TIMOTHY McSWEENEY’S ULTIMATE COMBO SUBSCRIPTION

Giving this combo subscription as a gift? Click here to download an official printable PDF gift notice.

This is the combo subscription for McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, McSweeney’s New Release Subscription, and Illustoria magazine. To subscribe to any of these on their own, or for multiple variations thereof, click here.

“There are few examples in publishing that equal the care and inventiveness McSweeney’s offers their readers—the industry at large should take note.”
—Bookends and Beginnings, Evanston, IL

As we look ever onwards—galloping toward the future—we’ve put together our most ambitious combo subscription yet. Our Ultimate Combo Subscription is practically guaranteed to satisfy every reader in your life, young and old. In one fell swoop, you’ll get: four issues of our multi-award-winning McSweeney’s Quarterly, three issues of Illustoria, the beloved magazine for younger readers, AND the next six non-children’s titles published by McSweeney’s Publishing. What more could you ask for? Let us know and maybe we’ll figure out how to include that next time. In the meantime, we’d like to think this ludicrously good deal will tide you over.

Take a look at what you’ll have coming your way:

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.

Illustoria #22: Invention
In our invention issue, we look at gadgets and gizmos and the inventive thinking behind them. The brilliant inventions begin on the whimsical and ingenious cover by Taili Wu, and keep up to the very last page. Inside we highlight clever creatures with survival strategies, the inner workings of a Risograph machine, and an unsuspecting teenager doing chemistry homework who accidentally altered fashion history!

What else has been invented by accident? our guest poet, Layla Forrest-White, ponders. In the project section: Invent a font. Design a new hairdo. Draw a robot. Young writers imagine what it would be like to grow up in a family of inventors. This unusual compendium of comics, stories, and DIY ideas will keep young readers mesmerized for days.

Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison by Ahmed Naji
Translated by Katharine Halls

In February 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for “violating public decency,” after an excerpt of his novel Using Life reportedly caused a reader to experience heart palpitations. Naji ultimately served ten months of that sentence, in a group cellblock in Cairo’s Tora Prison.

Rotten Evidence is a chronicle of those months. Through Naji’s writing, the world of Egyptian prison comes into vivid focus, with its cigarette-based economy, homemade chess sets, and well-groomed fixers. Naji’s storytelling is lively and uncompromising, filled with rare insights into both the mundane and grand questions he confronts.

How does one secure a steady supply of fresh vegetables without refrigeration? How does one write and revise a novel in a single notebook? Fight boredom? Build a clothes hanger? Negotiate with the chief of intelligence? And, most crucially, how does one make sense of a senseless oppression: finding oneself in prison for the act of writing fiction? Genuine and defiant, this book stands as a testament to the power of the creative mind, in the face of authoritarian censorship.

IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION: All subscriptions placed by November 1, 2023 will begin with Illustoria #22: Invention, McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Terrible, and Rotten Evidence. All subscriptions to McSweeney’s Quarterly automatically renew after four issues, at 15% off the price of a regular sub (currently $80.75), while the McSweeney’s New Release Subscriptions renew after six issues at a price of $95, and Illustoria after three issues at a price of $40. In the event of any future rate changes, we will notify you via email. If you’d like to cancel any of the three 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 lines “End Quarterly Renew,” “End New Release Renew,” “End Illustoria Renew,” or “End Ultimate Renew” depending on your desires. 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.

International shipping costs for the full thirteen-publication combo subscription: $90