Literary magazine Believer moving from S.F. to Vegas
There is renewed faith in the Believer. The arts and culture magazine, whose youthful and idiosyncratic ethos reflects its San Francisco roots, has a new owner.
Black Mountain Institute, a literary center at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, has acquired the publication, which had been struggling for years. Beset by financial difficulties that have afflicted much of the publishing industry, the magazine has not published an issue since the summer of 2015. It has 5,600 subscribers.
The Believer will now be based in Las Vegas. Kellen Braddock, deputy director of Black Mountain Institute, will be the bimonthly magazine’s publisher. The acquisition price was not disclosed.
“We raised a sum that felt right,” said essayist Joshua Wolf Shenk, the institute’s executive director, who will edit the Believer. “This is a magazine that, in just 14 years, assembled some of the most prodigious and memorable content in literary publishing — not to mention an identity that really stands for something distinct and meaningful in a crowded marketplace of ideas.”
The Believer’s Issue No. 114, to be edited by Shenk, will be published Aug. 1.
Vendela Vida founded the Believer in 2003 with fellow writers Heidi Julavits and Ed Park. Based in the Mission District and staffed with a small, young crew, the magazine had been published by McSweeney’s, the independent press founded by Dave Eggers, Vida’s husband. Vida and Julavits will serve as consultants to the Believer.
Black Mountain Institute “is a perfect home for the Believer,” Vida said in a statement. “They have such a strong commitment to rigorous writing about the arts and the world, and their social justice ethos was very important to us. All that, and the incomparable Josh Shenk, made this an easy decision to make.”
In its early years, the Believer quickly attracted prominent writers with its mix of the silly and the cerebral, and its positive-minded editorial mission. Julavits criticized a culture of snark in a much-talked-about 2003 essay, “Rejoice! Believe! Be Strong and Read Hard!”
Among those who have contributed to the magazine’s pages with an assortment of longform interviews, essays and reviews are Hilton Als, Anne Carson, Daniel Handler, Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith and William T. Vollmann.
In its relatively short history, the Believer has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times.
The Black Mountain Institute was formed in 2006. Board member Beverly Rogers recently donated $30 million to it.
“The goal is to make the Believer central to everything we do, including residential fellowships,” Shenk said in a statement. “It may seem audacious, but we want to make Las Vegas the best place in the world to be a young nonfiction writer.”