McSweeney's Issue 39 - Tapa dura

This will most likely be a strange and wonderful package. Each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned. There have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head. "McSweeney's" has won multiple literary awards, including two National Magazine Awards for fiction, and has had numerous stories appear in "The Best American Magazine Writing", the O. Henry Awards anthologies, and "The Best American Short Stories". Design awards given to the quarterly include the AIGA 50 Books Award, the AIGA 365 Illustration Award, and the Print Design Regional Award. Which is to say: We're not sure what the thirty-ninth issue will bring, but as always, we remain optimistic about its prospects. "McSweeney's" began in 1998 as a literary journal that published only works rejected by other magazines. That rule was soon abandoned, and since then "McSweeney's" has attracted work from some of the finest writers in the country, including Denis Johnson, Jonathan Franzen, William T. Vollmann, Rick Moody, Joyce Carol Oates, Heidi Julavits, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Ben Marcus, Susan Straight, Roddy Doyle, T.C. Boyle, Steven Millhauser, Gabe Hudson, Robert Coover, Ann Beattie, and many others. At the same time, the journal continues to be a major home for new and unpublished writers; we're committed to publishing exciting fiction regardless of pedigree.

Benjamin Cohen is an associate professor in the Engineering Studies and Environmental Studies Programs at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. Holding STS and history together, his interests sit at the intersection of the histories of science, technology, and the environment, with particular attention to industrial agriculture from the 19th century to today. His current project is an environmental history of the origins of manufactured food, told through a story of late 19th century pure food debates, "Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food" (under contract with the University of Chicago Press). He is also a writer for a variety of non-academic forums and co-host of Various Breads and Butters. Marco Kaye has contributed to McSweeney's Internet Tendency since 2007. He has an MFA from NYU, and has been published in the New Yorker's Daily Shouts & Murmurs. Dicky Murphy's writing has appeared in The San Francisco Panorama and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Elizabeth Sankey is a writer from London. She also sings in the band Summer Camp. David-Ivar Herman Dune records music as Herman Dune or Yaya Herman Dune. He has shown his drawings, in black ink and gouache, on both sides of the Atlantic. Avery Lee performs improvisational comedy in Chicago with the groups Classy D and 98.6. Stephen Elliot is the director of the movie Cherry and the author of The Adderall Diaries. Julie Hecht is a contemporary American fiction writer specializing in interlacing short stories. She lives in the winter on the east end of Long Island, New York, and spends summer and fall in Massachusetts. Jennie Erin Smith's work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the Wall Street Journal, Byliner, and The New Yorker. She is a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Award, a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., two first-place awards from the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, and the Waldo Proffitt Award for Environmental Journalism. She lives in Central America. Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolano (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Romulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50. Chris Andrews has won the TLS Valle Inclan Prize and the PEN Translation Prize for his Bolano translations. Tom Barbash is the author of the award-winning novel The Last Good Chance and the non-fiction book On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11; A Story of Loss and Renewal, which was a New York Times bestseller. His stories and articles have been published in Tin House, McSweeney's, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications, and have been performed on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts series. He currently teaches in the MFA program at California College of the Arts. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in Marin County, California. Vaclav Havel, (born October 5, 1936, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now in Czech Republic]--died December 18, 2011, Hradecek, Czech Republic), Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident, who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989-92) and of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). E. C. Osondu is a Nigerian writer known for his short stories. His story "Waiting" won the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing, for which he had been a finalist in 2007 with his story "Jimmy Carter's Eyes". Osondu had previously won the Allen and Nirelle Galso Prize for Fiction and his story "A Letter from Home" was judged one of "The Top Ten Stories on the Internet" in 2006. Osondu's writing has been published in Agni, Guernica, Vice, Fiction, and The Atlantic. His debut collection of short stories, Voice of America, was published in 2010. Elmore Leonard wrote forty-five novels and nearly as many western and crime short stories across his highly successful career that spanned more than six decades. Some of his bestsellers include Road Dogs, Up in Honey's Room, The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, and the critically acclaimed collection of short stories Fire in the Hole. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty, Out of Sight, and Rum Punch, which became Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown. Justified, the hit series from FX, is based on Leonard's character Raylan Givens, who appears in Riding the Rap, Pronto, Raylan and the short story "Fire in the Hole". He was a recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN USA, and the Grand Master Award of the Mystery Writers of America. He was known to many as the 'Dickens of Detroit' and was a long-time resident of the Detroit area. Yannick Murphy is the author of the novels, THE CALL, SIGNED, MATA HARI, HERE THEY COME, and THE SEA OF TREES. Her story collections include STORIES IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE and IN A BEAR'S EYE. Her children's books include THE COLD WATER WITCH, BABY POLAR, and AHWOOOOOOOO!. She is the recipient of various awards including a Pushcart Prize, a Laurence L. and Thomas Winship/PEN New England Award, a Whiting Writer's Award, a National Endowment for the Arts award, and a Chesterfield Screenwriting award. Her story IN A BEAR'S EYE was published in the 2007 O. Henry Prize Stories. AMELIA GRAY is the author of five books, most recently Isadora. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, and VICE. She is winner of the NYPL Young Lion, of FC2's Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She lives in Los Angeles. Jess Walter is the author of six novels, most recently the New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins (2012). He was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for The Zero and winner of the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel for Citizen Vince. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Harper's, McSweeney's, Playboy and other publications. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. Tabitha Soren's work is in many private collections. Public collections include the LACMA, New Orleans Museum of Art, George Eastman Museum of Photography, Berkeley Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of Art, and San Francisco's Pier 24, among others. Her most recent exhibition at San Francisco City Hall, FANTASY LIFE, runs through March 23, 2018. Benjamin Weissman is the author of two books of short fiction, Headless (2004) and Dear Dead Person (1994). His writing has appeared in Artforum, The Believer, and Los Angeles Times. His collaboration with Yutaka Sone, What Every Snowflake Knows in Its Heart, was shown at Santa Monica Museum of Art. He teaches at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Abi Maxwell was born and raised in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, and studied fiction writing at the University of Montana. J.T.K. Belle lives in Seattle with his wife and two kids.