A Newsletter of Humorous Writing: End of 2019 Edition
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For 2019, a roundup of the year's finest prose humor.
Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. As another year (and decade!) draws to a close, we hope you're setting your resolutions. We have a few resolutions of our own:
- We're resolving to always get an outside eye on our work before we submit, and to lend kind critiques to our pals' writing.
- We're resolving to work on longer projects, writing the things we want to read, and making the things that we don't see in the world.
- We're resolving to keep up with our favorite short humor writers and publications, but also to read lots of other things.
- We're resolving not to get too tangled up in social media.
And thank you to our beloved subscribers for a great year! We deeply appreciate your continued support for our show and our newsletter. To another great year!
What We Enjoyed This Past Year
After a lot of deliberation around the End of the Year List Decision Table at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), we've decided on fifteen of our favorite pieces this year. It was naturally a tough task to winnow the field down to just this crop, but we looked far and wide to find our favorite humor of the year. A lot of wonderful pieces didn't make the cut (don't worry, it's all in our archived vault of humor) We hope you enjoyed these as much as we did.
When You're Looking for the Very Best by Evan Waite (The New Yorker)
How to Carry on After Reading Two Contemporary Romance Novels in 24 Hours by Charlotte Wilson (The Belladonna)
The Old Spaghetti Factory Briefly Considers a Branding Overhaul by Tom Ellison (Slackjaw)
Looking At This Thing On MY Phone: A User's Manual by Nicole Boyce (New Yorker)
Congratulations On Your Accomplishment! by Riane Konc (McSweeney's)
My Penis Is Stuck In A Colander, But Also I’m A Centrist. We Exist. by Megan Amram (Tumblr)
Mr. Peanut Addresses His 23andMe Results by Dru Johnston (Points In Case)
“Who All Goin’ Be There?” Asks Man On The Fence About Attending Funeral by Ronald Metellus (Flexx)
Your Audience Question At This Comic Con Panel Was So Good, I’d Like To Offer You A Job by Sarah James (Slackjaw)
Recent Articles of Mine by Jack Handey (The New Yorker)
The Dangerously Cheesy Collectible Cheetos Market by Tove Danovich (The Outline)
A Word of Warning, Everyone Who Swims in the Pool of This Hampton Inn Drowns by Libby Marshall (Weekly Humorist)
My Ten Year Old Self Does Standup by Emma Rathbone (The New Yorker)
How To Create Your Very Own Crossword Puzzle by Dan Capera (McSweeney's)
My Typical New York Day by Eddie Small (The New Yorker)
Some Writing By Your Hosts That They Are Proud Of
Self-Made Man and The Cavern by Luke Burns (Two standalone narrative fiction podcast episodes written for The Truth)
You’ve Been Signed Up for My Newsletter! and Fragments From Sappho’s Grocery Lists by James Folta (The New Yorker and McSweeney’s)
New Streaming Services and This is an Ad Targeted at Millenials by Brian Agler (The New Yorker and McSweeney’s)
News About The Next Show
Our next show is January 28th at Caveat! The hangout starts at 6:30, and the show starts at 7:30. We've got some great guests lined up:
- Nicole Boyce (The New Yorker, Reductress, New York Magazine)
- Bizzy Coy (McSweeney’s, The New Yorker)
- One more TBA!
And if your New Year's Resolution is to come to more Evenings of Humorous Readings, why not go ahead and book tickets to our February, March, and April shows while you're at it?
See you next year!
@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.
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!