For April 8-14, (W-Tu) 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. Just a reminder that we’re hosting an early summer hangout next Tuesday! We would love to see you.

Don’t come if you’re with the IRS though — we’re in trouble for trying to write off “premises that we didn’t write because someone already published something similar but we came to independently.”

What We Enjoyed This Week

I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America by Caity Weaver (The Atlantic) A new Caity Weaver piece is pretty much an auto-share for us, especially when it’s an investigative journey like this (her website has a whole section devoted to “quests”). This new piece about bread is classic Weaver (specific, funny, crisp), but we especially love the dogged commitment to answering the central question without any fuss or philosophizing. Caity’s repeated refusal to take the piece in the more expected directions, which we’ve all gotten used to in long form magazine essays, is very funny.

16 Lesser Known Tax Filing Statuses by Amy Greenlee (Chortle) Amy really explores this one to the premise’s limits, getting to lots of fun and heightened places with some really nice runs and riffs along the way.

I Finally Got a Walking Pad to Store Under the Bed and Never Use by Alexis Pooley (McSweeney’s) Alexis’s tone, cadence, and joke writing are all excellent in this piece, right from the start: “I make health a priority by spending money on things that I’ll use a few times, then put down in the basement for the ghosts.” This is also a great companion to two of Alexis’s other pieces that we’ve featured in the past: Gonna Pop These Overripe Bananas in the Freezer Until I’m Ready to Take Them Out and Throw Them in the Garbage and I Don’t Eat Gluten or Dairy Anymore Except for When I Do.

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Heidi Lux is teaching Screenplay Structure Made Simple (and Fun!) on Saturday, April 25th through Writing Workshops! The class breaks down structure in a way that’s process focused, going over the purpose of each beat and how it relates to character arc, so that when you sit down to beat out your screenplay (or other three-act story - novels count, too!), you can think with it. Structure is a tool, not a rigid formula! You can find out more info here.

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On The Watchlist with Jay Servedio is a brand-new live late-night comedy series that blends biting satire with investigative curiosity. Inspired by The Daily Show but rooted in its own chaotic, absurdist voice, On The Watchlist dives headfirst into the week’s headlines, media manipulation, and political theater.

Smart, silly, and unapologetically weird, On The Watchlist is equal parts comedy show, social autopsy, and media exorcism. Join us for our exploration into the Age of Misinformation.

FEATURING: Comedian, Jamie Linn Watson

Saturday 4/18/26 @4:00pm

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An Old Favorite

This week's summery Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #42.

Summer Fairy Tales for Parents by Sarah Schmelling (The New Yorker) Sarah is a fantastic writer, and friend of the Washington D.C. franchise of the Evening of Humorous Readings. Not only is this a great piece, it feels of a piece. It comes together so cleanly (a rarity in the Twitter-fueled world of humor writing).

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

Over on Lit Hub, James has been editing and running a new bracket on the Best Literary Film Adaptations of the Last 50 Years. The voting is currently in the quarterfinals — and you can vote right now! — but check out all the fun write-ups in the first round post, as well as some bonus stuff from James on the blog and on Tiktok, which he’s been told are “underperforming”!

Luke just announced he’ll be running an intro to short humor writing workshop on Thursday evenings in May! If you’re interested in writing the kind of pieces you read in this newsletter, but aren’t sure where to get started, this is the class for you.