A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #388
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For April 9-15, 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. Next Wednesday we’re hosting a show with McSweeney’s to celebrate Jason’s Roeder’s Griefstrike!, which is a finalist for the Thurber Prize!
It’s on April 23, at 7 PM at the Francis Kite Club, and Jason Roeder, Josh Gondelman, Jiji Lee, Colin Nissan, Jen Spyra, and your hosts will be reading! The event is totally free and there’s no need to RSVP! Doors open at 6:30! Hope we see you there!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Bagels, Ranked by Josh Lieb (The New Yorker) Some very solid jokes in a clever frame — you might be able to guess that Josh has a ton of late night writing experience. And this one’s trolling in a fun way, designed to rattle some New Yorkers’ cages.
Are You There, Zeus? It’s Me, Hermes by Karen Chee (The New Yorker) Karen is one of our favorite writers, and it’s always a treat to see her humor byline. Some excellent exploration here — Karen lets the idea grow, and keeps it anchored in emotion and a strong voice.
This Applebee’s Goes Hard by Evan Waite and River Clegg (McSweeney’s) Speaking of favorite writers, Evan and River are always at their best when the premise is wacky, and this busted Applebee’s sets these two up for a ton of fun specifics.
20 Things My Dad Says Instead Of “I Love You” by Layne Dixon (Slackjaw) A nice simple premise that Layne uses as a jumping off point for not just laughs, but also some deeper character exploration as well.
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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 #72.
Men Find Me Intimidating Just Because I'm A Sentient Robot Sent Here From The Future To Destroy John Connor by Erica Lies (Splitsider) This is one of those pieces that nails the execution. It effortlessly marries two rich concepts (Terminator references and relationship tropes) without getting confusing, or letting one pull too much oxygen away from the other. It reads so smoothly and looks so simple, but it isn't. It's the result of carefully constructing the conceit, and of course, really tight editing.
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 wrote a short piece for Lit Hub on some new literary portmanteaus. Let’s get these trending, folks!
Don’t forget to come out to The Francis Kite Club next Wednesday on April 23rd at 7PM! We can’t wait to see you there!
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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