For August 5-11, 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. A CORRECTION: In last week’s edition we mentioned Friend of the Newsletter Lucas Adams’ new project, Blimp Monthly, but we were wrong about which cool revamped newsstand it is available at. You can actually get Blimp Monthly at Old News Newsstand at 34th St & 9th Ave! (Though you should definitely still go check out the new West 4 St. Newsstand as well. And we feel very lucky to live in a city where you can get the two cool artsy newsstands mixed up.)

What We Enjoyed This Week

Imagined Conversations Between My Parents While on a Family Vacation by Anthony DeThomas (McSweeney’s) “Imagined conversations” is such a fun framing device. It’s been used to great effect in the past in pieces such as An Imagined Conversation Between the Construction Workers Upstairs From Me, Conversations I Imagine My 10-Year-Old and 7-Year-Old Have About Me When They See Each Other in the Hallway at School, and also by Anthony himself, in the piece, An Imagined Conversation Between the People Who Designed Urban Apartment Balconies. This is another great addition to the “imagined conversations” canon!

Further Rule Changes Coming to Major League Baseball by Mark Roebuck (Points in Case) This one had us laughing right out of the gate with the very first beat: “The designated hitter has to do something around the dugout while the guys are out there. Enough already.” We also really enjoyed the “fourth base” runner and how heightened it got.

Things I Hope People Would Say at My Funeral by McKayley Gourley (McSweeney’s) Though McKayley doesn’t use the phrase in the title, in many ways this is also an “imagined conversations” piece. This one is delightfully punchy. We get a rich sense of the character imagining their own funeral in just eleven beats and 231 words.

-- 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 Wednesday, August 19 at Greats of Craft in LIC at 7 p.m. and features:

Alex Watt (The New Yorker, McSweeney's)
Chanel Ali (Just For Laughs, Comedy Central)
A.M. Gittlitz (host of This Wreckage, author of Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team)
Stephanie Leke (Mary J. Blige’s My Life, Harry & Meghan)
Luke Strathmann (EconLOL, Nerd Nite)
Talia Argondezzi (author of Lean the F*ck Out and Bedtime Stories for Academics)

Tickets available online and at the door.

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Ginny Hogan and Carlos Greaves, authors of the new book Obey In Advance: How to Survive (and Thrive) Under Authoritarianism, which is being published by McSweeney’s in September and is available for pre-order NOW. Thanks for writing in, Ginny and Carlos!

In Retrospect, the Theme for Chad’s 4th Birthday Party Should Not Have Been “Stanford Prison Experiment” by Julia McCloy (McSweeney’s) This is one of those pieces that leaves you in awe of how the writer came up with a comedic premise that is simultaneously so absurd yet so relatable. As parents of toddlers, we’ve each been invited to our fair share of children’s birthday parties, and it feels like there’s now an expectation that every child’s party has to have an original theme with a bunch of expertly planned, Instagram-worthy details. This piece taps into the dark side of that in such a brilliantly funny way.

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 just announced his slate of short humor writing workshops for September! It includes an intro class and a brand new class focused on revisions. Check it out here!