McSweeney's

McSweeney’s 82 is coming soon and to get ready we’re having a palindrome sale. Laugh in the face of nearly unprecedented price increases, and get four issues of McSweeney’s Quarterly for the shockingly affordable and hypnotic price of $72.27, all weekend long. Link in bio to subscribe. Our latest issue comes to you housed inside an M-shaped, accordion-style, joined-at-the-back double-hardcover, folding and unfolding with art by Rob Sato and features new fiction by Alejandro Zambra, Kenan Orhan, Deb Olin Unferth, and Hannah Kingsley-Ma; letters by Halle Butler, John Wray, and Massoud Hayoun; an Odyssean, toad-centric, natural-wine-drunk novella by Tom Bubul; a twelve-page, two-book-wide fever dream of a comic by Matt Panuska that can be read only if and when both books are open at once; a twenty-four-page booklet of additional drawings by Sato; and so so much more. Subscribe now.

Happy release day to the brilliant and precise Looking for Frank Wills. Link in bio to order. It’s 1972. Tricky Dick is in office, James Brown is on the radio, and Wayne Beasley reluctantly presides over the comings and goings of his barbers and patrons at Wayne’s Clip and Trim in North Augusta, South Carolina. When one of Wayne’s former customers, an unassuming small-town son, is designated 4-F, unfit to serve in Vietnam, he seeks refuge in becoming the next best thing—a security guard for a downtown DC hotel. It is there on a hot summer’s night, that Wayne’s wayward patron interrupts a break-in that will disrupt the course of a nation’s history and his own. “The novel emerges as a conversation between generations that asks questions about race, politics, war, and family. Looking for Frank Wills is a powerful retelling of Wills’s story.” —Electric Literature, “15 Must-Read Small Press Books of Spring 2026” Link in bio to order.

Coming this spring from McSweeney’s and Lorne Michaels Broadway Video: Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded). Link in bio to order. The best film texts touch our lives and leave an indelible imprint on our shared cultural experience, deepening and enriching our relationships with this most universal of modern artistic mediums. In this new, fully revised and expanded edition of Documentary Now!’s seminal 1975 text, the curators behind the beloved long-running Documentary Now! program invite us to celebrate the craft, legacy, and minutiae of some of the most brilliant works of nonfiction ever put to celluloid. This remarkable book presents unique access to stills, posters, scores, and archival materials from some of the most celebrated documentaries in film history; alongside essays from some of the greatest cultural luminaries of the last fifty years. Enjoy a new letter from the president of the Documentary Now! Foundation; the classic introduction by original host Burt Lancaster; and some of your favorite classic essays like Peter Bagdanovich on Kunuk Uncovered, Tom Wolfe on sports on film, David Foster Wallace on Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport, and more In over six hundred full-color beautiful, hilarious, and never-winking pages (made with the help of series directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono and featuring new writing by Seth Meyers, a foreword by Pulitzer Prize–finalist Matt Zoller Seitz, the complete sheet music for John Mulaney and Eli Bolin’s Co-op: The Musical, and more), Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded) celebrates and skewers this most vital of art forms. Coming soon wherever books are sold, preorder link in our bio.

Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded) is out wherever books are sold NEXT WEEK. Enormous thanks to Seth Meyers (@latenightseth ) for showing it off on air! Bookshop.org link in bio to order (in the spirit of Seth’s appeal, we love our indie store friends)

Los Angeles! Join our founder, Dave Eggers, in conversation with the legendary Jim James next month at the Ralph Freud Playhouse in celebration of his new novel. Not to be missed! Ps. Not in LA? Dave is embarking on a full national tour, more info available in a post below.

