A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #337
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For April 17-23, 2024
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.
As we’ve mentioned, our move over to Buttondown added some new expenses to our operations over here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ). As a way to offset these costs, we’re excited to announce that we’re going to be launching a subscription tier of our Newsletter soon. To be absolutely clear: This weekly edition of the Newsletter will always be free. But if you want to support what we do here and get some bonus newsletters every few weeks as a thank you, we’d love to have you on board the subscription tier!
We’ve already been hard at work on these bonus issues, and they’re going to feature some more in-depth writing tips, our thoughts on humor, insights into our own pieces, what we’re reading and watching, Q&As with you all, and more! Keep an eye out for a subscription link in next week’s edition!
What We Enjoyed This Week
I Tried IHOP’s Sonic the Hedgehog Menu So You Don’t Have to, But I Wish You’d Help Out Once in a While by Troy Doetch (McSweeney’s) This is such a well-balanced piece, that has such an unhurried pacing that fits perfectly with the character voice. The menu item parodies are excellently done too, and are just the right amount of silly and plausible. And the choice to keep the star ratings so high throughout the piece is so funny too — no part of the parody here is left unused.
Is It a Red Flag? (Jane Eyre Edition) by Amy Greenlee (McSweeney’s) Amy’s premise is very clever—it’s such a fun and original way to explore a compelling observation about a classic work of literature—and she sets up a nice clear pattern. The heightening is great: the situations, taken from the book, get weirder and weirder, but the pattern remains unbroken. Until the last beat, that is, which has such a perfect, surprising turn on the premise.
“New Folder (2)” Ominously Found Just Sitting There in the Documents Folder by Dan Katz (Hard Drive) Very specific, in a very fun way! This is a surprisingly relatable situation, and Dan uses it as a starting point for a lot of fun exploration and heightening.
-- AD --
Have you ever sent a mean email? Have you ever wanted to? Of course you have! Come to Death Threat, a solo show by Rima Parikh (The New Yorker, The Onion, hearts and minds everywhere, etc). It’s part standup, part PowerPoint, and all rage at the bureaucracies surrounding illness, which means if you attend, you’re an intellectual.
It’s on Sunday, May 5th at 5 pm/doors at 4:30 at Caveat. Studies show that everyone who missed the first one experienced debilitating FOMO (are people still saying FOMO? don’t answer that). Tickets (IRL and livestream) available here.
(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form!)
An Old Favorite
Before We Get Serious, Please Read My Personal Brand Guidelines by Casey Rand (The Belladonna) A pitch-perfect parody. Casey’s got a great handle on the format, voice, and style of these sorts of ad briefs, and it makes this piece so crisp. The details about Jenna are just the right amount of wacky, and their ad-lingo expression makes them all the more fun. And of course, the ”TM” for Jenna’s name is so a nice visual gag.
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
Luke’s still got some spots left in his advanced humor writing workshop starting on May 2nd (one week from today)! Check out the testimonials section of his website to see some of the (very nice) things people have said about working with Luke on short humor pieces.
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!