McSweeney's #81

McSweeney's three-time National Magazine Award-winning quarterly brings you our 81st issue: a handsome paperback, filled to the brim with unforgettable fiction and featuring original art by Percival Everett.

Step inside the stunningly illustrated bugs-at-dusk pages of McSweeney’s 81 to devour a portfolio of paintings by Pulitzer Prize winner and national treasure Percival Everett; new stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa, Ashley Nelson Levy, Sam Munson,and Shruti Swamy; a queer Dracula comic by Michael DeForge; and an essay by octogenarian Suzanne Rhodenbaugh in which the story of her life is told in devastatingly brief, decade-long increments; alongside letters by Katie Peterson, Susanna Kwan, Simon Han, and so much more.

In this issue, there are swans, mermaids, a Frankenstein with daddy issues, poorly adjusted angels, the afterlife told from three different angles, the gig economy, collage theory, meme theory, murdered uncles, stillbirths, the Berlin wall, Florentine fleur-de-lis, Gypsy camps in Switzerland, bikini lines, the Chicago Seven, treehouses, and the draft. The iridescent worlds of this issue are manifold and teeming. Flip open the gorgeous cover illustrated by Sean Lewis and start reading.

About McSweeney's Quarterly:
Ever changing, 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), but always brings you the very best in new literary fiction.

Editors: Dave Eggers / Rita Bullwinkel 
Publisher: McSweeney's Books
Pages: 280pp
Size: 5.5 x 8
Notes: paperback, color
Release Date: February 25, 2026
ISBN: 978-1963270471