This is a rewrite of our Best Online Literary Magazines list we originally published it over a year ago. This list along with our Top 50 literary magazine list has gotten a lot of attention. Atlantic Monthly wrote in an issue last year that they hoped “rank and file” lists of magazines wasn’t a trend that would continue. That is not saying they were referring to us or had ever heard of our little list, but we believe it is important for these lists to exists.
For a very long time literary magazines were short print run issues that only dared to be different because they wanted to. They were pressured by the established writing community, universities, and even money constraints to stay on the norm for as long as it lasted. With the advent of the internet and with so many voices and such large audiences for the taking, it is our goal and we believe should be the goals of others to push the gatekeeper to continue to do the different and riskier thing that helps writing and writers. We hope all that have a voice will continue to reward and pressure literary magazines to continue to be different, be better, and shape the face of literary writing.
How dare you write a list like this. What good does it do?
We could, of course, just alphabetically list magazines here that we feel are among the best. It is of course subjective, but we feel by placing these magazines in an order we are honoring what they publish and what they are attempting to accomplish. These are the best of the best ONLINE literary magazines. They have do not have counter part that is consistently published in the real world. This means their main source of readership and reputation comes solely from web publishing. We used the following criteria:
1. What do they do for writers?
Do they accept all writing and publish new writers? Do they promote the state and well being of writing on the web?
2. What have they done for writing on the web?
Did they make headway for writing and respect on the web? Do they help writers and other web publications just publishing? How long have they been publishing?
3. What do they bring to readers?
Do they publish great writing? Do they publish in a timely fashion? Do their new writers go on to bigger and better things? What is their readership? Are they well-known?
4. Do they take risks that have paid off?
Have they risked anything for writing and made the better the craft and the state of publishing?
We have a couple of newcomers to the list, and we believe the state of literary writing is ever improving. If you want to see all of the list, click on the link “Top Online Literary Magazines” below. All of the magazines on this list are outstanding. They are all worth reading, submitting your work to, supporting with a donation. Visit them and sign up for their mailing lists. We hope this list is much improved, and we have suppled more information with each magazine to make them easier to find and our list more useful to you. Tell us that you think below or you can discuss this list on our message boards.
You can also view this list as a static web page at http://www.everywritersresource.com/bestonlineliterarymagazines.html
If you’d like to discuss this list please leave a comment below.