A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #410
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For September 10-16, 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. This week we’ve been working on a musical biography of the writer of The Red and the Black, and we’ve already written a big, jazzy opening number. We don’t want to give too much about the song away, but the chorus goes, “Hey, big Stendhal/Parma charterhouse for me.” Stay tuned for more!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Please Like, Share, Subscribe, and a Few Other Things, if You Don’t Mind by Talib Babb (The New Yorker) This is a fun satire of how many different requests get thrown at you when you’re consuming just about any type of media these days, but it also has an undercurrent of sympathy for how difficult it can be to promote a project. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to print out some Newsletter of Humorous Writing flyers and hang them up at their local coffee shop, we wouldn’t mind!
16 New Emojis We Didn’t Know We Needed by Behzad Barkhordari (Points in Case) Behzad strikes a really nice balance with his invented emojis. They never feel too realistic or too close to emojis that already exist, but they also never feel like they’re weird for the sake of being weird. The descriptions of the emojis are terrific (we’re particularly fond of “A coffee mug screaming”), and while the use cases for each emoji are totally unpredictable, they still feel like logical extensions of their descriptions.
Little Women, But They’re Your Friend Group at 40 by Sharda Mishra (The Belladonna) This is a great example of how to build out characters with well-chosen details. Even if you haven’t read (or watched) Little Women, you’ll still get a laugh from all the great specifics.
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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). Join us for the next show at The Greats of Craft in Long Island City on September 24 at 7 p.m., featuring:
Jason Siegel (Points in Case, The New Yorker)
Bailey Swilley (We Love a Theme, The Moth, Edinburgh Fringe Fest)
Shenuque Tissera (New York Comedy Festival, NY Sketchfest, YAAASFest)
Bridgette Rizkalla (Raaaatscraps, The Truth)
Ben X. Kim (The Onion, We Fixed It!, Asian Comedy Fest)
Zach Schonfeld (Pitchfork, Vulture, New York Times)Tickets available here!
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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 #56.
Behold Your Newest Silver-Screen Sex Goddess, Jane Neighbor by Rachel Axler (The New Yorker)
The celebrity profile seems like a genre that's easy to satirize, but it's harder than it appears. Yes, you have to mock the tropes, but you also have to add a little something extra (a zing of pumpkin spice, if you will). It's not enough to simply parrot the form; the best pieces have a unique point of view or character to play with. This piece does that, and more, from the get-go. Right away, you know it's going to be truly insane, but also grounded. It expertly stays within the confines of profile genre while continually pushing them to their logical breaking point. But, perhaps most importantly of all, it includes the phrase, "She is the kind of gorgeous that can only be found in or very near rivers."
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 intro to short humor class starting on October 11th that’s got just FIVE spots left in it! Learn the essentials of short humor writing and write a draft of a piece in just four weeks. Perfect for anyone who’s been interested in trying their hand at prose comedy but hasn’t been sure how to get started.
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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