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McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #80
McSweeney's Issue 80
For the eightieth totally radical issue of our National Magazine Award–winning quarterly, we’ve intercepted a distant satellite transmission blasting in from the future-past: a 1980s rainbow-hued, coral-reef-clad, dolphin-inhabited, drowned-world three-ring oversized-school-binder-inspired volume. An unhinged and unhingable maximalist wonder, McSweeney’s 80 will absolutely gag you with a spoon in awe and bodaciousness.
Clipped into the metal three-rings of this issue are no less than seven (!) individual book art objects, including: a grid-ruled sketchbook by Eisner winner Adrian Tomine; a heart-stoppingly beautiful accordion-shaped catalog of twelve different flowers by Pulitzer Prize finalist Yiyun Li; a story in the form of an end-of-the-world Scantron questionnaire by Pip Adam; a crossword about being in (and out of) love by Chris Ames; a story by Guggenheim Fellow Lucy Corin in which the protagonist may, or may not, be able to eat their students; and a story by Brittany Newell in which the protagonist may, or may not, be in love with their dubiously credentialed couples therapist. Find all this plus an excerpt from Kevin Moffett’s National Book Award–longlisted debut novel; the 2025 Stephen Dixon Award–winning story “My Son’s Name Is Not Cassava” by Akhim Alexis; a letter by PEN Translation Prize winner Katrina Dodson circling the unexpected twinned linguistic heritage of Portuguese and Vietnamese; more letters by Anelise Chen, Steven Dunn, and Molly McGhee; and a truly gnarly amount more!
Unfasten the cover, pop open this book’s three tubular rings, and unfurl the unruly and radiantly conceived worlds of McSweeney’s Quarterly Issue 80.
Clipped into the metal three-rings of this issue are no less than seven (!) individual book art objects, including: a grid-ruled sketchbook by Eisner winner Adrian Tomine; a heart-stoppingly beautiful accordion-shaped catalog of twelve different flowers by Pulitzer Prize finalist Yiyun Li; a story in the form of an end-of-the-world Scantron questionnaire by Pip Adam; a crossword about being in (and out of) love by Chris Ames; a story by Guggenheim Fellow Lucy Corin in which the protagonist may, or may not, be able to eat their students; and a story by Brittany Newell in which the protagonist may, or may not, be in love with their dubiously credentialed couples therapist. Find all this plus an excerpt from Kevin Moffett’s National Book Award–longlisted debut novel; the 2025 Stephen Dixon Award–winning story “My Son’s Name Is Not Cassava” by Akhim Alexis; a letter by PEN Translation Prize winner Katrina Dodson circling the unexpected twinned linguistic heritage of Portuguese and Vietnamese; more letters by Anelise Chen, Steven Dunn, and Molly McGhee; and a truly gnarly amount more!
Unfasten the cover, pop open this book’s three tubular rings, and unfurl the unruly and radiantly conceived worlds of McSweeney’s Quarterly Issue 80.
- GenresShort Stories
276 pages, Paperback
First published November 20, 2025
18 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Rita Bullwinkel
20 books224 followersRita Bullwinkel is the author of Headshot and Belly Up, a story collection that won the Believer Book Award. She is a 2022 recipient of a Whiting Award, the editor of McSweeney's Quarterly, a contributing editor at NOON, and the Picador Guest Professor of Literature at Leipzig University in Germany, where she teaches courses on creative writing, zines, and the uses of invented and foreign languages as tools for world building.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 10, 2026
Mostly pretty good, amusing stories.
However all this fancy packaging is beginning to get slightly ridiculous. This one consists of differently formatted items in a ring binder. Maybe they could spend less on the packaging and more on the writing?
However all this fancy packaging is beginning to get slightly ridiculous. This one consists of differently formatted items in a ring binder. Maybe they could spend less on the packaging and more on the writing?
December 30, 2025
This was my first McSweeney's. I picked it up in a bookstore, wondering if they'd started selling stationary, and was blow away as I realised this was a literary journal. And blown again as I opened the velcro cover. Basically this: https://youtu.be/SODC4UIgrLg?si=WpG_w.... I assume this is how many people encounter McSweeney's: what is this misplaced thing, oh it's a journal, is it any good, might as well buy it whats the harm.
Except it's SO GOOD.
I don't know if this will be the case with every issue prior to this or for what is yet to come but I had such a lot of fun with issue 80. I was bringing it into work to show people (my poor coworkers), I was boring my partner about it over dinner, I was searching for a subreddit. I was hooked!
