For September 3-9, 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. Do you know they sell Saltine crackers with “unsalted tops”? Are those still Saltines? Do you think we have grounds to sue our grocery store?

What We Enjoyed This Week

How You Ended Up with Fourteen Email Accounts by Amanda Goble (McSweeney’s) This is one of those great observations that’s not made all that often but strikes you as being immediately obvious when you read it: yes, I do have a lot of email addresses. Amanda has a lot of fun heightening by sorting through just how this too-many-emails frog got slowly boiled.

I LIVED IT: The Plan That Was Far Away Is Now by Freddie Shanel (Reductress) There should be a name for these first person explorations of a quotidian annoyance that Reductress is so good at. It takes real talent to find humor when a premise is so grounded, and you can only rely on a character’s internal reactions and emotions. Freddie’s especially talented at finding laughs in these relatable monologues.

Don’t Blow It, Joel: Right Now, You’re the Biggest Stud in This Elevator by Luke Herzog and Lisa Zheutlin (Points in Case) This one is very inventive. Luke and Lisa take this in a lot of unexpected directions, and there’s also a funny character game at play here, where Joel never follows through. He considers doing something, and then promptly decides not to (though usually to his own benefit).

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An Old Favorite

Your Mom’s Book Festival by Bezalel Stern (McSweeney's) This piece always comes to mind because of its inventive format, and so much of what sells the format is the tone Bezalel uses. The dry repetition is especially effective in playing up the brochure-ness:

“This panel will seek to answer that age-old question: Where do you get your ideas? Your mom will ask you where you get your writing ideas.”

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 piece for Lit Hub about that annoying reactionary centrist list of words to avoid, and pitched some phrases that Democrats should actually stop using.