August Diversions: Seasonal Humor Edition

Including things that have been making me laugh, a book proposal template, and 🚡

Hello and welcome to my monthly newsletter, where I share items of interest.

This month has been focused on back-to-school (teaching for me and school for my kids), and we are starting to settle into a routine, which I do appreciate about fall.

It’s also a new opportunity for me to be thrown off by teen slang. My kids will tell me a teacher is “tough.” And I will be like, “Oh, pretty difficult?” And they will be like, “No, ‘tuff’ like cool.” I may need to start having them spell out the word. I’ll let you know how that goes.

-JV

Some things that made me laugh this month:

• Comic: This writers on vacation comic (which I spotted in Sarah Allen’s newsletter Sarah’s Smorgasbord).

• Humor headline: This summer headline from The Onion is me every year.

• SNL clip: My kids were watching some SNL clips, and we all laughed at this one, so now we are incorporating the aerial tramway emoji into texts when possible.

• Short humor: As someone who works in academia, I appreciated this Professor Sisyphus Begins a New Semester piece by Talia Argondezzi, which is excerpted from her new book.

• TV: I am enjoying the new season of Ted Lasso as it feels like a good comfort watch. I also recently watched Widow’s Bay, a show about a cursed New England island. I appreciated the humor, but it also freaked me out at times! I was on the fence about watching it because I scare easily, but I kept seeing memes/references to it, so I went for it. It also feels like a good fall/Halloweenish watch. Do you have other funny fall-themed TV or movie recs? Let me know in the comments.

• Slackjaw humor content call: I spotted this call for topics that the humor pub Slackjaw posted. I also appreciated that they noted what topics they have been seeing a lot of lately, as that is helpful to know when submitting. Content calls like this sometimes help spark some ideas for pieces for me.

• Book sales post: I had heard that getting a BookBub featured deal was good for book sales, so I was interested to read Liz Alterman’s report on how it went for her book A Different Type of Poison. She also shares some info on what has and hasn’t worked for book sales for her in the post.

• Book proposal template: I saw Courtney Maum mention this book proposal template that agent Anna Sproul-Latimer shared in her newsletter, which looks helpful for anyone writing a proposal.

• Melon season humor: Going to close out this edition with a throwback seasonal humor piece of mine from The New Yorker about the difficulties of picking out a melon. It’s all a game of roulette!

---

Thanks for reading Humor Me, a newsletter featuring funny stuff and writing tips. In case you’re new here, I’m a humor writer and freelancer whose work has appeared in New Yorker Shouts, McSweeney’s, Real Simple, and more. Find out more about me at julievick.com.

Any typos in this newsletter are a result of the text being written by a human and not AI.

If you’d like to help support Humor Me, you can:

• Like or share this post to help others find it.

• Become a free or paid subscriber:

*This newsletter includes affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely enjoy. Your purchases support this newsletter — thank you!