Look, I get the that the publication - all of the little booklets, and folders, and stencils (!) - are a gimmick. However, if they were the only appeal, this would be an art piece with no real content, and I'd rate it 2-3 stars and smile and move on. But the content is there! I'll get to the content, let me harp on a bit more about the experience of reading this, its design.
===============
D E S I G N
===============
The whole concept here is that this is a retro-futuristic binder with snippets from past and future (which I'm happy to report does include tardigrades).
The majority of the standard literary fare is in the spiral bound notebook. The stories are printed on lined paper. The printed word lines up with the standard single-spaced lines. How fantastic is that?
The Adrian Tomine sketchbook is bound like a real sketchbook on squared paper. Some of his sketches clearly were originally made on squared paper - and they line up! This attention to detail, it matters.
It really gives the whole thing such a feeling of quality.
And there is a glossy little pocket folder with a booklet in. The folder is beautiful, I will probably use it elsewhere. The booklet has a coloring page and some trading cards and toy money, and a comic strip. All of these items, including the folder, are referenced in the comic strip. The coloring page has instructions. I ended up following them and doing some coloring. It is so much fun.
There is a test form, like an old USA #2 pencil standardized test form. Except it's a survey about the end of the world sent to you by the thirsty AI robots who are consuming your content. There is a phone number on it. I called the number. It's McSweeney's.
There is a crossword puzzle at the back of the spiral bound notebook. The Across clues are from one person in a relationship, the Down clues from the other party. The clues form poems that form the experience of both sides of the relationship. The clues are also real clues that line up on the crossword!!!. I also think there was something misplaced intentionally (it would work, poetically) or unintentionally. I will update this review if I find out.
The flower booklet and stencil were beautiful additions but were a little more on-the-nose than the other pieces.
===============
C O N T E N T
===============
I read this in the order it was presented in the binder. I read each element cover to cover. Given how varied everything was I think it might have been a good idea to break it up a bit, e.g. read a letter and then maybe a short story and then the sketchbook and then another letter? As it was I still had so much fun.
The spiral-bound notebook: letters
This starts off with a letters section. I went into this assuming this was an actual letters section from readers. Halfway through the first one, when they started talking about burning road snakes and making twisty sausages I had my suspicions these were talented readers. But the second story confirmed for me that, nope, it's writers writing either fiction or elaborated facts.
I loved the one about going on a trip to Miami but my favorite has to be spending time in the library with Katrina Dodson as she digs into translating between portuguese and vietnamese and latin and just wallows in the reading room. Something about having these be letters rather than just flash fiction made the whole experience far more immersive. I could see the letter writers sitting down, penning the words, thinking of their audience.
First line: “Dear McSweeney's When I was a kid in West Virginia, we had to burn snakes after w killed them because my grandma said snakes were evil.” (18 pages), 5/5
Office Hour by Lucy Corrin
"A good teacher learns from her students, but sometimes I forget - what's so special about students? they're just people. I could be learning from anyone."
"I worry I mistook sentiment for connection."
"I am almost used to students believing that their feelings are the point of every conversation."
As someone who works next to a University, very much in academia, Corrin was so on the nose it hurt.
Starting this school-ish themed collection with a school-based story was a great choice and I savoured every word. But maybe I'm biased.
First line(s): “Leila is on zoom for our one-on-one. She's unaware of her body, lost in our time.” (23 pages), 5/5
My Son's Name is not Cassava by Akhim Alexis
This is the winner of the 2025 Stephen Dixon Award, which seems to be McSweeny's own award. The formatting on this is a bit different, it's added as a mini-book inside the spiral-bound, as are two runner-ups. A mother leaves Canada where she's been working with one hand behind her in Trinidad, passing on her earnings to her sister and her adult son, Michael. After learning that Michael has moved into a cultish nudist camp she returns to find him. The patois of the narrator and the curious story worked well but left me feeling a little empty.
First line: “I used to love mango, and my favourite part if eating a mango was sucking the seed dry.” (24 pages), 4/5
My Autobiography by Patrick Cottrell is a metaphor for being ok with being alone? A fun little weird tale that I don't want to spoil by telling you any more about it.
