Welcome to our list of the top 50 literary magazines. Our criteria for this list have changed. We considered a wide range of standards for this list. We looked at close to 20 data points. The most important criteria we used this time were:
- The date of founding.
- The number of national anthologies publications (and we looked at many of them).
- The quality of work and names of past authors published in the magazine.
We have a database listing 1000s of magazines: Find a complete list of literary magazines here.
We were the first site on the web to develop a list of the top 50 literary magazines. Many news outlets and websites have copied this list. Our methods are systematic in compiling numbers for placement on the list. This list aims to help writers find a place to publish their writing that will get them recognition. When a magazine is published over a long period and is recognized nationally, it gives authors more opportunities for exposure. Also, these magazines have a very good name in literary circles. Many will not agree and feel we’ve left a good or great publication off the list. That’s okay. The best thing to do is leave a comment below.
This list of top 50 literary magazines culminates in 20 years of hard work. I first thought about this list when I got my BFA in Creative Writing. In the early days of the internet, people in the BFA and MFA programs would talk about good and bad literary magazines. It took a lot of work to find online publications. Only some reputable magazines took online submissions. At that time, I started collecting a list of magazines. It was the Big List, and it started this site. Then I put this list together. I started looking for the best literary magazines, and then later, I realized I could turn different indicators into a point system, and so on. Later as EWR grew, others helped to compile this list. These magazines are very special to us; we purposefully constructed this list. It’s one of the reasons it takes so long to update.
We have also included interviews with some of the editors of these magazines. It was an honor to interview them, and we recommend you read those interviews. The editors tell you what they are looking to publish in their magazines. The best practice and best way to get your work published in these Top 50 literary magazines are by reading them. Understand what they want before you submit your manuscript. Having a thriving scholarly community is about supporting each other, not just supporting your work by publishing with them. Now here is our list of the top 50 literary magazines.
Top 50 Literary Magazines – Every Writer
1 New Yorker
Since 1925 this magazine has published some of the best writers in the country. They consistently publish outstanding work. Please support them. They have over a million readers.
2 Ploughshares
Founded in 1971, Ploughshares is our best and highest-ranked university non-commercial literary magazine. It is more honored by national anthologies than any other magazine except the New Yorker. It is an outstanding publication. We had the honor a little while back of interviewing Editor Ladette Randolph. Ploughshares is excellent and exceptional. Please support them.
3 Paris Review
The Paris Review started in 1953 and is one of the best-known literary magazines in the world. It is constantly publishing great authors and great works.
4 New England Review
It started in 1978 and is one of the country’s best-known and best-loved literary magazines. It is outstanding.
5 Granta
An outstanding literary magazine that has been publishing since 1889. They are honored with awards often.
6 Harper’s Magazine
Founded in 1850 and has always been honored. It is an outstanding commercial literary magazine with a circulation of 220,000 readers.
7 Kenyon Review
Since 1939 the Kenyon Review has been one of the best literary magazines in the country. You can always find great writers on its pages. It started in 1939. We recently interviewed the great Poet David Baker, one of the editors of the Kenyon Review. The magazine is one of the best out there, always.
8 Georgia Review
It started in 1947 and has won many awards. It is a significant literary magazine that publishes great authors and great works.
9 Southern Review
Originally started in 1935, Southern Review has contributed to great literature for over 50 years. A publication of the Louisiana State University and a great literary magazine.
10 Virginia Quarterly Review
One of the very best journals out there. This journal is often honored and published by The University of Virginia since 1925.
11 Threepenny Review
Founded in 1980 and is one of the best literary magazines out there. It’s always in national anthologies and winning awards. We had the honor of interviewing the Threepenny Review editor Wendy Lesser a little while ago; please check out the interview.
12 American Short Fiction
Founded in 1991, the magazine is always a leading source of well-honored fiction. The magazine takes online submissions. Buy the magazine, read the magazine, and support it.
13 Yale Review
For 100 years, this literary magazine has published great works by great authors. It’s always worth a read and a submission.
14 Southwest Review
This literary magazine can trace its roots back to 1915. Published by Southern Methodist University, the magazine is consistently publishing great work.
15 Green Mountain Review
Green Mountain Review, or GMR, was founded in 1987; they consistently win awards and publish famous names in the literary world. Northern Vermont University publishes them.
16 Iowa Review
Founded in 1970, this literary magazine publishes excellent work again and again.
17 Painted Bride Quarterly
Published in 1973 in Philadelphia, PBQ puts forth amazing authors in poetry and fiction.
18 American Poetry Review
This literary magazine only published poetry and was founded in 1976. It is one of the top 2 poetry magazines in the country.
