For August 12-18, 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 quick reminder: The graphic novel Luke translated, Jean Pleyers’ The Children of Light, was released on Tuesday! He hopes you’ll pick up a copy, enjoy it, post about it on social media, and leave glowing reviews of it wherever you can. And in case you missed it over the weekend, Luke also wrote about his experience translating the comic for the most recent premium (but not paywalled) edition of this very newsletter.

What We Enjoyed This Week

There’s a New Cookie Place by Julie Klausner (McSweeney’s) This piece moves at breakneck speed with an unbelievable amount of energy. Julie gets laughs not only from the details she reveals about this new cookie place, but also from the narrator as a character—a tricky balancing act to pull off. “As I said, these cookies are really big. I really wish I could think of something besides a dirty diaper to compare them to in terms of weight and size, but I just can’t. I promise, though—they’re less gross than dirty diapers. Stop thinking about dirty diapers for a minute. I know I’m the one who brought them up, but trust me, these cookies taste better than ANY diaper.”

The Chronicles of an Empowered Woman, as Written by a “Nice Guy” by Zola Ray (The Belladonna)  Zola makes a lot of great specific choices about who this “nice guy” character is, and gets a lot of laughs out of the way he tries to deny his own agency as the author of the text. There’s just some real good joke writing in this one: “Her breasts simply existed. Any strands of hair that fell into her face were unintentional. She just happened to look hot, which was out of her control.”

Ooolala! Look At The Fancy Man, Wearing Shoes In The Waterpark Restroom by Kyle Donley (Slackjaw) The voice Kyle created for this narrator is simply hilarious. The character’s syntax and turns of phrase are incredibly satisfying. Take, for example, this line, delivered when the narrator sees the “fancy man” going to wash his hands: “It’s not good enough that [your hands are] wet from the pool, apparently you need to get them wet from the sink too?”

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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 #99.

Recent Articles of Mine by Jack Handey (The New Yorker) Jack Handey is a master craftsman, and this piece is a great example as to why. While most short, list pieces tend to be collections of jokes loosely connected under a central theme, Handey uses his list to tell a complete story. And the form, rather than being a detriment, makes the narrative that much funnier. The staccato pacing adds a certain speed and rhythm, which reflects the narrator's personality--the high-status idiot that is befuddled by the whole situation.

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 wants to give you one last reminder to get a copy of The Children of Light! (And another reminder that he also recently announced his lineup of short humor workshops for September—including an intro to short humor class!)

Other Humorous Writing News

We’re big fans of humor writing in unconventional and experimental forms, so we were very excited to learn about the upcoming Best American Point-And-Click Adventury, a collection of four funny point-and-click games created by writers from The Onion and Clickhole, including Sean McGowan and Patty Terhune, two folks you’ll recognize from previous newsletter mentions. In addition to keeping tabs on it via Steam, you can also follow the project on Bluesky.