First line(s): “When I accept Martina's invitation to meet her daughters I do not understand women. I am not a woman.” (3 pages), 4.5/5
Flying the Chair by Matt Sumell is the ultimate midlife crisis. Oh but the writing is absolutely stupendous. Like, I couldn't care less about the protagonist and the stupid decisions he's making, but with sentences like: "Before I climbed onto my moto and started it up and tingled my plums with a vroom", who can resist? Who doesn't love a good possum?
First line: “On top of the usuals I was on aerosolized bitter acid, too, Micro Mule it's called, 'the gentle kick', a little too gentle in my opinion, so I was three spritzes deep and loving it -- the colors the connections, the shimmering houseplant that turned out to be the shadow of a coatrack?” (20 pages), 4/5
The World by Ava Tomasula Y Garcia
"I know I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I think trans people come from the future. That's why I asked Juani where hairstyles are headed. It disappointed me that he did not know."
This one is all about cults and religion and someone who is born trying to improve things for those around her and at some point decides she can't fight the system anymore and turns to an internal, cloistered journey. Telling this from the sister's perspective was fantastic. And I learned a lot about the Amish.
First line: “The Amish call the non-Amish the English, and the Shakers call everything that isn't Shaker the World.” (13 pages), 5/5
Ashes by Olga Lexell
Stephen Dixon Prize runner-up and my pick for winner, it's time to go on a road-trip! Time to sprinkle your mother's ashes. This was an amazing, cautionary fairytale set in modern day Ukraine. Who is the old woman in the story? Is she an allegory for tradition? I would have loved a little footnote to put this story in context but as is it packed a punch.
First line: “I thought just getting there would be the hardest part.” (6 pages), 4.5/5
Grub by Kevin Moffett was probably my least favourite of this collection. It reads like a retrospective auto fiction of a boy who loses his dad and discovers he is of the grub class at school. This isn't a topic I would normally gravitate towards but the writing here is truly sublime. There hasn't been a bad entry yet in this periodical. Some choice quotes:
"One must refer to deviled eggs as dressed eggs so as not to invite the devil into the house."
"On childhood: What I miss most, I think, are the feelings of awe and consequence."
First line: “I can never get the straight story.” (26 pages), 3.5/5
Six stories by Sara Reggiani are just that, 6 pieces of surreal flash-fiction, sometimes bordering on prose-poetry. Surreal and perfect for the theming of this collection. I like the greedy hornet eating the blackberry.
"My friend Kevin. I hate the sight of him. Just stop, I say. You're not a bull, Kev."
First line from one of my faves of the 6: “I just learned that horses see everything in bright shades of blue and green.” (5 pages), 4.5/5
Composure by Colin Heasley is another runner up for the short story prize. It's about a young violin teacher and him navigating his place in life and love and with his students. Particularly after one boy pulls off a limp handed grotesque caricature of camp during one of their lessons. This was written as if thought in passing. The fade-ins coming by placing us in the middle of sentences. I'm not sure if that device added anything but the rest of the story felt like it came from a place of genuine youth and cynicism. I believed this character.
First line: “for the junior-high orchestra, I created a character who is a violin bow with half my ex's wig and hand-puppet eyes stuck on the tip.” (22 pages), 3.5/5
Power Couple by Brittany Newell is an odd one. I think it's about a couple trying not to fade into their own obscurity. But honestly I'm not sure. It was fun though and I liked the Bay area setting.
First line: “Cooper had the crush on our therapist first.” (16 pages), 3.5/5
Adrian Tomine's sketchbook was a real treat. I've only read a couple of his graphic novels but I know him for his very clean style, bold outlines, and limited palettes. So seeing paneling and sketches and planning was really fascinating. I kind of wish we'd had access to an interview with him or something though to round it out.
First line: “You know who makes the best french toast? The Rock.” (48 pages), 4/5
The Flower Catalogue by Yiyun Li is quite literally a catalogue of 12 flowers and her thoughts on each one. The thoughts range from her experience with growing it to how pretty it is when it blooms. Since each piece of text accompanying the illustration is only a few sentences long it feels more there to add some flavour to the lovely pencil sketches of the flowers which are saturated and textured. Not the most exciting part of this issue but pleasant enough. It had me thinking of what flowers I'd like to try planting in our garden this year.
First line: “The golden yellow flowers of American witch hazel against the February blue sky is always the first sign that there is no eternal winter.” (12 pages), 3.5/5
J&K by John Pham is a little comic/activity book and is great. And how the design of the folder and activity is a part of the story, are you kidding me??? The story is a bit meh but the set design and art style are interesting. Liked the limited colour palette a lot.
