McSweeny's Quarterly Issue 53 release party! Readings by: Rita Bullwinkle, Julia Dixon Evans, Irving Ruan, Namwali Serpell, July Westhale, Zoe Young ~ No Cover ~ 7:30pm - 9:30pm
| Packed in Issue 53’s purpose-built ziplock bag are seven stories printed on eight party balloons, which one must blow up to read. Gracing these particolored balloons are arresting new stories from Carmen Maria Machado, Percival Everett, Lauren Groff, Kima Jones, Amelia Gray, Rebecca Makkai, and Sarah Wisby. You’ll also find, alongside these inflatable stories, a vinyl-bound hardcover containing electrostatically charged new work from Lesley Nneka Arimah, Jamie Figueroa, Namwali Serpell, C Pam Zhang, and many more besides. Perfect for decorating a birthday party, reading and then popping as a zen meditation, or repeatedly blowing up and releasing in order to observe their whimsical flight around the room, these balloons will provide endless enrichment. Inside Issue 53 you’ll uncover a medically inexplicable hunger for forks, a world of unclothed single women, a bevy of dead dads infesting a city, a mystical power within the dismembered torso of a mummified bishop, and oh so much more.  Stories from Maria Reva — Unsound Chelsea Bieker — Keep Her Down Julia Dixon Evans — Vinegar on the Lips of Girls Lesley Nneka Arimah — Skinned C Pam Zhang — Dad.Me Namwali Serpell — What’s There Zoe Young — Angel in the Architecture Jamie Figueroa — This Temporary Daniel Gumbiner— an excerpt from The Boatbuilder |  Table of Contents: Letters from Scaachi Koul, Daniel Gumbiner, Rita Bullwinkle, Irving Ruan Balloons from Percival Everett — End Sarah Wisby — Ambivalent Lauren Groff — Tolstoy is Tolstoy Kima Jones — Hamzah AD Carmen Maria Machado — Relaxation Technique Rebecca Makkai — Half-Life Amelia Gray — FOR LARRY  |
 | SLOW JAMS ~ Deep & Sweet 60s Soul & Stuff ~ DJ Primo and Guest ~ FREE! ~ 9:30pm - 2:00am |
