BELIEVER MAGAZINE AND McSWEENEY’S QUARTERLY COMBO SUBSCRIPTION

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“Ever shape-shifting and ambitious, McSweeney’s has redefined what a literary institution can be.”
—Catherine Lacey, McSweeney’s contributor and author of Pew

Reunited and it feels so good. After a half decade away, the award-winning Believer magazine is back at McSweeney’s. To celebrate, we’re bringing back our oldest combo of all: the Believer + McSweeney’s Quarterly Combo Subscription. An awe-inspiring cornucopia of literary content awaits you.

This combo subscription brings you four issues of interviews, essays, and reviews in this beloved and deluxe illustrated sixty-four-page printed magazine AND four issues of our thrilling and always boundary-pushing acclaimed literary journal. Cumulatively these pages have found themselves finalists for the National Magazine Award nearly an even two dozen times, and been home to some of the most exciting authors working today. Treat yourself and welcome our dearest old friends back into the McSweeney’s fold once more.

Here’s a preview of what you’ll find coming your way

Believer Issue 144: The Music Issue
The Music Issue returns! Inside this delectable year-end issue, you’ll find Mimi Lok on the Jungian references behind K-pop’s biggest group; Fernando A. Flores on a bizarre invented history of funerary violinists; and Rob Curran on the Malian folk star attempting to save his country’s rich musical traditions. There are also far-reaching interviews with PJ Harvey, Rhiannon Giddens, Jeremy Gaudet, and Ryan H. Walsh, as well as shorter—but equally pleasurable—conversations with Natalie Merchant and the Houston Rockets’ own Victor Oladipo. Plus, Stu Horvath listens to dungeonsynth, Lol Tolhurst looks back on the ’80s goth scene, and Paul Collins recounts the “deep and profound” history of kazoo orchestras. You’ll also find regular features reworked for thematic consistency, with contributions from Nick Hornby, Carrie Brownstein, and Niela Orr; musician trivia from Carl Newman of the New Pornographers; album reviews; and more!

Don’t miss this issue’s special companion soundtrack: Believer Radio. Hosted by our contributors, and produced by Claire Mullen, these sixteen hour-long DJ sets delve into the music discussed in the issue in greater detail. Listen to them all at BFF.fm/believer.

McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Terrible
Our first-ever issue-length foray into horror, and featuring one of our biggest lineups in some time, our seventy-first issue is one for the ages. Guest edited by Brian Evenson, McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Terrible is a hair-raising collection of fiction that will challenge the notion of what horror has been, and suggest what twenty-first-century horror is and can be. And it’s all packaged in a mind-bending, nesting-doll-like series of interlocking slipcases that must be seen to be believed.

There’s Stephen Graham Jones’s eerie take on the alien abduction story, Mariana Enríquez’s haunting tale of childhood hijinks gone awry, and Jeffrey Ford on a writer who loses control of his characters. Nick Antosca (cocreator of the award-winning TV series The Act) spins out a novelette about the hidden horrors of wine country. There’s Kristine Ong Muslim exploring environmental horror in the Philippines; a sharp-edged folk tale by Gabino Iglesias, and Diné writer Natanya Ann Pulley reimagining sci-fi horror from an Indigenous perspective. Hungarian writer Attila Veres proffers a dark take on the not-so-hidden sociopathy of multilevel marketing. And Erika T. Wurth explores the dark gaps leading to other worlds. If that weren’t enough: an excerpt from a new novel by Brandon Hobson; a chilling allegorical horror story by Senaa Ahmad; a Lovecraftian bildungsroman by Lincoln Michel; unsettling dream cities from Nick Mamatas; M. T. Anderson’s exceptionally weird take on babysitting; and, improbably, much more.

McSweeney’s Issue 72
Finish out 2023 in style with a jam-packed metaphorical evening of cultural nourishment courtesy of McSweeney’s 72. Inside this three mini-book volume (bedecked with art by printmaker David Ryan), you’ll find a new play, The Headliners, by Jeffrey Neuman (produced here in an extended playbill of black and white photos from the Denver world-premiere production along with the play’s full text); and experience the hardships and thrills of life on the road as comedian and musician Tim Heidecker guides you through his intimate diary and documentary photos of his The Two Tims tour. With your whistle appropriately wetted, settle in for a full festival’s worth of literary stars including Ed Park’s latest tale of generational differences in family and love; Selena Gambrell Anderson on the intentional wrecking of a rich man’s ill-used ship; Jim Shepard’s new narrative perspective of Dr. Jekyll and his Mr. Hyde; Caleb Crain’s painfully accurate take on the time-honored tradition of hooking up at a writing conference; and Lauren Spohrer on the frightening specter of ghost planes and ghost citations, misattributions and appropriations.

Find all this plus letters considering product demand, the future as an airport terminal, teleportation of orgies to Iowa City, and lingering baby teeth from Dan Poppick, Mina Tavakoli, Vi Khi Nao, and Justin Carder; an excerpt from Eskor David Johnson’s Pay As You Go; Brian Robert Moore’s new translation of Lalla Romano; new work from Erin Somers, Adrian Van Young, Sahar Delijani, and Kevin Moffett; and the winner and runner-up of our inaugural Stephen Dixon Prize: Kristina Ten and Maz Do. Get ready to enrich your soul and live it up in the most introverted way possible, with this concentrated blast of stunning literary periodical content.

IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION: Subscriptions placed before December 8, 2023, will begin with McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Terrible and The Believer Issue 144. All subscriptions to The Believer automatically renew after four issues at a cost of $55, while subscriptions to McSweeney’s Quarterly automatically renew after four issues at 15% off the price of a regular sub (currently $80.75). In the event of any future rate changes, we will notify you via email. If you’d like to cancel your subscription at any time prior to its auto-renewal, you can log in to your account and adjust your subscription settings. Or send an email to custservice@mcsweeneys.net with the subject line “End Quarterly Autorenew,” “End Believer Autorenew,” or “End Combo Autorenew.” Refunds will be accepted only up until the first issue of your renewal is shipped. If you’d like to give the Quarterly Concern as a one-time gift, purchase a gift subscription here. Any subscription purchased with the “gift” option marked at checkout will not be enrolled in autorenew.