Issue 154 is off to the printers! To celebrate, we're taking 25% off subscriptions through Monday. Link in bio. Inside, @hank___ma learns to deadhead; Claire Vaye Watkins hot-tubs and hydrates at the final Sundance in Park City, Utah; Alfred Jung Lee considers the art of description; and @leahmensch sorts through the self-imploding archive of the late writer Kate Braverman. We have interviews with @abbijacobson ; Sigrid Nunez; @irasachsfilm ; and South African poet laureate Mongane Wally Serote; along with an excerpt from Requiem for Gaza by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco (@fantagraphics ). In addition, @cheemobile surveys his writing tools; @sureasmel blasts The Georgia Satellites; and John J. Lennon annotates his workday in Sing Sing. Plus, Nick Hornby reviews @praddenkeefe and @elizmccrack ; Andrea Bajani on how to dine alone; and @peterorner returns to Pedro Páramo, while @liniersiniers imagines a new cover for the book. You'll also find poetry, small-press reviews, a brand new game series from @tshopsin , and more. Link in bio to subscribe and start with our summer issue.

Next Wednesday, May 20! We welcome the legendary Wesley Brown for the release of his novel, LOOKING FOR FRANK WILLS. Brown will be in-conversation with writer and Poetry Center director Tonya M. Foster. This new addition to McSweeney’s Of the Diaspora publication series is a fictionalized account of the life of Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the break in at the Watergate Hotel. But, of course, it’s so much more than that. Free to attend, please RSVP at the link in our bio or at greenapplebooks.com/events. See you here in the Inner Sunset! 🔸About Looking for Frank Wills🔸 It’s 1972. Tricky Dick is in office, James Brown is on the radio, and Wayne Beasley reluctantly presides over the comings and goings of his barbers and patrons at Wayne’s Clip and Trim in North Augusta, South Carolina. When one of Wayne’s former customers, an unassuming small-town son, is designated 4-F, unfit to serve in Vietnam, he seeks refuge in becoming the next best thing—a security guard for a downtown DC hotel. It is there on a hot summer’s night, that Wayne’s wayward patron interrupts a break-in that will disrupt the course of a nation’s history and his own. In Looking for Frank Wills, Wesley Brown, author of Tragic Magic, Darktown Strutters, and Blue in Green: A Novella, once again remaps the tributaries that run into the stream of our American subconscious, by dipping into the headwaters of pivotal memories and histories to tell the tale from the perspective of the real folks whose stories were too long submerged. Without Frank Wills there is no Watergate. And without Watergate the veil of secrecy and corruption that came to define the Nixon years, warping the very fabric of political discourse from that moment on, would have remained firmly in place. This re-imagining of the life of Frank Wills reconciles the greatest heist of all—a place in the American story. What was stolen from Wills as he was briefly thrust into the spotlight, while excluded from the annals of history, is reclaimed, as Brown gives voice and breath to the people who loved him and the barber who did his best to guide him. [Image description in comments]

Some illustrations for a series of author “baseball cards” produced to accompany McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern @mcswys . I drew over 45 #portrait illustrations for these. 🎨 Thank you @sunrararara for your guidance, your beautiful designs, and for bringing me on board for this! ✍️ #illustration #tonimorrison #rkikuojohnson #authorphoto

Read an exclusive excerpt from Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded) published today on Indiewire! Link in bio to read, book available everywhere next week.

Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded) is coming in just one week from McSweeney’s and Broadway Video. Now, take another look inside as some of the greatest artists of all time celebrate the very finest in nonfiction filmmaking. Link in bio to preorder our limited edition collaborative bundle with the @criterioncollection . *this is a work of parody, all celebrities are impersonated*

Legendary author Wesley Brown is hitting the road in celebration of his new book Looking for Frank Wills! Join us weds in Chicago to kick things off! Link in bio to rsvp.

Edit: the giveaway is now over! 🚨🚨🚨GIVEAWAY ALERT🚨🚨🚨 Our friends at Mill Creek have generously gifted us a handful of copies of the complete Documentary Now! blu-ray box set and so we’re having a giveaway! Like this post, tag a friend, and comment below with your favorite episode and we’ll select ten people to receive copies of both our upcoming mammoth coffee table book AND this stunning box set! Link in bio if you want to skip the lottery and just preorder the book.