First line: “'Look, look'; 'Whoa';'Done already?'” (12 pages), 3/5
No One is Available to Help you Right Now by Pip Adam is a short story in the form of a standardized test. It's a status report of the end of the world but because you have to fill in the options you end up feeling like you're in the story; it's such a simple idea but incredibly immersive. I also enjoyed solving the little math problem. There's so much meta commentary in here about the current state of creativity and AI. I'm honestly so glad I read this last because it really rounded out the collection for me and for what McSweeney's is trying to do: human-curated content in the slop.
First line: “Thank you for surrendering data for the end of our planet.” (2 pages), 5/5
===============
S U M M A R Y
===============
I loved this so much I've already begun to buy up the back issues. I know that the editors were switched out a few issues ago so I won't go too far back given how much I love this editor. I've also made it a project to get all of the back-issues Goodreads DB entries normalized and updated as many of them are in a very bad state. Watch this space.
But yeah, blown away by the quality and how FUN this was, have I said that enough times? I've been missing something creative that isn't too precious and enjoys itself and McSweeney's is hitting the spot right now. New subscriber.
Except it's SO GOOD.
I don't know if this will be the case with every issue prior to this or for what is yet to come but I had such a lot of fun with issue 80. I was bringing it into work to show people (my poor coworkers), I was boring my partner about it over dinner, I was searching for a subreddit. I was hooked!
Look, I get the that the publication - all of the little booklets, and folders, and stencils (!) - are a gimmick. However, if they were the only appeal, this would be an art piece with no real content, and I'd rate it 2-3 stars and smile and move on. But the content is there! I'll get to the content, let me harp on a bit more about the experience of reading this, its design.
===============
D E S I G N
===============
The whole concept here is that this is a retro-futuristic binder with snippets from past and future (which I'm happy to report does include tardigrades).
The majority of the standard literary fare is in the spiral bound notebook. The stories are printed on lined paper. The printed word lines up with the standard single-spaced lines. How fantastic is that?
The Adrian Tomine sketchbook is bound like a real sketchbook on squared paper. Some of his sketches clearly were originally made on squared paper - and they line up! This attention to detail, it matters.
It really gives the whole thing such a feeling of quality.
And there is a glossy little pocket folder with a booklet in. The folder is beautiful, I will probably use it elsewhere. The booklet has a coloring page and some trading cards and toy money, and a comic strip. All of these items, including the folder, are referenced in the comic strip. The coloring page has instructions. I ended up following them and doing some coloring. It is so much fun.
There is a test form, like an old USA #2 pencil standardized test form. Except it's a survey about the end of the world sent to you by the thirsty AI robots who are consuming your content. There is a phone number on it. I called the number. It's McSweeney's.
There is a crossword puzzle at the back of the spiral bound notebook. The Across clues are from one person in a relationship, the Down clues from the other party. The clues form poems that form the experience of both sides of the relationship. The clues are also real clues that line up on the crossword!!!. I also think there was something misplaced intentionally (it would work, poetically) or unintentionally. I will update this review if I find out.
The flower booklet and stencil were beautiful additions but were a little more on-the-nose than the other pieces.
===============
C O N T E N T
===============
I read this in the order it was presented in the binder. I read each element cover to cover. Given how varied everything was I think it might have been a good idea to break it up a bit, e.g. read a letter and then maybe a short story and then the sketchbook and then another letter? As it was I still had so much fun.
The spiral-bound notebook: letters
This starts off with a letters section. I went into this assuming this was an actual letters section from readers. Halfway through the first one, when they started talking about burning road snakes and making twisty sausages I had my suspicions these were talented readers. But the second story confirmed for me that, nope, it's writers writing either fiction or elaborated facts.
I loved the one about going on a trip to Miami but my favorite has to be spending time in the library with Katrina Dodson as she digs into translating between portuguese and vietnamese and latin and just wallows in the reading room. Something about having these be letters rather than just flash fiction made the whole experience far more immersive. I could see the letter writers sitting down, penning the words, thinking of their audience.
First line: “Dear McSweeney's When I was a kid in West Virginia, we had to burn snakes after w killed them because my grandma said snakes were evil.” (18 pages), 5/5
Office Hour by Lucy Corrin
"A good teacher learns from her students, but sometimes I forget - what's so special about students? they're just people. I could be learning from anyone."
"I worry I mistook sentiment for connection."
