to burn paper, fry a laptop, melt a tablet, and turn a typewriter into a typeLIGHTer (it also melted).
What We Enjoyed This Week
What Are All My Bones For? by Mia Mercado (The New Yorker) Mia's a writer we've long admired, who is accomplished in so many different modes of writing. But whether it's a book, or a piece of journalism, or a humor piece, Mia always crafts witty and memorable lines. Here, you'll find not only great one-liners ("Your ribs are for protecting your lungs while you are alive and for playing like a xylophone when you are dead"), but also the connective scaffolding of the piece is funny. ("Even if you’ve never heard of bones before, you likely have several. Let’s meet them.") That's good writing!
How to Manage a Household Infestation of Artists from the Romantic Period by Lillie Franks (Points In Case) The specificity of tone and detail really set this one apart--anyone reading this can immediately tell that Lillie knows a lot about Romanticism. It's a cliche for a reason: when you write what you know, you can go a lot further into very specific depth!
I Don’t Care What You Say, Brian, That Benihana Wasn’t in the Basement When We Bought This House by Laura K. Duncan (McSweeney's) This piece has a fun and specific premise, and lots of fun lines, but what we want to highlight here is the circular structure, which works so nicely. Laura starts from the moment of discovery (Brian's created a basement Benihana), and then moves us through moments of the couple's past, to return to where the piece started, but now with a lot of new backstory that fills in a lot of blanks.
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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 #109.
A Guide to Asian Restaurants by Ali Wong (Vulture) In an excerpt from her book, Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life, Ali Wong gives us the inside scoop on what makes a great Chinese place, what makes a bad Vietnamese place, and so forth. It's not often that humor pieces are funny and filled with actual, practical advice, so this one is a real gem.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Newsletter
Luke's still got a few spots left in his advanced short humor workshop starting on July 8th! (Also: The July edition of his intro workshop has just ONE spot left! And he's got just TWO spots left in his Tuesday night advanced class starting July 11th!) Get feedback and support, meet other funny people, and have three brand new drafts of short humor pieces finished by the end of July!
Are you watching the new season of The Bear? It pairs well with James and Ed Park's McSweeney's piece, I’m Starting to Realize I’m Watching The Bear (1988) Not The Bear (2022).
Other Humorous Writing News
And in WGA strike news: negotiating committee member Greg Iwinski explained the stakes of the strike for late-night writers: "When the alternative is oblivion, what else can you do but fight like hell?" He went deeper into his explanation here, in Deadline. And check out Greg's show Contract TK, a late-night show about the strike by striking late-night writers. The LA Times wrote about how Netflix screwed over Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of the wildly popular Squid Game. A lot of people pointed out that this is exactly the sort of thing the WGA is striking over. And if you don't mind the infographic, this instagram post has a lot of good information on how to support the WGA.
And as always, there's lots of info and ways to show solidarity on the WGA's Strike Hub!
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!