A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #359
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For September 18-24, 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.
The 7th anniversary of the newsletter is coming up on Saturday! We can’t believe it’s been so long! Thanks so much to all our readers for your support—and a special thanks to everyone who has ever recommended the newsletter to a friend, sent us a tip, or become a subscriber (this weekend in the subscriber edition, we’ll be sharing some lessons and memories from our 7 years of newslettering). We couldn’t keep this going without you!
And of course, on these anniversaries, we’re also taking some extra time to think about our dear friend and newsletter co-founder, Brian Agler. We miss you, pal. Take some time to read a classic Brian piece today!
What We Enjoyed This Week
If You Give a Mouse a Stress Test by Paul Rudnick (The New Yorker) We particularly enjoyed the subset of jokes within this piece that might be described as “passive-aggressive comments that would be devastating for a mouse to hear.” For example: “Remark that, although Mickey Mouse is certainly having a great career, rummaging through the used Kleenex in a wastepaper basket is just as impressive.”
The Thing About My Non-Committal Boyfriend Is That He Was Hurt in a Previous Relationship Also He Can’t Close His Eyes Completely like a Furby by Tessia Phillips (Points in Case) This is such a delightfully weird and extremely specific premise. It’s easy for a really wacky piece like this to go flying off the rails, but Tessia keeps it grounded with great bad boyfriend details, a clear joke pattern that plays out in each paragraph, and terrific joke writing: “I needed to be the one to call the restaurant because when he hears hold music he becomes soothed and tries to close his eyes completely and then he feels disappointed, and I could never consciously put him in a position to feel that way.”
Reasons for Extreme Neanderthal 50,000-Year Isolation by Daniel Lavery (The Chatner) This short piece does some really complex things with focalization and POV. The narrator is a Neanderthal who uses a colloquial modern tone to talk about Neanderthal things—a classic, and hilarious, short humor juxtaposition. (“Why should we walk all the way over to their valley, when we have my own perfectly good valley over here?”) However, the narrator also draws on some of the vocabulary that an archaeologist might use to describe Neanderthal practices. (“Still embarrassed over not having developed new technologies or lithic innovation since last meeting 30,000 years ago”) In anyone else’s hands, moving between these three levels of language might come out a bit muddled, but Daniel balances it all perfectly.
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Abolish Everything is back at Caveat on Saturday, October 5th at 9:30 PM! Comedians roast their pet peeves. Improvisers grill them with questions. YOU decide what gets abolished! Hosted by Chandler Dean. Featuring Charlie Bardey, Ryan Ciecwisz, Virginia Dickens, Sydney Duncan, Rayne Fisher Quann, Fareeha Khan, Xavier Maurice, Adam Mitrani, Josh Nasser, Carson Olshansky, and Andy Vega. Tickets are available here. Get $5 off with promo code abolishhumor!
It’s a Jungle in Here: The Friends & Family Show
See NYC’s funniest writers read satire + humor about their friends and family. Featuring Emily Flake, Carlos Greaves, JiJi Lee, and more! Sunday, Oct. 6th, 5 pm @ Caveat (21A Clinton Street).
Use code FAMILY for $5 off
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An Old Favorite
Things I Have Learned From Ex-Boyfriends by Megan Robin (McSweeney’s) A short and sweet old-school McSweeney’s list from 2007. In just two sentences, Megan gives you a vivid portrait of what these ex-boyfriends were like. It’s a great example of how you can generate humor by giving the reader JUST enough information to connect the dots of a joke themselves, leading to a satisfying “aha!” moment. Also, this write-up of Megan’s piece is now longer than the piece itself—just go give it a read!
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 Editors and Friends of the Newsletter
Luke’s just announced his first two November/December humor writing workshops! He’s doing an advanced class starting November 12th and an intro class starting November 9th. These are some of the last classes he’ll be doing this year, so snag a spot now to give one final boost to your 2024 writing goals!
Other Humorous Writing News
The Freelancer’s Union is hosting an art fair, and they’re looking for illustrators and cartoonists “in any medium, style or genre” to be a part of it! The free application can be found here.
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.
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