For November 26-December 2, 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. Hello to the new subscribers joining us this week! Many of you found us through Friend of the Newsletter JiJi Lee’s very kind mention in a New Yorker newsletter last week. (Thanks JiJi!)

We hope you enjoy your stay here at the Newsletter! We change the towels every other day and you can order food from the kitchen after 10pm if your premise is especially clear.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Your Family’s Thanksgiving Fight Schedule by Lisa Zheutlin (McSweeney’s) Lisa makes a ton of really fun formal choices—the schedule and footnotes!—but what we particularly loved about this one is the phrase “ALL vs. UNCLE.” It’s very special to get a laugh from two words and an abbreviation!

Texting Your Dad Simulator by Luís Leal Miranda (Points in Case) We’re big fans of stuff riffing on tabletop, dice, and math games (see our previous projects Space Council and Scriptulated), so we were immediately very on board with Luís’s format choice. Things like quantifying “Emotional Distance” and tracking a “Guiltmeter” are very fun, but Luís doesn’t neglect the fun dad specifics, like texting the prawn emoji.

What It Feels Like to Not Have to Write Something Down by Daniel Lavery (The Chatner) A sharply written and deeply relatable tale of hubris. Daniel’s piece has an I Think You Should Leave sort of premise: a character who is overconfident, unapologetic, and digs in their heels about something that is both low stakes and obviously destined for failure.

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An Old Favorite

They Didn't Have the Potato Chips We Usually Get, So I Made Sure to Grab the Most Disgusting Ones I Could Find by Anthony Scibelli (Points In Case) The holidays always seem to spawn some special weird chip—there was a “full Thanksgiving meal” flavor at the grocery store the other day—and it brought Anthony’s piece to mind. Anthony has a lot of fun with the gross chips, naturally, but what sustains this piece is the exploration. Anthony thinks about the premise more broadly, making it not just about chips but about the more general behavior of reaching for a worse substitute.

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

If you’re in NYC, don’t forget we’re hanging out next Wednesday: Meet us at Peculier Pub on December 10th at 6PM! Join us for a drink and a chat, we’d love to see you!

Also, polling is open for the PIC People’s Favorite picks! You can submit up to three pieces you liked from this year, and we’ll tally up the votes and collect the winningest ones, like last year.

And if you’re looking for gift suggestions, James contributed some to Mark Pagán’s wonderfully touching Other Men Holiday Gift Guide and the Lit Hub favorite books of 2025 list!

Luke’s got an intro to short humor workshop starting in January! In four weeks you’ll learn the essentials of McSweeney’s and New Yorker style short humor and write a draft of your very own piece.

Luke’s also going to be reading some short humor at the next edition of Some Fun Lines on December 14th at 5PM. Some Fun Lines is always a great time, so why not stop by and check it out?