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The Believer
@thebeliever.net
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A quarterly literature, arts, and culture magazine.
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The Believer @thebeliever.net · Dec 18
Our first-ever Sports Issue kicks off today! Check this thread for the play-by-play on what to expect.

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Winter 2025 - Believer Magazine
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"Today, if you have a strong sense of shame you also have a strong desire to overcome it. And that’s when you can write."

—Karl Ove Knausgård, interviewed by Rebecka Bülow

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"Something that's not yourself." — An Interview with Karl Ove Knausgård - Believer Magazine
Karl Ove Knausgård enters the empty cinema in the Ingmar Bergman Center with a package of cigarettes in his hand and asks me where I got my coffee. He runs away to get a cup for himself before sitting...
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February 20, 2026 at 4:49 PM
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"Just doing normal things that everybody else does seems incredibly complicated to me. The simplest thing. Even doing the laundry sometimes seems labyrinthine."

—Gabrielle Belle

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An Interview with Gabrielle Bell - Believer Magazine
“Most people who do autobiography, myself included, it seems like they’re trying to work something out. Like we’re trying to do therapy on ourselves. In that light, it’s true: we’re sort of suffering ...
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February 19, 2026 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by The Believer
josephbienkahn.com
Still nothing better than print…

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February 19, 2026 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by The Believer
pioneerwork.bsky.social
Roses wilt. Great magazines don’t. This February, we’re teaming up with our beloveds at @mcsweeneys.net for a special bundle. Subscribe to @thebeliever.net and get a free issue of Broadcast for one low price. store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the...
The Believer Subscription (includes a complimentary issue of Pioneer Works Broadcast)
For the rest of February, subscriptions to The Believer include the latest issue of Broadcast—the annual print publication from our dearly beloveds at Pioneer Works—absolutely free. A thirteen-time N...
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February 19, 2026 at 2:38 PM
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I believe all meaning gets made when the reader makes it. It has nothing to do with me.

—Percival Everett, interviewed by James Yeh

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An Interview with Percival Everett - Believer Magazine
Where to begin with a writer like Percival Everett? The author of more than thirty books, primarily novels, he defies easy distillation. An absurdist and a cowboy, a Westerner and an ex-Southerner, a ...
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February 18, 2026 at 8:37 PM
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Renew your commitment to independent literary journalism. This month only, sign up for a year of The Believer and get the latest issue of @pioneerwork.bsky.social Broadcast absolutely free. store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the...
February 18, 2026 at 5:55 PM
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"95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it’s supposed to be about."

—David Foster Wallace, interviewed by Dave Eggers (2003)

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An Interview with David Foster Wallace - Believer Magazine
David Foster Wallace is from east-central Illinois, and this is a large part of his appeal. In addition, he has written a number of books. Among them are the story collections Girl with Curious Hair a...
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February 18, 2026 at 3:18 PM
thebeliever.net
"The advantage of being in Monty Python was that we got away with murder and there was nobody telling us what we could or couldn’t do. We just did it."

—Terry Gilliam, interviewed by Salman Rushdie

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An Interview with Terry Gilliam - Believer Magazine
At the 2002 Telluride Film Festival I was asked if I’d take part in a public conversation with Terry Gilliam. I have known Terry a little bit for a long time and admired his work much more than a litt...
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February 17, 2026 at 9:26 PM
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"There’s a difference between failures and things that are bad. I’d like to think that I’ve made movies that were failures, creatively and otherwise."

—Steven Soderbergh

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An Interview with Steven Soderbergh - Believer Magazine
Steven Soderbergh’s Manhattan studio is littered with decapitated doll heads—souvenirs from Bubble, his most recent feature film, which was shot digitally and released simultaneously in theaters and o...
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February 17, 2026 at 4:14 PM
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Hanif Abdurraqib revisits the golden era of the rap video, cataloging its unfinished stories and sequels that should have been.

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To Be Continued... - Believer Magazine
The golden era of the rap video stretched from the late ’80s all of the way into the early 2000s. Rap music was gaining momentum during the rise of music television, and as rap evolved, many shows beg...
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February 16, 2026 at 7:29 PM
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Through the rest of February, all subscriptions to The Believer include the latest issue of @pioneerwork.bsky.social, featuring Miranda July, Catherine Lacey, Marcus J. Moore, Chris Kraus, and more. Get yours here: store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the...
February 16, 2026 at 3:16 PM
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"That’s really what cultural activism is: you take the void and transform it into a context... Creating a venue creates artists."

—Sarah Schulman, interviewed by Zoe Whittall

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An Interview with Sarah Schulman - Believer Magazine
In the spring of 2012, Sarah Schulman invited me to her partner’s Toronto home on a rainy Saturday afternoon. The partnership being somewhat new and long-distance, she moved about the space a bit awkw...
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February 13, 2026 at 7:57 PM
thebeliever.net
Our resident advice columnist Carrie Brownstein is now taking questions. Send inquiries to advice@thebeliever.net and you could appear in our next issue!
February 12, 2026 at 5:26 PM
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Confirming widespread rumors, we’re going public with our Valentine’s dalliance with @pioneerwork.bsky.social—and yes, there’s a lovable bundle involved. Get a year of The Believer plus a free issue of Broadcast for one low price, now through February.

