For July 1-7, 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. This week we’re bringing you a quartet of very fun food-related humor pieces, so make sure your pantry and fridge are well stocked before reading the rest of the newsletter! You know what they say: Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach or after reading a quartet of very fun food-related humor pieces.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Survival Tips for Anyone Currently Being Hunted by Joey Chestnut by Tyler Gooch (McSweeney’s) This feels like it was created in a lab specifically to appeal to us. As we’ve said time and time again, hot dogs are very very funny. We also love Tyler’s fantastic imagery and the incredibly heightened, absurd places he gets to by the end of this piece. We think our pal Brian would have really loved this one.

Classic Rock DJ Hastily Throws on ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ Before Unwrapping Burrito by Billy Patterson (The Hard Times) We really enjoy the way Billy opens up the world of this piece, letting us hear not only from the DJ, but also from a radio listener and “a sound engineer present at the 1968 recording of ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.’” It’s some really great, very creative exploration of his premise.

Rice Krispies Treat Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwiches by Erica Lies (McSweeney’s) Without giving too much away, we love the satisfying way that Erica wraps this saga up by the end. Luke also wants to particularly draw your attention to the following sentence and it’s terrific run of parenthetical asides (Luke loves parentheticals in humor pieces): “Over the last year, I’ve dissociated myself into purchasing ‘gourmet’ instant ramen (tasted prepackaged), a cheese platter containing six kinds of vegan manchego (delicious), and a giant lollipop with Hello Kitty’s face on it (remains uneaten).”

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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 #84.

I'm the Person Ahead of You in Line to Order Food by Joanna Borns (Points in Case) We don't necessarily believe that all humor pieces are part of some shared, Marvel-esque universe, but we also think that this narrator--who evidently has never seen food before, and says things like, "Is your mouth the only location you're supposed to place the food?"--eventually moved to Chicago and became one of these people.

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

Luke and James are very excited to announce that they’re serving as judges for the 2027 Thurber Prize for American Humor! It’s an honor to be selected, and we’re very excited to dig into all the great books we’re reading for the prize.