A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #375
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For January 8-14, 2025
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. A reminder: We’ve just opened up our yearly newsletter survey and we’d love to get your feedback to help us shape the direction of the newsletter! And thanks so much to all of you who have already taken the time to respond.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Time to Grab the Dusty Old Expired Bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide to Clean This Wound by Alexis Pooley (McSweeney’s) You may remember Alexis from some of her great pieces that we’ve previously featured in the newsletter. (“Gonna Pop These Overripe Bananas in the Freezer Until I’m Ready to Take Them Out and Throw Them in the Garbage” and “I Don’t Eat Gluten or Dairy Anymore Except for When I Do“) Alexis’s work always has great joke writing, and her latest is no exception: “Everything is bad for you now. Can’t even pour old, rancid bleach into the most vulnerable parts of your body.”
The Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer is Here to Destroy Your Grocery Budget by Rebecca Turkewitz (The Belladonna) The prose in this piece is really nice, with some very satisfying rhythms and cadences—but the quality of the writing never comes at the expense of the comedy. “Perhaps you’ll enjoy this drawing of a chipmunk wearing an oversized scarf. Perhaps you’d like to imagine yourself as a snug little burrow-dwelling creature. Perhaps you’d like to stay inside this hibernation fantasy for just one moment longer. Perhaps you’d pay $3.99 to do so.”
There’s Shareholder Value in Them There Hills by Dan Fitzpatrick (Points in Case) Two of the most important concepts in comedy are “the rule of threes” and “the rule of old prospectors are always funny.” The old prospector voice Dan creates is hilarious, and the juxtaposition of that tone with modern business buzzwords is, as Ol’ Sassafrass might say, “GOLD, PURE GOLD! Yeehaw! Wahooo!”
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Mysterious transmission incoming:
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Humor writer BIZZY COY changes the course of the universe with her NEW BOOK
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“PERSONAL SPACE” - a collection of 20 short humor pieces originating from The Newer York, M.C. Sweeney, The Donnabella, Cases of Points and SideSplitron.
Foreword by non-human entities FOLTA, JAMES and BURNS, LUKE
Blurbs from rogue operatives HUBER, LUCY and BOONE, BRIAN
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Government fears that book reveals TOP SECRET KNOWLEDGE of The Bizzy Coy Creative Process and Humor Writing Journey
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Hosted by Lana Schwartz (The New Yorker, The Onion, McSweeney's), Letters & Sodas brings together standup comedy, humor pieces, fiction, and essay readings in a way they never have been before (or at least not in recent memory).
Featuring:
Jeremiah Budin (The New Yorker, McSweeney's)
Ronuk Johal (The Lunar Times Blog)
Elyssa Maxx Goodman (Miss Manhattan, author of Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City)
Brittany Miggs (New York Comedy Festival Creator to Watch, Cracked)
Mia Arias Tsang (Autostraddle, author of Fragments of Wasted Devotion)
Nat Towsen (The Tonight Show, Nickelodeon, Esquire)The next show is January 22. Tickets available here!
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An Old Favorite
XII Reasons Roman Numerals Are Better Than Arabic Numerals by Eli Burnstein (The New Yorker) The narrator of this piece is such a fun, confident idiot character. (“Zero is easily the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.”) And the running joke of replacing Arabic numerals with Roman numerals has no business being as funny as it is. It’s the sort of thing that feels like it should get old immediately, but in Eli’s hands the gag delivers laughs all the way to the end.
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 got an advanced short humor workshop starting on Saturday, February 1st! If you’re looking for deadlines to help you generate drafts, look no further! Write three pieces in four weeks and get support and feedback every step of the way. (He’s also got a class starting Feb 4th—just three spots left in that one.)
And don’t forget: We’d love to get your feedback in our annual newsletter survey!
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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