A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For June 20-26, 2019, 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 officially SUMMER and that means it's time for the three of us to start planning our annual Vacation of Humorous Readings! We haven't settled on a destination just yet, but we were thinking of doing either another trip to Remsenburg-Speonk, NY to visit P.G. Wodehouse's grave, or another trip to Baltimore to visit the Dorothy Parker Memorial Garden. Drop us a line if you have other non-gravesite-but-still-short-humor-related vacation ideas.
 

What We Enjoyed This Week

Your Best Friend Kelly Has Been an Ad For Our Tortilla Chips This Whole Time by Karly Brooks (McSweeney's) It's basically the Truman Show updated for the age of targeted advertising and branded content. A clever, original premise, well-executed.

You Are Now Browsing In Incognito Mode by Sean McGowan (McSweeney's) You don't always have to go with the hard sell when you want to make an observation about something topical. This piece focuses on laughs first, but builds naturally to a conclusion that definitely makes a point.

Dead Kid Would’ve Hated Winner of His Memorial Scholarship by Allison Mick (The Hard Times) One thing you like to see in a humor piece is a situation that you might never have imagined yourself, but which you feel absolutely must have happened in real life at some point. 

New Monoculture Candidates by Eddie Small (Points in Case) We'd like to humbly suggest that short prose humor could be the new monoculture. Eh? Eh?

Athleisure: A Modern Mystery by Laura Slade (McSweeney's) This piece does wonderful things with its prose style, tone, and POV. A real delight to read.
 

An Old Favorite

30 and Pregnant by Rachel Friedman (McSweeney's)

This may seem like a straightforward premise, but it's one that could have completely missed the mark if the author didn't absolutely nail the tone and do a great job exploring a variety of different aspects of the situation in question. This piece is also available in the collection The McSweeney's Book of Politics and Musicals, which is well worth checking out!
 

Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

James and Friends of the Show Lucas Adams and Marina Tempelsman teamed up to bring you a piece called The Wedding Registry From Hell for TOPIC. If you've ever planned a wedding, been invited to a wedding, or if you've just spent hours stalking people on theknot.com, you'll want to check this out. 

James also had a piece in McSweeney's this week called Fragments From Sappho’s Grocery Lists. If you want to post that it made you laugh out loud, be sure to use "λολολολ."

Clementine, the Boogiemanja sketch team that Luke has been directing since September(!) is having its last show TOMORROW 6/28/19 at 9:30PM. Sadly, Luke will not be in attendance himself, but YOU should definitely go check out this great group of people put on a great show.

There is also still some space available for the free Satire and Humor Festival and Kickstarter event this Saturday. Check out the front and back of the flyer for more info, and email satireandhumor@gmail.com to RSVP!
 

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News About The Next Show

Our next show is going to be July 23rd! Doors/Hangout at 7PM, show at 7:30PM. It is also going to be our first show at our NEW VENUE, Caveat (21 A Clinton Street)!

We're really excited about the move, and to celebrate, we got some swell new art for the show, courtesy of Friend of the Show Lucas Adams:

We've also got some swell guests lined up but are going to wait until they're all confirmed to announce!

And moving forward the show will ALWAYS be the fourth Tuesday of the month, so you can go ahead and put it on your calendar for at least the next decade.

Keep an eye on this space for updates!

See you next week!

@brianagler, @lukevburns, & @jamesfolta

Did we miss a piece you loved? Did you love a piece we mentioned? Let us know! This is an experiment and we're hoping to continue to make it better and better. 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.