by Writing Workshops Staff
2 months ago
âMy knee vibrated like a jackhammer and rattled the brochure stand for âSullivan Bank Crypto Savings.ââ
So opens Hot Chicken Gelato, Howie Kremerâs new piece in Weekly Humoristâa tender, deranged little love story disguised as a botched bank robbery, complete with a Walmart pistol, an angelic stranger in a Trader Joeâs tote, and four hypothetical children named Robber, Robbie, Robert, and Felony.
Itâs the second time this spring Howie has landed a piece in a top humor outlet.
In March, Slackjaw published his Ex-Bullpen Catcher Stan Harveyâs Very Legit Advice For Throwing Out A Ceremonial First Pitchâa perfect upsell-spiral of an essay that begins with tennis elbow and ends with a Bozeman, Montana subdivision packed with eighteen-to-twenty-two-year-old influencers.
By any measure, this is a heater of an opening run.
From Apatowâs Writersâ Rooms to the Humor Page
If youâve watched TV in the past decade, youâve probably already laughed at Howieâs work. A comedy writer and director whose credits include Letâs Get Physical, Fighting with My Family, and Trophy Wife, he spent the last five years writing and producing for Judd Apatow. Heâs also a lifelong Cardinals fan who plays in a Sunday league and lives with four catsâMusie, Bunnypenny, Freckles, and Winnieâfacts that explain a lot about his recent output.
So why would a working TV writer with that kind of rĂ©sumĂ© sign up for a two-hour humor seminar? Because, as Howie put it in his own bracingly honest before-and-after: âBefore taking the workshop, my writing life was unstructured and bad, but now itâs not.â
The Class That Cracked Things Open
In February 2026, Howie joined Caitlin Kunkelâs How to Write a Short Humor Pieceâa generative seminar where Caitlin walks writers through a repeatable process for brainstorming, structuring, and fast-drafting a piece in the spirit of McSweeneyâs, The Belladonna, and Points in Case. For Howie, two specific tools did the heavy lifting:
âThe beginning processâthe cluster Caitlin taught us, but especially the revision rubric. That really unlocked things for me.â
You can see that unlocking in both new pieces. The Slackjaw essay is a masterclass in escalating premise: Stan Harveyâs âsystemâ for throwing a ceremonial first pitch starts innocently with pickleball, branches into kickball leagues, and snowballs into cold plunges, a personal trainer named Kelsey, and a trademarked program with the absurd acronym S.H.I.G.V.T.S.F.P.T.C.F.P.âą. Itâs the kind of piece that only lands if the architecture is sound underneath the chaosâexactly what a joke-cluster plus a real revision pass is built to deliver.
Hot Chicken Gelato applies the same craft to a longer narrative shape. It moves with the rhythm of a meet-cute, but every beat is sabotaged: AirPods feeding pep talks during an attempted heist, a best friend giving mid-robbery updates on Aunt Dawnâs watercolor washes, Wendyâs-menu codewords signaling everything from âthings are going wellâ to âletâs talk when we get home.â The premise is unhinged. The structure is rock-solid.
Joy as a Method
When we asked Howie what gets him through the hard days at the keyboard, his answer doubled as a writing philosophy: âFinding my joyâwhat makes me laughâand following it.â
Right now that joy is aimed squarely at his kitties. The piece keeping him up at night, in the best way, is written from the POV of his catâa thorough catalogue of all the ways Howie is a disappointment as a cat dad, and how she is, in essence, only using him for sustenance and warmth. We cannot wait to read it.
His Advice for the Fence-Sitters
Asked what heâd say to someone hovering over the âregisterâ button, Howieâs answer was, fittingly, the funniest in his survey:
âGet off the fence. Put on your favorite hat and go get some cake. Then, after you sign up for this classâeat the cake as a treat for doing something incredible for yourself.â
Weâre honored to have been a brief stop on Howieâs run. With a TV pilot in pre-production, a cat-POV essay in progress, and two humor pieces out in the world this spring, what comes next looks a lot like more of the good stuff. You can keep up with him at howiekremer.com or follow him on Instagram and Threads at @howieekremer.
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