Do you know Timothy McSweeney?

McSweeney’s Publishing, the brain child of Pulitzer Prize-finalist Dave Eggers, has long been a bright light in the land of indie publishing. Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, a quarterly fiction magazine, is in its 23 issue and has featured work from the likes of Eggers himself, Michael Chabon, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Letham, Miranda July, Roddy Doyle and a whole slew of others.

The issues routinely break the bounds of book design (the 22 issue was held together entirely by magnets; 16 came with a story printed on the back of playing cards that made sense anyway you shuffled them) and oftentimes provides space for new and upcoming artists to showcase their work. McSweeney’s also publishes full length books, and has done so for Eggers, Nick Hornby, David Byrne, Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss, George Saunders, Lawrence Weschler, Robert Coover (who was responsible for the aforementioned playing cards) and Chris Adrian, among others.

Now, wouldn’t you want an institution like that in your neighborhood?

Unfortunately, McSweeney’s won’t be in anyone’s neighborhood unless they raise $130,000, the amount lost when their distributer filed for bankruptcy last December. To help ease the pain, they are holding various auctions over the next several days that include, but are not limited to, a Dave Eggers portrait of George Bush as a double-amputee; a mix tape by Nick Hornby; original art work by Marcel Dzama and David Byrne; autographed and rare issues of McSweeney’s sponsored culture magazine The Believer, old and rare issues of the quarterly and piles of other neat things yet to be announced.

Check out the McSweeney’s Website, and if you like what you see, head on over to the auction. If nothing catches your eye there, you can still help out by browsing through the McSweeney’s Store and picking up something there. Be sure also to check out other small presses like Soft Skull and Counterpoint, both of whom are similarly effected by the bankruptcy.

Have a heart, buy a book!