19 Poetry
Poetry is the best poetry magazine in the country, hands down. They were founded in 1912 and consistently published great poets.
20 Zoetrope All-Story
Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, the literary magazine consistently publishes outstanding works of fiction.
21 One Story
Launched in 2002 and immediately began getting recognition for its high-quality stories. They publish fiction only.
22 Zyzzyva
First published in 1985 and has published wonderful stories every year it has been in circulation. They are consistently honored.
23 Agni
Boston University has published them since 1972. This literary journal is continuously publishing great work.
24 Antioch Review
Since 1941, The Antioch Review has published great authors and excellent writing. We love the Antioch review.
25 Michigan Quarterly Review
MQR began publishing in 1962; they are continuously publishing outstanding work. The University of Michigan publishes them.
26 Gettysburg Review
The Gettysburg Review, founded in 1988, publishes fiction, essays, and poetry. They publish quarterly and have won numerous awards and honors.
27 Prairie Schooner
This literary magazine has been published since 1927 and is among the best.
28 Cincinnati Review
Starting in 2003, this literary magazine has published many outstanding authors and outstanding works.
29 Colorado Review
In 1956 Colorado State University established the Colorado Review. They consistently publish good work from authors.
30 Boulevard
The literary magazine has been publishing great work since 1985. It’s one of the best.
31 Harvard Review
The Harvard Review started in 1986, publishes top writers in the country, and has won many awards and honors.
32 Subtropics
This literary magazine has only been published for six years but has been honored so many times it made our list.
33 Shenandoah
This literary magazine began publishing in 1949 and is one of the best.
34 Five Points
Five Points is published by Georgia State University and is in our top 10 of these 50 for always being in national anthologies and winning awards. Founded in 1996 still less than 20 years old, but a great literary magazine.
35 Conjunctions
An outstanding literary magazine from Bard College, they do have online content.
36 Epoch
Published by Cornell University since 1947 and always publishes great authors and excellent writing.
37 Hudson Review
Founded in 1947, this literary magazine publishes outstanding work and authors.
38 Triquarterly
Founded in 1958, Triquarterly has continuously published great work. The magazine is honored often by national anthologies.
39 Alaska Quarterly Review
Founded in 1980 and published at the University of Alaska of Anchorage. The magazine publishes excellent work.
40 The Missouri Review
Since 1978 this magazine has won many honors and has published great works by great authors. The Missouri Review is one of those old.
41 A Public Space
The site was founded in 2006 but has won many honors in the short time it has been published.
42 Chicago Review
Founded in 1946 this literary magazine is consistently publishing great works.
43 Black Warrior Review
This literary magazine was founded in 1947 and has continuously published great authors. The Black Warrior Review is consistently publishing outstanding works by notable authors. We are big fans of this unique and long-standing magazine.
44 Witness
First published in 1987 the literary magazine has come on strong lately with many honors.
45 Barrow Street
The literary magazine only accepts poetry and was founded in 1998—one of the best.
46 New Ohio Review
Starting in 2006, this Ohio University Magazine has consistently published outstanding work from the day it opened. They have an excellent site on the web and online submissions.
47 Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse was established in 1960. The magazine is consistently publishing excellent writing by fantastic authors. We highly recommend you pick up a copy.
48 Hanging Loose
Hanging Loose first appeared in 1966. They have won many awards, and their authors appear regularly in national anthologies.
49 Narrative
Since 2003 they have published fiction and poetry by great authors. We had them listed as the best online literary magazine, and they do have an excellent website, but they now publish in the real world, so we’ve moved them. This magazine is certainly worth reading and paying attention to.
50 Ecotone
The University of North Carolina-Wilmington established Ecotone in 2005. They consistently publish good work.
How did we come up with this top 50 literary magazines list? It’s challenging! Some other lists on the web tally the most appearance in Best American Short Stories or other anthologies. The literary magazine gets points for the years it has been publishing. Then we tally the appearances of these literary magazines in several national anthologies. We then give points for specific awards like Pushcart. We turn all these into a point system and then rank the magazines. So it would be like this, the top 50 magazines in order are based on age + awards + anthology appearances =best. This list was number one for literary magazines for the last ten years. It’s a detailed process. We hope this list of Top 50 literary magazines is helpful.
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Any idea why The Atlantic fell off the list? The last time I checked (maybe a couple of years ago), it was #3. That seems like a pretty precipitous drop, unless you excluded it for some reason.
I think they stopped publishing fiction, and do more news oriented essay type pieces.
ZYZZYVA also publishes poetry.
Thank you Jersey!
Good list! However, I’ve got one correction for you. I clicked on the link above for Ecotone, and it took me to the magazine’s website. I clicked on its “About” page and it says that it was launched in 2005 by the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, not University of South Carolina, as you state above. I’m at Clemson and have connections to University of South Carolina. Its literary publication is called Yemassee. Hope that helps!
