A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #318
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For December 6-12, 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.
Thanks to everyone who came out on Tuesday for our hangout! We had a great time, and hope you did too. Let us know if you'd come to another hangout! Should we do more of 'em? Every couple months, maybe? More? Okay how about monthly? ...More? I don't-- Okay weekly! What? What! We can't... okay fine, fine, daily, but we can't go more than that, please!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Saying Yes to Every Add-On at Jiffy Lube by Chason Gordon (McSweeney's) Structuring a piece as a dialogue or a script can often be an awkward fit for short humor, especially when you're not writing a direct parody of a script, but the formatting choice works great here. This is a perfect example of how much fun you can have when no one is fighting the premise!
Deciding Which of My 11,546 Photos to Delete by Lila Ruppe (Points In Case) Simple premise and great specifics -- Lila's nailing the fundamentals here. The listicle format allows Lila to roam and explore nicely, but avoids feeling disjointed, since each detail is building a picture of one very specific person with a gigantic library of photos.
How Old I Think Your Kid Is by Talia Argondezzi (The New Yorker) This is another very simple premise that explores and heightens in a big way. Talia writes a confident-but-dumb narrator who sticks to their perspective with absolute self-assurance, which is a real comedic sweet spot.
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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 #60.
Scott's Expensive Flights: The Airfare Newsletter For Terrible Travelers by Andrew Cushing (McSweeney's) This piece is a joke machine--one that continues to deliver from top to bottom. It's always fun to see a piece like this that takes a broad idea, and surprises you with where it goes.
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
Thanks again for coming out last Tuesday, we were so glad so many people showed up -- it was great to see all of you! Looking forward to our twice-daily hangouts next year! That's the most frequent we can safely go!
Get a jump on those New Year writing resolutions with Luke's intro to short humor workshop starting on January 6th! Learn the process of writing short humor, go from brainstorm to draft, and meet other funny folks. (Luke's also got advanced workshops with spots still available starting on January 6th and January 10th.)
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!