For September 30-October 6, 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. We have one update and one correction:

Jiji Lee wrote in about to tell us about her piece that we shared a few issues ago. We were curious if Jiji was a tennis fan, and turns out she is: “You guys aced it! I had some deep cuts at first (the long lines at Court 17…iykyk) but I wanted my details to be accessible, and crossed my fingers that there were other Pat LaFrieda stans out there.” Write using the niche specifics that are closest to you!

And the link in the Brian's Old Favorite last week was thoroughly busted. The Big Jewel has been defunct for a while, and we’re sorry if we connected you to a very unhumorous international casino site. Fortunately the Internet Archive has Dan Caprera’s piece backed up! We swear this new link is legit.

What We Enjoyed This Week

I’m Starting to Suspect That the F.D.A. Is Just Trying to Get Me to Cook by Greg Mania (The New Yorker) This is a clever premise: Greg starts with a topical observation, but writes with an eye towards the evergreen. The jokes focus more on the emotional response and reaction of the narrator, which is always a great choice for humor.

A Forty-Two-Year-Old Man Checks the Score of a High School Football Game by Aaron Hertzog (McSweeney’s) Speaking of emotion and reaction, this piece is a fun example of an internal monologue. Aaron plays with self-judgement in really fun ways here: the way the character berates himself for things that only exist inside his head are very funny.

The Return of Dirtbag Catullus by Daniel Lavery (The Chatner) We’re big Daniel fans, and his attention to detail and unabashed embrace of a nerdy reference (here an ancient Roman poet) is inspiring. Write using the niche specifics that are closest to you!

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An Old Favorite

The 6 Worst Chairs by Dayna Evans (Eater) I think about this piece every time I’m uncomfortable in a restaurant or a bar. The attention to how each chair compels a certain posture is a great vehicle for jokes. A hater masterpiece.

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

Nothing from us this week! Too busy trying to get back some of the money we blew on that international casino site.

Other Humorous Writing News

An alarming new report from Nieman Lab found that ChatGPT is stealing real New Yorker cartoonists’ signatures and adding them to faux-toons:

[Cartoonist Brendan] Loper already knew his work was “out there, getting harvested for all of this [AI] training,” he said. But an image generator faking his signature felt more personal. “I’m not a territorial person, but my name is my name. It felt very much like a violation of my personhood.”

Add this to the already massive file of evidence that AI sucks. One small silver lining: Nieman Lab commissioned a new comic from Loper about this whole debacle.