We are working on updates. Sorry about the errors. Our site is about 10,000 pages, so sometimes it’s hard to make all the changes we want to make. If you see errors point them out. Mike, I’ve made the changes you pointed to. Thank you so much, and yes, it does help.
Thank you for all your work! I’m chiming in to say that Michigan Quarterly Review now accepts online submissions via Submittable.
Your comment popped up in my board, but it was so difficult to find where you left this. These new reply buttons. I made the changes…thank you for the note.
Hello there from Cincinnati Review! We do have online submissions now–in fact, we accept only online submissions. Thanks for the list!
This is great to hear. I will make the update soon.
Where are the online magazines? For my own tops list on the net, see my website or my monthly column of “literary booksmarks”
Please don’t just come by to plug your site. We have a large listing of literary magazines, print and online at on our literary magazines pages: https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/ I’ve been listing them on this site since 1999.
With the exception of Granta, this list is so … Ameircan.
Disappointing to see a list like this base so heavily on biased anthology presence. The next article should be about how basing a list of “best” on metrics that are skewed towards cis-hetero white men is flawed. Also, as someone else said, where are the online literary journals that are doing the work right now? Meh, won’t be bookmarking this.
I’m not sure what journals you are referring to as skewed to cis-hetero white men. The three I subscribe to (university journals), and others I grab off the stands, are heavily weighted to feminist and LGBT points of view, with a fair bit of Social Justice War-making.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t the 6th to the last word of the introductory paragraph be “past”? Or are you referring to necrotic authors?
You are of course correct, what really needs to be done is the entire thing needs to be rewritten. I’m sorry for all the mistakes. It was botched long ago. The rewrites coming.
You should think about writing for our contest. https://www.everywritersresource.com/every-writer-halloween-50-word-scary-story-contest/ It’ll make you feel better about all the things that have gone wrong in the world.
Just to clarify: Colorado Review does in fact take online submissions.
I’ve made the changes. Thanks for the note.
A note to editors, the best way to update the information above, and to get a listing on our site for free, is to go here: https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/submit-your-site/ and fill out the form and submit it. We will update your listing, and this page….
Not only does Narrative charge an outrageous fee, but they have options for readers (internally, of course) to flag submissions either by “Noteworthy Authors” or those who have contributed $X to the journal. Narrative is an outright racket.
And furthermore, Tom Jenks is a hustling little weasel who lurks in the back pages of writers magazines advertising his marginal editing skills, for which he charges substantial fees under innuendoes of how good he thought the work was, after his initial review and before receiving his fee, of course, and then he essentially razes the very work he previously praised; although because he is a hustler, he chooses his words carefully during the setup phase.
How do you expect a literary magazine to continue in existence charging $1 to $3 for a submission? Assuming a magazine gets 2,000 submissions at even $3 per, that’s $6,000. Printing costs alone can exceed that total. An independent magazine with no university backing would find it difficult to survive.
There is a lot of debate about literary magazines charging to read….but it is so difficult to make money publishing that it should certainly be understood why. Think of it this way, when you submitted your work did you also subscribe to the magazine? Have you ever bought a copy of the magazine you are submitting to? It cannot be one sided.
I started NEW ENGLAND REVIEW in 1978. At that time, we had no college/university backing, and I was spending as much time chasing funding as I was editing. Even back then, the volume of submissions was nigh overwhelming, as I was often essentially the sole reader in all genres. I decided it might be helpful to charge a buck to submit, and you would have thought I’d asked potential contributors (who FAR outnumbered subscribers) for their firstborn children. The hue and cry was so calamitous I had to change the policy. It therefore astounds me –though it does not in the least chagrin me; I pay willingly– that magazines WITHOUT reading fees are the very rare exception.
Well, we looked at the quality of writing in these magazines, not at their practices. Narrative doesn’t make anyone submit work to them. Writers find a value in it, or they wouldn’t do it. I too worked for a university magazine, and I never made a dime. We have to ask ourselves at some point what is the value of the work we do? Is the end goal only publishing a novel with a big publisher and riding off into the sunset? That prospect is sinking quickly. Making money on ads has become increasingly difficult. So how do you pay your fiction editor? Should literary magazines always be a profitless venture where no one sees value, and it’s just a few selfless souls who produce them? I’m just asking, what is your model to profit from these? Should these editors always work for free? Should it always be a university venture for the sake of art? Do you have a suggestion on how a magazine can make profit? Even major magazines and newspapers are disappearing.
