Fiction: Diagram #3
Sending it Off
The Literary Magazines need your story; for your purposes, their primary business is publishing - both on-line and in print - original, previously unpubbed short fictions*. There are a LOT of Literary Magazines; the kind of audiences they are trying to attract are fascinatingly various. At the end of this Post find a list of Literary Magazines I have built over two years of publishing. None of them charge “reading fees”. Some of them will actually pay you.
From my list, pick a Magazine name and google it. This will take you to the Magazine’s home page that nearly always explains their submission process. Very few Magazines now accept story submissions via USPS. Instead, their on-line submission vehicles will accept your story for possible publication.
For the most part, in from a week to a year, the Magazine you submitted your story to will get back to you - usually via e-mail – and usually just to give you some sort of “no thanks”, but…
…if you are submitting your story as described above, you are fishing anyhow; you are by-passing the obvious step of studying your googled Magazine’s archives to find out the audience to which they are catering. Personally, even studying a Magazine’s archive, I never could see – besides quality writing - what they wanted, but...
…most Magazines accept what is known as “simultaneous submissions” – meaning, you can send your story to twenty mags in twenty days – or even twenty minutes. Only problem with simultaneous submissions, is you are now obligated, the day your story is accepted by a Magazine, to extend the important professional courtesy of notifying the Magazines you haven’t heard back from.
It is crucial for the safety of your ego, that I repeat that there are many, many Literary Magazines; you are competing for publication. They will “judge” your story. They will thumbs-up/down only their own publication of your story.
But don’t forget that amongst themselves, Literary Magazines are competing also. If I am right about you, you are among the Writers producing the sublimity for which Literary Magazines are competing.
I have it on good authority that Literary Magazines need your story more than you need them.
Literary Magazines*
*Many of the Magazines in this list below also publish Essays, Memoir, Poetry, Art, etc. It is like an Easter Egg hunt, just in itself, to search among the many, many Literary Magazines not listed here and find the ones that publish what you are doing.
AGNI(post)(9/1-5/31)
A-Minor
Apple Valley Review (ed. Leah Browning)
A Public Space(1/1-1/31)
Bacopa Literary Review
Baltimore Review
Barnstorm Journal
Bateau Press
Behind Closed Doors
Bennington Review
Blackbird(Fall)
Blue Earth Review
Blue Lake Review(does re-prints)
Bodega Magazine
Booth Lit. mag
Boulevard(free via Post)
Brilliant Flash Fiction
Capra Review
Cardinal Sins
Catapult
Cheap Pop(June-20%)
Chestnut Review(flash fiction)
Cimarron Review
Cincinnati Review($25/page)
Citron Review
Cleaning Up Glitter
Club Plum Lit(scary?)
Coachella Review
Cobalt Review
Colorado Review(free only via Post)
Common Ground Review
Confrontation
Consequence Magazine(war related)
Concis
Contrary magazine
Crab Creek Review(seattle)
Crack the Spine(flash/micro fiction)
CRAFT(to 6K – some re-prints)
Critical Pass Review
Dream Catcher(<2K, post)
Emerge Literary Journal
Ennoia Review(no simos, does reprints)
Everyday Fiction(flash fiction/no simo)
Failbetter
Faultline Journal(10/15-12/15)
Fiction(fictioninc.com)
Fiction Int’l
Fictive Dream
Fields Magazine
Filling Station
Fish Food Magazine(flash fiction)
Five on the Fifth
Five to One
Fleas on the Dog
Flint Hills Review
Floyd City Moonshine
The Forge(free submissions 1st of mo.)
Flash Fiction On-line(500-1K – re-prints)
Fractured Lit(some re-prints) (scary flash fiction)
Friday Flash Fiction
Ghost Parachute
Ginosko Literary Journal(Robert Paul Cesaretti Ed.)
Gold Man Review(Salem, Oregon)(regional only)
Gone Lawn
Grain Magazine($50/page)
Gravity of the Thing
Guernica(no flash fiction)($150/story)
Harper’s Magazine
Harpoon Review(1.1K max)
Heavy Feather (1st of mo.)
Hopkins Review
Hudson Review
The Hunger(nifty!)(1/1-1/31)
Iconoclast
Invisible City(U of SFO?)
JMWW
The Journal(OSU)
Juked
Lascaux Review(re-prints)
Lamp Light
Levee magazine
Light and Dark
litbreak(1st of mo.)
LIT Magazine
Little Fiction
Little Star Journal
Literally Stories
Literary Orphans
Literary Yard
Louisiana Literature Journal
Louisville Review
Lunch Ticket
Lumiere Review
(Mac)ro(Mic)
Malahat Review
Matador Review
Maudlin House(3.5K)
(the)Meadow(5K)
Menacing Hedge(scary)
Mid-American Review
Midway Journal
Milk Candy Review
Moss Journal(PNW)($125/story)
Mud Season Review
Munyori
The Nation
The New Yorker
Ninth Letter(free only Nov/Dec)
Noctua Review(submit 10/l – 12/31)
Non-Conformist
O-Dark-Thirty(for Veterans)
Olive Tree Review
One Story
Ostrich Review
Oyster River pages
Passages North
Pidgeon Holes(flash fiction)
Pinball(pays $25/story)($15/flash fiction)
Pleiades
Potato Soup Journal
Press Pause Press
Puritan Literary Magazine
Quarter After Eight
Raleigh Review
Rougarou(every 4 mos)
Ruminate Magazine
Rumpus(1/1-1/31, 7/1-7/31)
The Rupture
The Rush
Salamander
Salt Hill Journal(7/15-9/1, 12/1-1/15)
SAND Journal
Scribble
Silver Pen Writers
Slice(pubbs 8%)
Small Print Magazine
SmokeLong Quarterly(1K)
Southampton Review
Southwest Review
Spry
Spelk(flash fiction)
Stoneboat Lit. Journal
Stonecoast Review
Storm Cellar
Storyscape
Straylight(no simo)
The Sun
The Temz Review
Three Penny Review(open 1/1-5/1)
Timberline Review(WillametteWriters)
TINGE
Tiny Molecules(flash fiction)
Tiny Spoon Lit Magazine
Type House Lit Mag(Oregon)
Unbound Journal(U of O)
Upstreet
The Void
The Waking(see Ruminate)
Waterstone Review
West Branch
Wigleaf
White Wall Review
Woven Tale Press(reprints after 5 yr)
Write City(<1.8K)
Yalobusha Review
X-R-A-Y
Sources for More Magazines
https://www.pw.org/literary_magazines?&perpage=*
http://everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines
https://creativewriters.blogspot.com/
https://www.thereviewreview.net/
https://heypublisher.com/publishers/search
https://www.facebook.com/groups/35517751475/
https://creativewritersopps/blogspot.com/
https://discoversubmittable.com/