For January 7-13, 2026

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. Longtime readers of the newsletter will recall that we usually send out a survey once a year in December or January. We’re not doing a formal reader survey this year like we’ve done in the past, but if you have any feedback for us, we’re all ears! (And we hope it goes without saying that we’re eager to hear from readers year-round.) You can just reply to this email with any and all thoughts! Thanks in advance!

I’m sure like a lot of you, we’ve been horrified by ICE’s brutality and violence in Minnesota over the last few weeks. If you’re looking for ways to support folks in Minnesota trying to defend their communities, you can find a great list of resources here. Sending solidarity to everyone across the country stepping up to protect their friends, family, and neighbors.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Sneezes, Ranked by Tiffany Harris (McSweeney’s) An impressively comprehensive taxonomy of sneezes. This is one of our favorite types of piece, the kind that makes you aware of something that you didn’t know you already knew. Each new type of sneeze will have you nodding your head thinking, “Right, of course, I know that kind of sneeze well.”

Attention Passengers: The Captain Has Turned on the Applause Sign by Jackie Halldorsson (Points in Case) This is a really nice execution of a simple, silly idea. Jackie explores what other kinds of signs are on this plane, which is a fun move, but never gets too far away from the premise that the title promises.

Boy Detective by Cameron Vanderwerf (Wigleaf) Not a traditional short humor piece, but we love the blend of silliness and poignancy, and also all the great boy detective specifics like “Hallie O'Malley the Science Gal” and “Cranberry Caper." (And if you can’t get enough boy detective media, check out friend of the newsletter DC Pierson’s Mystery Team, which just got its first Blu-ray release.)

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Greetings funny guys 'n gals! The SCENIC WRITER'S SHACK annual Humorous Short Story Competition is on again. Cash prizes up for grabs and all details can be found on the SWS homepage HERE.

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An Old Favorite

I'm Your Yoga Instructor and I’m Hitting on Some Weirdly Specific Things About You During This Class by Jason Garramone (Points in Case) There are lots of pieces about yoga classes (because there are a lot of things that can be weird about yoga classes), but Jason sets this one apart by using yoga class as a vehicle for the really great “weirdly specific” character details promised by the title.

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

James has been trying to get his “blogging legs” back (they’re like sea legs, except that sailors don’t respect them), and wrote for Lit Hub about how people are weird about AI, how some readers are into vibe-y ambiance videos, and pitched some reboot ideas for new public domain books!

Luke just announced his lineup of short humor workshops starting in February! (He’s got a whole mess of advanced classes.) Write three drafts in four weeks and get notes and feedback in a supportive environment.

Other Humorous Writing News

This week we learned that Condé Nast let the trademark for Gourmet Magazine lapse, allowing a collective to swoop in and revive it as a worker-owned publication. We don’t yet know how much humorous writing there will be in the new incarnation of Gourmet, but we’re big fans of food writing here at the newsletter, and we think that the new owners’ piece about their philosophy and the state of the magazine industry is very much worth reading.