Leila Sales

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #409 For September 3-9, 2025 Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a...

In this week's Newsletter, @lukevburns.bsky.social and I featured writing by

- Amanda Goble in @mcsweeneys.net
- Freddie Shanel in @reductress.bsky.social
- Luke Herzog & Lisa Zheutlin in @pointsincase.com
- Bezalel Stern in McSweeney's

Subscribe below! And we've got a big archive you can read!

@weluvvideo.bsky.social could sell this out in a heartbeat

I am very proud to have worked on -a book that’s so visually and lyrically beautiful (not to mention informative)!

Me every morning: ugh I can’t believe I have to write again today

Me every night: oh wow turns out writing actually is good for my mental health after all, huh

One of my favorite moments in cinema is at the start of Vengeance, when @bjnovak.bsky.social's character is trying to figure out if a girl in his phone as "Brunette Random House Party" is someone he met at a Random House party or a random house party.

While I'd certainly like to enhance my skin's luminosity and reduce hyperpigmentation, I'm afraid I have neither a million spare dollars nor a million spare hours, so I guess I'll just stick with what I'm already doing

well this so-called "club" sandwich has very little ketamine in it

Guys I’ve been really into music lately

OMG ok maybe I will do this for Halloween??

It's so funny that the first Wes Anderson movie is a bunch of dirtbag robbers setting off fireworks and now they're like "The Deciduous Reasoning of Isabella Teacup"

The bit where Owen’s character is walking Luke’s character through his 50-year plan is one of my favorite moments in cinema

Future Man! A truly excellent character.

Dreyer's English by Benjamin Dreyer: 9780812985719 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A sharp, funny grammar guide they’ll actually want to read, from Random House’s longtime copy chief and one of Twitter’s leading language...

HEY HEY. The DE ebook is on sale in the U S of A today (and, I think, today only) for $1.99 just about everywhere you look.

If it were marked down any harder, Random House would be paying *you.*

I just rawdogged* a flight and I hated it.

*I had a book, my laptop, and the inflight entertainment console, but no internet access, so I consider this rawdogging, and I hated it.

Every time the Cut rejects a pitch, they are actually just reassuring that writer that she’s not as fucked up as she’d feared.

I wonder if some people just sit still and listen to music without any forward motion. Has anyone ever tried this

12. On an airplane

5. Walking through suburbs (nighttime)
6. Passenger in someone else’s car
7. Passenger on a bus or train
8. Walking through suburbs (daytime)
9. While doing household chores
10. Driving in traffic
11. At a restaurant, coffee shop, or other retail outlet where music is present but not the point

Places to listen to music, ranked from best to worst:
1. At a club with a good soundsystem and other people who are happy to be there
2. Walking through a bustling city (assuming no one is in your way)
3. Walking through a bucolic countryside
4. Driving at night, no stoplights, windows down

Agreed. Specifically ice cream.

U.S. Drinking Rate at New Low as Alcohol Concerns Surge A record-low 54% of Americans say they drink alcohol, as a majority now believe moderate drinking is unhealthy.

We need to find a way to decouple the economics of "going out" from "drinking." I have no interest in encouraging anyone to drink. But I would be sad to live in a world where there are no dance parties bc the venues that host them can't make enough $$ to stay afloat. news.gallup.com/poll/693362/...

I have a policy of ordering it every time I see it on a menu, which means that in the US I eat it maybe once every other month, and in the UK I eat it once every other day

Can someone explain to me why halloumi is so omnipresent in the UK and so undervalued in the U.S.? What cultural norms or migratory patterns led to this vast divide in cheese consumption?

Screenshot of actor Tramell Tillman over the headline Tramell Tillman on Severance Delays, Coming Out as Gay and Tom Cruise

he’s gay AND Tom cruise?? he really CAN do it all, wow

I did this recently except I was at a picnic. I thought it was a bit of cookie. It turned out to be a bit of pinecone.

I've been working with the storytelling game company Hidden Door for nearly five years, and I'm so excited that they’ve launched early access to the platform today. | Leila Sales I've been working with the storytelling game company Hidden Door for nearly five years, and I'm so excited that they’ve launched early access to the platform today. The announcement has already gotten...

I wrote a whole long LinkedIn post about my work with Hidden Door, just in case you're curious: www.linkedin.com/posts/leila-...

I've been working with @hiddendoor.co for nearly five years now, and I am so proud to see them officially launch early access today! I think a lot of creatives (myself included) have a knee-jerk suspicion of AI anything, and Hidden Door shows why that's not always right.

Every time I read about this election, I edit it in my mind so that it appears to me that JoJo Siwa is running for mayor of New York

When I showed CRUEL INTENTIONS to a group of male friends in 2002 and it got to the scene where Ryan Phillippe's character gets hit by a car, they all screamed and one of them instinctually removed his sneaker and threw it at the TV screen

Incredible.