''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'' is an American literary journal, founded in 1998, typically containing short stories, reportage, and illustrations. Some issues also include poetry, comic strips, and novellas. ''The Quarterly Concern'' is published by

McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. Initially publishing the literary journal'' Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', the company has moved to ...

based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and it has been edited by

Dave Eggers Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''. Eggers is also the founder of ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', a lite ...

. The journal is notable in that it has no fixed format, and changes its publishing style from issue to issue, unlike more conventional journals and magazines. The first issue featured only works that had been rejected by other publications, but the journal has since begun publishing pieces written with McSweeney's in mind.

History

''McSweeney's'' was founded in 1998 after Dave Eggers left an editing position at '' Esquire'', during the same time he was working on ''

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'' is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of his younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents. The book was a commerc ...

''. ''McSweeney's'' is a sort of successor to Eggers' earlier magazine project ''

Might Might may refer to: * ''might'', one of the English modal verbs * "Might", a song by Modest Mouse from their 1996 album ''This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About'' * ''Might'' magazine, a magazine founded by American author D ...

'', although ''Might'' was focused on editorial content and news, and not literature. Eggers also refers to ''McSweeney's'' as having "less edge" than ''Might''. Although originally reaching only a small audience, ''McSweeney's'' has grown to be a well respected journal, with Ruth Franklin, writing for Slate, referring to the ''Quarterly'' (and company) as "...the first bona fide literary movement in decades". In 2013, NPR wrote about the company's fifteenth anniversary, and referred to the journal as the "flagship literary quarterly" of a "literary empire based in San Francisco".

Authors

Notable authors featured in ''McSweeney's'' include

Denis Johnson Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, '' Jesus' Son'' (1992). His most successful novel, ''Tree of Smoke'' (2007) ...

, William T. Vollmann, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem,

Michael Chabon Michael Chabon ( ; born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, gr ...

Susan Straight Susan Straight (born October 19, 1960) is an American writer. She was a National Book Award finalist for the novel ''Highwire Moon'' in 2001. Biography Susan Straight attended John W. North High School in Riverside, California and took classes ...

Roddy Doyle Roddy Doyle (born 8 May 1958) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been ma ...

T. Coraghessan Boyle Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, also known as T. C. Boyle and T. Coraghessan Boyle (born December 2, 1948), is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published sixteen novels and more than 100 short stories. He won the ...

Steven Millhauser Steven Millhauser (born August 3, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel '' Martin Dressler''. Life and career Millhauser was born in New York City, grew up in Connecticut, ...

Robert Coover Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. Background ...

, Stephen King,

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

and

Ann Beattie Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story f ...

. The ''Quarterly'' has also helped launch the careers of dozens of emerging writers, including

Philipp Meyer Philipp Meyer is an American fiction writer, and is the author of the novels '' American Rust'' and '' The Son'', as well as short stories published in The New Yorker and other places. Meyer also created and produced the AMC television show b ...

Wells Tower Wells Tower (born April 14, 1973) is an American writer of short stories, non-fiction, feature films and television. In 2009 he published his first short story collection, ''Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) to ...

, and

Rebecca Curtis Rebecca Curtis (born January 10, 1974) is an American writer. She is the author of ''Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love & Money'' (HarperCollins, 2007) and has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's, NOON, N+1, and other mag ...

Awards

In 2007, ''McSweeney's'' received the National Magazine Award for Fiction for three stories published in 2006: "Wild Child" by T.C. Boyle (Issue 19); "To Sit, Unmoving" by Susan Steinberg (author) (Issue 20); and "The Strange Career of Dr. Raju Gopalarajan" by Rajesh Parameswaran (Issue 21). In 2010,

Anthony Doerr Anthony Doerr (born October 27, 1973) is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel ''All the Light We Cannot See'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Early life and education Rais ...

, and Kevin Moffett won the National Magazine Awards for their stories "Memory Wall", "Raw Water", and "Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events", respectively, all published in Issue 32.

Published issues

McSweeney's publishes each issue in a different format. Past issues have ranged in format from simple hardcovers or softcovers to more unconventional configurations, such as newspapers, a bundle of mail, a box emblazoned with a man's sweaty head, and a deck of playing cards. Some issues feature writing exclusively or mostly from one geographic area, such as Issue 15, which contained half American and half Icelandic writing. In Issue 10, it was claimed that exactly 56 issues of the journal would be published. In Issue 20, this claim was repeated in an advertisement that stated: "There will be roughly thirty-six ssuesto come; then, a five-year retrenchment." With the publication of Issue 56 it was revealed that this had always been a joke and that they would continue to publish until at least issue 156.

Notes

Anthologies

*''Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category'' (

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

, 2004) *''The Best of McSweeney's, Volume 1'' ( Hamish Hamilton, 2004) *''The Best of McSweeney's, Volume 2'' (Hamish Hamilton, 2005) *''The Better of McSweeney's: Volume One — Issues 1 – 10, Stories and Letters'' (McSweeney's Books, 2005) *''The Best of McSweeney's'' (McSweeney's Books, 2013)

References

External links

* *Tai Moses
"Mighty Muse"
a 1998 review of the debut issue, from the Silicon Valley online weekly ''Metroactive''. *Matt Goldberg

interview), ''The Village Voice'', March 23, 1999.

a 1999 review from ''Context'', at the Center for Book Culture.org. *Ruth Franklin
"The 98-Pound Gorilla in the Room" by Ruth Franklin
a review of Issue 10 and the "McSweeney's short story", from Slate.com, April 3, 2003. *Mark Holcomb

a review of Issue 10 from ''The Village Voice'', April 8, 2003. {{DEFAULTSORT:Timothy Mcsweeney's Quarterly Concern McSweeney's periodicals Quarterly magazines published in the United States Literary magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1998 1998 establishments in California Magazines published in San Francisco