"I am almost used to students believing that their feelings are the point of every conversation."
As someone who works next to a University, very much in academia, Corrin was so on the nose it hurt.
Starting this school-ish themed collection with a school-based story was a great choice and I savoured every word. But maybe I'm biased.
First line(s): “Leila is on zoom for our one-on-one. She's unaware of her body, lost in our time.” (23 pages), 5/5
My Son's Name is not Cassava by Akhim Alexis
This is the winner of the 2025 Stephen Dixon Award, which seems to be McSweeny's own award. The formatting on this is a bit different, it's added as a mini-book inside the spiral-bound, as are two runner-ups. A mother leaves Canada where she's been working with one hand behind her in Trinidad, passing on her earnings to her sister and her adult son, Michael. After learning that Michael has moved into a cultish nudist camp she returns to find him. The patois of the narrator and the curious story worked well but left me feeling a little empty.
First line: “I used to love mango, and my favourite part if eating a mango was sucking the seed dry.” (24 pages), 4/5
My Autobiography by Patrick Cottrell is a metaphor for being ok with being alone? A fun little weird tale that I don't want to spoil by telling you any more about it.
First line(s): “When I accept Martina's invitation to meet her daughters I do not understand women. I am not a woman.” (3 pages), 4.5/5
Flying the Chair by Matt Sumell is the ultimate midlife crisis. Oh but the writing is absolutely stupendous. Like, I couldn't care less about the protagonist and the stupid decisions he's making, but with sentences like: "Before I climbed onto my moto and started it up and tingled my plums with a vroom", who can resist? Who doesn't love a good possum?
First line: “On top of the usuals I was on aerosolized bitter acid, too, Micro Mule it's called, 'the gentle kick', a little too gentle in my opinion, so I was three spritzes deep and loving it -- the colors the connections, the shimmering houseplant that turned out to be the shadow of a coatrack?” (20 pages), 4/5
The World by Ava Tomasula Y Garcia
"I know I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I think trans people come from the future. That's why I asked Juani where hairstyles are headed. It disappointed me that he did not know."
This one is all about cults and religion and someone who is born trying to improve things for those around her and at some point decides she can't fight the system anymore and turns to an internal, cloistered journey. Telling this from the sister's perspective was fantastic. And I learned a lot about the Amish.
First line: “The Amish call the non-Amish the English, and the Shakers call everything that isn't Shaker the World.” (13 pages), 5/5
Ashes by Olga Lexell
Stephen Dixon Prize runner-up and my pick for winner, it's time to go on a road-trip! Time to sprinkle your mother's ashes. This was an amazing, cautionary fairytale set in modern day Ukraine. Who is the old woman in the story? Is she an allegory for tradition? I would have loved a little footnote to put this story in context but as is it packed a punch.
First line: “I thought just getting there would be the hardest part.” (6 pages), 4.5/5
Grub by Kevin Moffett was probably my least favourite of this collection. It reads like a retrospective auto fiction of a boy who loses his dad and discovers he is of the grub class at school. This isn't a topic I would normally gravitate towards but the writing here is truly sublime. There hasn't been a bad entry yet in this periodical. Some choice quotes:
"One must refer to deviled eggs as dressed eggs so as not to invite the devil into the house."
"On childhood: What I miss most, I think, are the feelings of awe and consequence."
First line: “I can never get the straight story.” (26 pages), 3.5/5
Six stories by Sara Reggiani are just that, 6 pieces of surreal flash-fiction, sometimes bordering on prose-poetry. Surreal and perfect for the theming of this collection. I like the greedy hornet eating the blackberry.
"My friend Kevin. I hate the sight of him. Just stop, I say. You're not a bull, Kev."
First line from one of my faves of the 6: “I just learned that horses see everything in bright shades of blue and green.” (5 pages), 4.5/5
Composure by Colin Heasley is another runner up for the short story prize. It's about a young violin teacher and him navigating his place in life and love and with his students. Particularly after one boy pulls off a limp handed grotesque caricature of camp during one of their lessons. This was written as if thought in passing. The fade-ins coming by placing us in the middle of sentences. I'm not sure if that device added anything but the rest of the story felt like it came from a place of genuine youth and cynicism. I believed this character.
First line: “for the junior-high orchestra, I created a character who is a violin bow with half my ex's wig and hand-puppet eyes stuck on the tip.” (22 pages), 3.5/5
Power Couple by Brittany Newell is an odd one. I think it's about a couple trying not to fade into their own obscurity. But honestly I'm not sure. It was fun though and I liked the Bay area setting.
