For March 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. Did you see that there was a meteor over Ohio on Tuesday? As confirmed by a bunch of observers and the perfectly named government website fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov, something 6 feet across and weighing 7 tons broke up 30 miles up in the sky. The problem we’re having is that “a meteor over Ohio” sounds like a song lyric, but we’re not exactly sure which musician’s it would be.

What We Enjoyed This Week

The Little Bunny from Goodnight Moon Accepts an Award by DC Pierson (McSweeney’s) An extremely simple and satisfying premise juxtaposing two distinct tones. DC nails both the voice of the performatively appreciative celebrity and the kids book specifics, and the combinations are great: "And thanks to the Great Green Room for giving our little ensemble a place to work, to play, to be."

I Brought Your Child an Oversized Lollipop Because I Hate You by Eddie Small (McSweeney’s) Speaking of children, Eddie has been writing some great parenting pieces in the last few years, and this is another inventive premise about living with kids. What makes this piece—and many of Eddie's previous ones—work so well, is that it is grounded in specifics ("the next four to six days" or "Jimmy Eat World CDs") but also widens the aperture enough to frame the premise as a general experience.

If Only We Had Medicine Like That Today by Elizander Espenschied (HAD) James here: I've been working on a longer piece of writing, and reading a lot of plays to get a better feel for dialogue.¹ So this piece, though it's not our typical humor fare, really jumped out at me. I'm impressed by Elizander’s formal choices, and how they focus the reader's attention on pacing and the spoken rhythms of language. A good reminder that you can do whatever you want with your writing—we're constrained so often in other parts of our lives, why not have some fun on the page?

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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). The next show is Wednesday, March 25 at Greats of Craft in LIC at 7 p.m. and features:

Rob Patrick (Answer to the Previous Puzzle)
Madeline Goetz (Reductress, The Boston Globe, McSweeney's)
Talia Argondezzi (author of Lean the Fuck Out, The New Yorker, The Belladonna)
Elle Gonzalez Rose (author of Marisol Acts the Part and I Didn't Do It)
Meredith Dietz (New York Comedy Fest, SF Sketchfest, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me)
Dan Yang (HBO, NBC, New York Comedy Club roast battle)
Karolena Theresa (You Hurt My Feelings, #1 Happy Family USA)

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 #27. As is starting to become tradition, we're resharing this one in anticipation of opening day next week.

New Baseball Stats by Ezra Deutsch-Feldman (McSweeney's) Today is MLB Opening Day, so it's only appropriate that we feature a baseball piece in the newsletter. We love this piece because it is--to borrow a baseball phrase--right down the middle. Super-clean premise. Tight jokes. Even if you aren't a fan of advanced statistics or even a fan of baseball in general, this piece still works.

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

Luke’s got just a few spots left in his advanced short humor workshop starting next Wednesday afternoon! This is the last workshop he has starting this month that still has open spots in it, so if you don’t want to wait ‘til May to take a class, snag a spot now.

And this is just something fun, but The City’s newsletter alerted us to this odd little NYC mnemonic. Pretty handy!

¹ Send me recommendations of plays that you like!