The Believer

The Believer is an American bimonthly magazine of interviews, essays, and reviews, founded by the writers Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida, and Ed Park in 2003. The magazine is a five-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. Between 2003 and 2015, The Believer was published by McSweeney's, the independent press founded in 1998 by Dave Eggers. Eggers designed The Believer original design template. Park left The Believer in 2011, with Julavits and Vida continuing to serve as editors. In 2017, the magazine found a new home, moving from McSweeney's to the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute, an international literary center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In October 2021, The UNLV College of Liberal Arts announced that the February/March 2022 issue of Believer would be the final issue published. UNLV then sold the magazine to digital marketing company Paradise Media, which in turn sold it back to its original publisher, McSweeney's. History The Believer was first published in April 2003 in San Francisco by friends who planned to "focus on writers and books we like," with a nod to "the concept of the inherent Good." The magazine is a five-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, with contributors ranging from writers such as Hilton Als, Anne Carson, Nick Hornby, Susan Straight, and William T. Vollmann to emerging talents for whom the magazine has been a proving ground, including Eula Biss, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Leslie Jamison, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Kent Russell, and Rivka Galchen.