A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #380
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For February 12-18, 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. Yesterday would have been our pal Brian’s birthday, and as many of you may know, each year his wife Claire organizes a fundraiser called Brian's Birthday Gift. This year she’s asking for donations to World Central Kitchen, a great organization that provides meals to people and communities in crisis. If you’re able, please join us in donating in Brian’s memory!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Please Stop Ripping My Bodices by Amanda Lehr (McSweeney’s) Excellent use of what I like to think of as “stage dialect” — writing a voice that approaches how people might speak in olden times with enough historical adherence to sound believable, but not so much that the writing is unintelligible or pedantic. This distance between accuracy and fun leads Amanda to some great specifics: “Misapprehend me not,” “A panting, buxom shoe,” “Lathaniel.”
Our Restaurant’s Shared Plate Suggestion Is Mandatory by Justin Gordon-Cooper (Slackjaw) A lot of really fun satire of overbearing restaurant culture here, but what really stands out is the excellent choice to name the restaurant “Glaze” — it’s the perfect name for this kind of place.
At Taco Bell, I Lived Más and I Loved Más by Bettina Makalintal (Eater) A beautiful story of a love that got its start in a Taco Bell, and how that opened Bettina to a whole world of Taco Bell love stories. Lovely specifics and heightening here, and a wonderful exploration of how the irony and irreverence of Taco Bell that make it “the shitpost option” — a great turn of phrase.
-- AD --
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). The next show is February 26 at Greats of Craft (LIC), starting at 7 p.m. and featuring:
Upasna Barath (Rookie Mag, Comedic Timing: A Modern Romance)
Maeve Dunigan (The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Reductress)
Blythe Roberson (How to Date Men When You Hate Men, Esquire, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me)
Talib Babb (ESPN Creative Works, Burnt Excellence, Zang Comedy)
Anna Roisman (HQ Trivia, Just For Laughs, Big Wigs Podcast)
Gastor Almonte (War Report Podcast, Sandwich Comedy)
Tickets available here!
---
(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form!)
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 #84.
Making Friends After 400 by Jason Roeder (McSweeney's) Everything about this piece works, but what really makes it sing are the delightful specifics in each section that situate the advice in a hellscape from which even death cannot save us. It's a hoot!
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
James is going to be reading this coming Wednesday February 26th at the NYC Writers Circle meet-up, upstairs at KGB Bar (85 E. 4th St, NYC)! The show starts at 7pm and the line-up features a bunch of other great writers. It’s always a really packed community event too — it’s a great chance to meet other writers!
Luke’s got just ONE spot left in his advanced short humor workshop starting March 11th! (He’s also got an intro workshop starting March 8th.) And, as always, check out this thread to see some of the great work that’s come out of past classes.
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!