A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For December 13-19, 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. It's the end of the year and that means it's once again time for our annual NEWSLETTER SURVEY. Since TinyLetter is going to be shutting down in February, this year's survey is especially important as it will help us determine what the newsletter will look like on our new platform. Thank you in advance for taking the time to give us feedback!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

It’s a Comedian’s Job to Make Fun of Everybody, and That’s Why My Act Is Entirely About 1880s Paleontologist Othniel Marsh by Anthony Scibelli (McSweeney's) A sterling example of the use of repetition for comedic effect: The titular paleontologist is never referred to as just "Marsh," or even "Othniel Marsh," but always as "1880s paleontologist Othniel Marsh." It's a mouthful that gets funnier every time you read it. Hats off to Anthony for building his piece around this INCREDIBLY, ludicrously specific historical figure.

We’ve Remodeled Our Bathroom, So Now You Have to Take a Dump Behind a Sliding Barn Door by Ali Kelley (McSweeney's) The running joke about the types of food the narrator offers their guests is so funny. And, no lie, James and Luke recently had a run-in with a bathroom door just like this! We can authoritatively state that this type of door richly deserves to be made fun of, and we're grateful to Ali for doing the work of taking it down a peg.

Dumb Luck by Emily Flake (The New Yorker) Emily strikes an impressive balance of humor and poignancy. We love all the well-observed details in this comic, whether they're heartfelt, funny, or a wonderful mix of both.
 

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An Old Favorite

All Your Kids’ Santa Questions Explained by Peter Wisniewski (McSweeney's) A very fun use of the Q&A form, it's a delight to see this narrator scramble to stay one step ahead of their child's questions. Peter also gives the piece shape and controls the pace by building in mini-arcs that focus on a run of related questions--we particularly like the one that starts with "Does Santa whip Rudolph?"

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 Show

Get a jump on those New Year writing resolutions with one of Luke's short humor workshops! Luke's got an intro workshop starting on January 6th (3 spots left), and advanced workshops starting on January 6th (2 spots left) and January 10th (just added--6 spots left)!
 

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Other Humorous Writing News

Congrats to all the writers (including a number of Friends of the Newsletter) who were selected in McSweeney's 2023 column contest! It's a terrific batch of columns this year, and we can't wait to read 'em.
 

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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.

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!