First line: “Cooper had the crush on our therapist first.” (16 pages), 3.5/5
Adrian Tomine's sketchbook was a real treat. I've only read a couple of his graphic novels but I know him for his very clean style, bold outlines, and limited palettes. So seeing paneling and sketches and planning was really fascinating. I kind of wish we'd had access to an interview with him or something though to round it out.
First line: “You know who makes the best french toast? The Rock.” (48 pages), 4/5
The Flower Catalogue by Yiyun Li is quite literally a catalogue of 12 flowers and her thoughts on each one. The thoughts range from her experience with growing it to how pretty it is when it blooms. Since each piece of text accompanying the illustration is only a few sentences long it feels more there to add some flavour to the lovely pencil sketches of the flowers which are saturated and textured. Not the most exciting part of this issue but pleasant enough. It had me thinking of what flowers I'd like to try planting in our garden this year.
First line: “The golden yellow flowers of American witch hazel against the February blue sky is always the first sign that there is no eternal winter.” (12 pages), 3.5/5
J&K by John Pham is a little comic/activity book and is great. And how the design of the folder and activity is a part of the story, are you kidding me??? The story is a bit meh but the set design and art style are interesting. Liked the limited colour palette a lot.
First line: “'Look, look'; 'Whoa';'Done already?'” (12 pages), 3/5
No One is Available to Help you Right Now by Pip Adam is a short story in the form of a standardized test. It's a status report of the end of the world but because you have to fill in the options you end up feeling like you're in the story; it's such a simple idea but incredibly immersive. I also enjoyed solving the little math problem. There's so much meta commentary in here about the current state of creativity and AI. I'm honestly so glad I read this last because it really rounded out the collection for me and for what McSweeney's is trying to do: human-curated content in the slop.
First line: “Thank you for surrendering data for the end of our planet.” (2 pages), 5/5
===============
S U M M A R Y
===============
I loved this so much I've already begun to buy up the back issues. I know that the editors were switched out a few issues ago so I won't go too far back given how much I love this editor. I've also made it a project to get all of the back-issues Goodreads DB entries normalized and updated as many of them are in a very bad state. Watch this space.
But yeah, blown away by the quality and how FUN this was, have I said that enough times? I've been missing something creative that isn't too precious and enjoys itself and McSweeney's is hitting the spot right now. New subscriber.
December 17, 2025
Loved it. Probably my favorite issue since the horror issue (or maybe the anniversary anthology, but that’s a little different). Amazing presentation, and you can just tell they had fun with the packaging and the layout. When the editors and writers are having fun, it’s infectious for the reader.
The crossword poem was interesting, and the Adrian Tomine sketchbook was a cool addition. Real standout stories include Colin Heasley’s Composure, which fucking hit hard. Moffett’s Grub was great, especially for an excerpt, and I had a good time with Brittany Newell’s Power Couple and Lucy Corin’s Office Hour.
Really solid collection, and a blast to open and sift through.
The crossword poem was interesting, and the Adrian Tomine sketchbook was a cool addition. Real standout stories include Colin Heasley’s Composure, which fucking hit hard. Moffett’s Grub was great, especially for an excerpt, and I had a good time with Brittany Newell’s Power Couple and Lucy Corin’s Office Hour.
Really solid collection, and a blast to open and sift through.
November 28, 2025
I've been going back and reading McSweeney's in order (next up is #12). What does it say that the earlier issues are....more difficult to read? Does that mean the writing is better now? Or easier/worse? I don't know. I just know that I'm finding it a pleasure to read these recent issues, and I'm doing them in one or two sittings as opposed to issues 1-11 so far. Maybe the writing back then is more obscure? Complex? Abstract? Arty? I'm not a writer or editor or critic so I don't have the language to describe it. All I know is that these recent issues are more enjoyable/understandable/relatable. Moffett's story was especially good. Oh, and I love the design this time around - so fun!
January 2, 2026
Trapper Keeper format was super-clever, and the school-themed materials created a consistently entertaining bundle!
January 6, 2026
Another one done so right, McSweeney’s! What a joy - from the format to the content. Cheers to issue 80 - here’s to 80 more!
January 10, 2026
Design wise this was pretty cool. But for me the stories in this issue were kind of meh. One of my least favorite Mcsweeneys reads in awhile.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews