A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #5
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For October 19-25, 2017, a roundup of the week's
finest prose humor and prose humor-related news.
Hello and welcome to a Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. It's been a lazy week over at Humorous Readings H.Q., but we still managed to muster the energy to track down some good writing for ya.
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Lost Journals of Blackbeard by River Clegg (McSweeney's) River does it again! For more praise of River, consult last week's newsletter.
Possible Game-Changer: ESPN Has Been Cryptically Advertising An Event It’s Calling ‘Horse Eruption’ All Week (Clickhole) Sure, we want to use this newsletter to draw attention to good and funny pieces—but we think it's even more important to use this space to draw attention to good and funny writers who consistently do good and funny work. That's why we generally prefer to select pieces that have bylines. But sometimes a piece is good enough that we magnanimously decide to waive this vague guideline. "Horse Eruption" is one of those pieces.
Less obnoxious ways of saying ‘I went to an Ivy League school’ by Alexandra Petri (Washington Post) Speaking of consistently good and funny work: Alexandra Petri's topical pieces are always astonishingly great. A good topical piece should have a unique perspective; it should make you see a familiar issue in a new light; it should have original jokes rather than relying on shopworn references. (A line about how the President has tiny hands? Well I never!) It's really tough to do all that AND write the piece quickly enough to have it run while it's still relevant, but Petri makes it look easy. At a time when publications are running more topical pieces than ever, her work always stands out.
An Old Favorite
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
News About The Next Show
Did we miss a piece you loved? Did you love a piece we mentioned? Let us know!
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and better. If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter,
please respond to this email or reach out to us and tell us what the score is.
See you next week!
@brianagler, @lukevburns, & @jamesfolta
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
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If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is!