For February 11-17, 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. Today is our dear friend Brian Agler’s birthday — we miss you, bud. If you have a moment to re-read one of Brian’s pieces, they’re collected here on McSweeney’s and in a previous newsletter edition. He was a hell of a writer.

Every year Brian’s wife Claire organizes donations for his birthday, and this year she’s asking for donations to the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, a organization building immigrant and refugee power in Washington state, or to an immigrant rights organization local to you. Let us know if you’re making a donation this year, and we’ll be sure to let Claire know.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Ow! A Flying Baby Just Shot Me With a Goddamn Arrow! by Luke Herzog (Chortle) Luke does a lot of very difficult-to-do-in-humor things well in this piece: narrating from the voice of reason’s POV, describing action in the first person, and writing only one half of an ongoing dialogue. It’s very impressive, and lines like “This vicious little tyke is a crack shot” cracked us up.

Everything You Need to Remember Before the Final Season of Time Warriors by Eddie Small (McSweeney’s) Eddie’s a journalist by trade, and as a result his writing is always tight and clear, which is very helpful in a piece like this that has so many moving parts and then a big swerve. The details about the show are really well-calibrated, too — they don’t pull too much focus, but aren’t too dry.

Trolli Gummi Pops by Erica Lies (McSweeney’s) This is a very fun review, but Erica’s introduction was particularly evocative: I’d forgotten how my elementary school lunch room briefly had an entire Warheads-based shadow economy. This piece was a Proustian Blue Raspberry Warhead, is what I’m saying.

-- AD --

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). The next show is TONIGHT (February 19th) at Greats of Craft in LIC at 7 p.m. and features:

Al Mullen (Public Transport Magazine, The New Yorker)
Amy Currul (McSweeney's, Slackjaw, The Weekly Humorist)
Reid Pope (Going Down, Late Stage, NewFest)
Meghan Ross (How We Grieve, Here to Make Friends)
Lauren Davis (Series Fest)
Megan Broussard (Marie Claire, Slate, Reductress)

Tickets 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 #115.

A Guide to Horse Breeds by Sarah Lazarus (New Yorker) These types of pieces--I'm talking about one thing, but really I'm talking about something else--are a great format, but sometimes crumble under the weight of their own game. Not this one. The throughlines aren't just balanced, they inform one another; the second makes so much more sense because of the first, and the piece is all the funnier because of it.

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

Hope to see you at RAGEBAIT tomorrow, where James is reading alongside a really killer line up of folks! Find out more and RSVP here — it’s going to be a good time!