Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
American literary journal
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, also known simply as McSweeney's, 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 based in San Francisco and it has been edited by Dave Eggers. 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. McSweeney's is a sort of successor to Eggers' earlier magazine project Might, 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."
In 2024, Rita Bullwinkel became editor of the journal, succeeding Claire Boyle.
The public source identifies “Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern” as american literary journal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Timothy, McSweeney's and Quarterly.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7807398. VIAF identifies the subject as 167399696. The Library of Congress control number is n2002047739. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 2013 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.