The Believer Magazine: C or D

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I think you Yanks are a bit spoiled with your litawewy periodicals. Every time I go to the States and one of those grand old independent bookstores like Powell's or Elliot Bay or Tattered Cover I mosey along to the magazine section and swoon over all the lovingly produced mags filled with great writers! This week I charitably bought Zembla magazine (successor to the unlamented 'Butterfly' mag) and, believe me, it makes 'The Believer' look like the bleeding 'Partisan Review'!

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 3 November 2003 23:23 (twenty years ago) link

Jerry, you've been to Elliott Bay? I LOVE Elliott Bay (and work about six blocks from it yay!).

most of my gripes w/the mag/enterprise have been addressed above, but I've grown to like it more and more w/each passing issue--seems like they've gotten over a lot of the stupider "you've gotta say NICE THINGS about writers, maaaaan" stuff. or maybe I've just stopped noticing it so much and concentrate more on the stuff I liked. also, the ?uestlove Q&A (http://www.believermag.com/issues/august_2003/ahmir_thompson.htm) is one of the most flat-out entertaining interviews I've read in ages.

M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 00:42 (twenty years ago) link

that plea for positive reviews thing really ruffled some feathers, i guess... i haven't read it but the NYTimes made some nasty crack about believer being a vanity press project or something like that

Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 01:06 (twenty years ago) link

Isn't Elliott Bay owned by Half-Price Books now or something?

martha bayne, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 01:08 (twenty years ago) link

Seemed to me the ruffled feathers were theirs ...

brian nemtusak (sanlazaro), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 01:10 (twenty years ago) link

as I said, I haven't read it yet...

Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 01:22 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, Matos, I feel like the magazine is often reduced to that "anti-snark" essay, since it was a big-ass manifesto that appeared in the first issue, by the editor-in-chief (in other words, This is What We Stand For). But I don't necessarily see what they've published since as direct attempts to achieve those desires.

jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 02:58 (twenty years ago) link

I skip through a lot of stuff in the mag (as w/all mags) so I probably miss it if there are any. also I don't know anything about Elliott Bay or Half-Price's business ties or lack thereof.

M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 04:02 (twenty years ago) link

one month passes...
what issue was the 'the fortress of solitude' article in?

cozen (Cozen), Friday, 26 December 2003 20:29 (twenty years ago) link

October.

jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 26 December 2003 20:31 (twenty years ago) link

it seems like the magazine is getting better w/each issue, or more confident in itself, a really good thing. I'm liking it more and more. possibly that's because the subjects are more to my liking (at least w/the current ish--not-bad Ice Cube Q&A, quite good pieces on Sweet Valley High books and how-to-write books (and um as far as I can tell those may not be book reviews in the classical sense but there's certainly no shortage of writing about books in the magazine). but even minus popcult coverage I'm drawn to the stuff in it more w/each passing issue. also the gripe about "pointless celebrities" is typical lit snoot, yawn.

Matos @ Kate Silver's (Kate Silver), Saturday, 27 December 2003 08:24 (twenty years ago) link

quite good pieces on Sweet Valley High books

What? Oh no.

tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Saturday, 27 December 2003 16:04 (twenty years ago) link

i agree with matos; i got a subscription to the believer as a gift, and have been enjoying every issue more and more. the michelle tea piece on camp trans was also, i thought, pretty outstanding. (and don't worry rosemary!! there is certainly room for more than one sweet valley high examination in this world)

maura (maura), Monday, 29 December 2003 02:11 (twenty years ago) link

three years pass...

McSweeney's needs money

Dandy Don Weiner, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 13:08 (sixteen years ago) link

i'd make a donation if sarah vowell pledged NOT to write anything for it

m coleman, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 13:28 (sixteen years ago) link

fourteen years pass...

The Believer magazine, classic or dead? (Dead)

BREAKING: UNLV and @BlackMtnInst announced @believermag will publish its final issue, No. 139, in February/March 2022. "The Believer consumed a significant portion of BMI's resources... there was no path forward to continue publishing the magazine."
Full release below. pic.twitter.com/5HyjTngFT5

— Off the Record (@offtherecordnyc) October 19, 2021

What a bummer.

a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 19 October 2021 19:28 (two years ago) link

This sucks.

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 19 October 2021 20:49 (two years ago) link

Budget context:

the poetry editor was Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown. & UNLV can't figure it out. i just want to point out that the UNLV football coach makes $625,000 a year &the Wolf Pack has $2.225 million tied into football coaching staff for the 2020 season. higher ed makes me so mad https://t.co/CvGthrt7dq

— Patrycja (@jej_sen) October 19, 2021

... (Eazy), Tuesday, 19 October 2021 22:18 (two years ago) link

six months pass...

The other shoe (is a dildo, apparently):

Hi, this is the new owner of The Believer. We purchased the website to keep the archives up.
Our goal is to bring back the magazine, but since it was losing tens of thousands a month we need to get it making money using SEO then use that to bring back all the original writers.

— The Sex Toy Collective (@ST_Collective_) May 9, 2022

a true literary clusterfuck

nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 10 May 2022 12:19 (one year ago) link

A little more context: McSweeney's was supposedly interested in buying it back, but UNLV sold it to the Sex Toy Collective instead.

Alright. Here’s what happened. I left The Believer in July, and a few months later its parent institution, the Black Mountain Institute based at UNLV, announced it was shuttering the magazine. It went up for sale. https://t.co/wB5TDrOrgD

— Kristen Radtke (@KristenRadtke) May 10, 2022

I wonder how many writers are going to come back to The Believer (NSFW)

Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Tuesday, 10 May 2022 16:21 (one year ago) link

Introducing The Believer's audience (and a sizable percentage of its writers, probably) to the concept of sex can only be a good thing.

but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 10 May 2022 16:59 (one year ago) link


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