A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #412
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For September 24-30, 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. In honor of entering The Spooky Month, we’ve hidden a spine-chilling scare in this week’s edition… click if you dare!
What We Enjoyed This Week
In Loving Memory of Those Who Ignored Their Mothers’ Unbelievable Warnings by Jennifer Metcalf (Points in Case) Wonderful parody work here. Jennifer uses the form of short obituaries as a way to heighten a great observation. You can imagine the idea of “things my mom warns me about” in a more matter-of-fact format like a rant, but the format choice here adds a twist that makes this one much more memorable.
Tonight’s Performance Wouldn’t Be Possible Without… by Adam Schatz (McSweeney’s) Another amazing format choice for this joke bucket. As we’ve said many times before, a joke bucket piece can be really tough, because you absolutely have to have 100% killer specifics and the jokes—Adam really delivers!
Take a Tour of My Five-Bed, Six-Bath Affront to God by Patrick Coyne (McSweeney’s) Patrick has a ton of fun plaing with the contrast between someone bragging about their house and a someone sticking their thumb in God’s eye. The writing is particularly great when that juxtaposition is especially tight: “Over there’s the infinity pool, which literally mocks God by being both infinite and chlorinated.”
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Writers & Comedians Wanted
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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 #109.
My Ten-Year-Old-Self Does Standup by Emma Rathbone (New Yorker) Emma Rathbone absolutely nails the voice on this one--mixing and mimicking tropes to make this whole piece feel effortless. Also--and we can't emphasize this enough--the riff on "magic" is gold.
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. You’re safe to submit, without danger of getting totally scared…
Updates From Your Editors and Friends of the Newsletter
Luke’s still got two spots left in his advanced short humor workshop starting next Wednesday, and in his intro class starting a week from Saturday! Check out the testimonials section of his website to see some of the extremely nice things people have said about his feedback and workshops.
Nothing else from us! We’re cowering in the corner, hiding under a blanket!
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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