A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #309
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For October 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're working on a little side project where we're compiling answers to the most common questions our nieces and nephews ask us. We've been pretty stumped at coming up with a good answer to "do you know The Muffin Man?" We've met him, sure, but do we really KNOW him? Hard to say! There's a wall there, a muffin wall.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Explaining Taylor Swift The Way Men Explain Sports by Lizzie Logan (The Belladonna) Lizzie's simple and clever inversion makes for a great piece, exploring Taylor Swift, the NFL, and fandom. Lots of great jokes here, and like mansplaining, this quickly gets weird and overly granular, but unlike mansplaining, this is so much fun.
Taking a Bubble Bath: Fantasy vs. Reality by Alissa King Peters and Gracie Beaver-Kairis (McSweeney's) Alissa and Gracie are wonderfully specific on both sides of this comparison, and the precise descriptions are evocative: "...I slide into it as gracefully as an oiled baby seal, not displacing a single drop..." and "I’ve poured myself a novelty McDonald’s cup of Cook’s sparkling wine that I purchased with a coupon," just to quote two.
Notes from Your Home Inspection by Eddie Small (The New Yorker) This piece explores and roams, and there's a fun variety of jokes: some bits are satirical commentary on buying a home, some are strange and surreal, some are silly. Variety is the best way to keep your reader guessing!
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There’s a lot going on, all the time. It may feel overwhelming. Don’t worry. It will all be over soon. Until then, This Won’t Help is here to guide you through our modern maelstrom. With exactly 100 sharp, satirical essays, stories, and correspondences (and just four ad breaks!), humorist Eli Grober stares down a world raging with inaction, while corrupt politicians and the 1 percent maximize the profits of self-destruction. On sale Oct. 24—PREORDER NOW!
“A ton of fun, and a masterful display of joke writing.”—Luke Burns and James Folta, editors, A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
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Writers Write About Their Own Writing
Seth Rubin Writes About Nine Scenes From the Recently Discovered Cut of Flubber Where Flubber Has Bones (McSweeney's)
This is one of my favorite pieces I've ever written because the writing is very spare, which is unusual for me, and I think it works very well here. It’s also really sad and kind of disgusting. The concept is so off-putting that one of my good friends encouraged me not to write the piece, but I did it anyway, and it ended up being the piece I always get the most compliments on. So I guess the lesson is, always follow your gross little heart straight into hell.
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.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Nothing from us this week! Too busy reviewing our old correspondences with The Muffin Man and thinking very hard about our relationship with him.
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!