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February 12, 2026 at 3:28 PM
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“I know I’m supposed to say that my poetic voice is completely different from my own… but with my poetry, I’m not interested in creating a persona.”

—Kaveh Akbar, interviewed by India Ennenga

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An Interview with Kaveh Akbar - Believer Magazine
Kaveh Akbar was balancing on his toes. It was the first thing I noticed about him, despite his other striking qualities—the lopsided bun that could hardly contain a mass of dark curls, the nimble fing...
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February 11, 2026 at 8:20 PM
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“Negligence may lead someone to believe that persona has been extinguished, but it has not.”

—from “The Joy of Persona,” an essay by Ross Simonini

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The Joy of Persona - Believer Magazine
THE ACCEPTANCE OF PERSONA Every artist expresses persona. For performers, the public face is inside the art. The work of Charlie Chaplin, Billie Holiday, Ana Mendieta, or Jimi Hendrix cannot be separa...
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February 11, 2026 at 7:34 PM
thebeliever.net
"I’m opposed to expertise. For some reason, when I feel I am becoming an expert, I sabotage the whole thing."

—Ian Frazier

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An Interview with Ian Frazier - Believer Magazine
Ian Frazier is a master of both distilled insight and utter nonsense. His nonfiction books are grandly scaled, immersive examinations of how place, populace, and history create each other. They’re set...
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February 10, 2026 at 7:10 PM
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"She was famous before, for her skills as an athlete and as a performer, but this moment of anguish will make her an icon."

—from "Remote Control: Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and the Spectacles of Female Power and Pain," by Sarah Marshall

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Remote Control - Believer Magazine
You don’t have to listen very closely to realize we’ve been wrong for all these years. It’s not a difficult phrase to remember, and she repeats it again and again and again, clutching her knee as she ...
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February 10, 2026 at 4:57 PM
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“Watching this now, I’m struck by how young she appears; the maturity of her skating and the magnitude of her accomplishment have aged her in my mind.”

Belinda Huijuan Tang takes us back to Michelle Kwan's memorable 2002 Winter Olympic performance.

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Annotating Michelle Kwan’s “Fields of Gold” Performance, 2002 Winter Olympics - Believer Magazine
Two days before Michelle Kwan skated an exhibition performance to Eva Cassidy’s cover of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” during the 2002 Olympics, she fell while attempting a triple flip jump in the free-ska...
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February 9, 2026 at 6:41 PM
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"I think that’s just more of what we’re interested in—things that are less technical and more textural."

—from an interview with Yo La Tengo

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An Interview with Yo La Tengo - Believer Magazine
There are, when it comes down to it, two kinds of bands: bands whose sound is described by the invocation of other bands (“______ sounds like a poppier/slower/suckier ______”), and the bands whose sou...
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February 9, 2026 at 3:25 PM
thebeliever.net
“I’ve been a fisherman for so long that if I can go to my little workshop downstairs and start tying leaders and changing fly lines or cleaning things, I’m at peace.”

—Thomas McGuane, interviewed by Mattie C. Govan

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An Interview with Thomas McGuane - Believer Magazine
It will come as no surprise to longtime readers of Thomas McGuane’s work that while I was speaking with him, I was moved by his kindness, his incisive insight, and, above all, his mischievous sense of...
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February 6, 2026 at 8:01 PM
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"What does it say about the US education system that so many people are opting out, and how did we get here?"

—from "Tune in, Drop Out, Homeschool," an essay by Lauren Markham

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Tune In, Drop Out, Homeschool - Believer Magazine
It was Friday evening, an hour before showtime, and the art deco theater in San Luis Obispo, California, already had a line of well-dressed women circling the block, bound for the Wild + Free conferen...
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February 6, 2026 at 4:30 PM
thebeliever.net
“Do everything right and they leave. Do everything wrong and they eat. An interesting sport in which virtue is not a component of success!”

—Thomas McGuane, interviewed by Mattie C. Govan

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An Interview with Thomas McGuane - Believer Magazine
It will come as no surprise to longtime readers of Thomas McGuane’s work that while I was speaking with him, I was moved by his kindness, his incisive insight, and, above all, his mischievous sense of...
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February 5, 2026 at 10:05 PM
thebeliever.net
"yesterday at the national gallery / some kids said of a frankenthaler / it reminded them of mario kart"

—from "Abstract Expressionism," a poem by Andrew Nurkin

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Abstract Expressionism - Believer Magazine
. yesterday at the national gallery ……….some kids said of a frankenthaler it reminded them of mario kart the ……….numeral seven rainbows by the sea a row of taffy thrown ……….from a float a bloody nose ...
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February 5, 2026 at 6:50 PM
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"McGuane fits comfortably into any comic canon you’d care to assemble, however international."

—from "The Late Style of Thomas McGuane," an essay by Mark Kamine

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The Late Style of Thomas McGuane - Believer Magazine
THE SWERVE OF MOLECULES Thomas McGuane’s recent book of stories, Gallatin Canyon (2006), compels a look back over nearly forty years of work. McGuane has steadily produced novels, stories and screenpl...
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February 5, 2026 at 4:11 PM