I don’t know, but if they give their fiction editor $20 per submissions, wouldn’t that be nice? On EWR we get 100s of submissions, and many are outright spammed. I get submissions that are just forwarded from other magazines. No cover letters, nothing. You have to think of the value, and submitting your work has a value. If they made it a rule to subscribe to their magazine before you submit, would that be ok? I don’t know, but the model for literary magazines has been around for a very long time. One of my first rejection letters was from the late great Lois Rosenthal of Story magazine. It was hand written and worth much more to me than $20.
I’ve removed a couple nasty comments here. One was from a website owner who has 14,000 backlinks and 53 organic traffic. It kinda tells you what he does with his time. It’s bad form to spam the site while insulting me.
BB aba
ALthough I appreciate your ranking of SHENANDOAH, I think you should know that the journal has been on line (shenandoahliterary.org) for about 7 years. To assess it’s current quality, someone needs to look at recent issues. In fact, we now ONLY consider mss. sent through our Submittable portal.
Thanks
R T Smith
Editor, SHENANDOAH
Yes, we’ve had you on the list for over 10 years, back when your url was http://shenandoah.wlu.edu/. I am a fan of the magazine. As a side note I’ve read your work since Brightwood. We’d be honored to do an interview….see some other interviews here: https://www.everywritersresource.com/interviews/
Ecotone was of time.
nice standard list – the only detail missing is that many of these magazines charge submission fees. This is like a regressive tax. Writers already earn nothing but are now forced to go negative. The main culprit is their use of submittable I guess. it is being addressed above. it reminds me of the 1990s nyc bar/cafe scene of pay to play for bands and writers.
Alaska Quarterly Review but not Salmagundi? Are you sure?
Thanks for this list. Two thoughts: first, the repeated use of “great work” or “outstanding work” or “one of the best” isn’t useful because we assume that’s your opinion since these mags are on the list! Instead maybe you could add a few words about the type of work they publish (not just genre), even simply taken from their websites. Secondly, it would be super helpful if you could note whether or not they are a paying market. Don’t have to research how much, just something beyond contributor copies. More and more, publications don’t even bother to say that on their websites! They just assume you will be honored to write for them for free. Thanks again for the work you put into this!
Well, I would actually say, that it’s a great job anyway. Subjective opinion doesn’t make it to be less impressive. I find this list very helpful.
Anyone can help me giving a list of the magazines who accept translation work from other languages from around the world? Thanks
Hello! I’m also a small and young poetry writer and I’ve found some success on Instagram with tagging relevant common words that seem to have lots of search results. I also submit to different online small-time literary magazines. There are numerous out there that have small followings, which can easily get your work published on multiple sites, your name out in more public searches, and can get you that first step into the business of writing. I know that your comment was posted a while ago, but if you’ve learned anything new, or see anything that you can now start doing yourself, then best of luck to you! I hope that maybe one day we can connect and I can see how far you’ve come! If you ever need anything, my user name on insta is tinytanaka.poetry and my e-mail is tinytanaka9@gmail.com. I hope you’re doing okay!
The literary magazines, ilike have not made the grade! Litrery Review (LR), New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books (LRB), Times Literary Supplement (TLS)
We are looking at rewriting this list. It is based on numbers, many factors. The first time we did this list, it was over 10 years go. If you want a complete list of literary magazines, you can go to our literary magazines site (searchable) https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/
It’s absolutely bananas of you not to include The Sun Magazine in your list. By your own stated criteria, it’s top of the heap. It was founded in 1974, recommends the most Pushcart prize winners of any literary magazine, and publishes consistently high-quality stuff.
Why did you overlook this gem???
I’m looking to see why The Sun was removed from the list. I believe, at the time of writing the list that The Sun was ONLY taking solicited submissions, but I honestly cannot remember. We will be redoing this list soon.
Why isn’t Rattle listed? They boast a circulation of nearly 10,000, and close to half a million page views per month. https://www.rattle.com/info/about-us/
Thank you. Great, thoughtful work in creating this list and posting it here online. Please continue your work. I look forward to the update as, for example, some publications accept online publications. Thank you for the support of the work of writers everywhere especially at this time. Long live the written word of stories and the supportive readers of such words. Thanks.
I don’t agree. The list may be okay for non contributors – but for poets such as me – there are virtually no opportunities. There are publishers listed that are supposed to accept submissions – but don’t. The utter arrogance of some publishers is evident here. They don’t give a damn about contributors. Of course this sort of thing happens in other lists – in poets and writers for example.
I only see things from the point of view of the a poetry and occasional prose submitter. Writers are the backbone of any literary journal – yet all – except for a few at the very top – either don’t get paid or get paid very little for the years spent honing their skills – for little or no purpose other than as a vocation. It’s a part time occupation at best – and for most a humiliating experience.
Perhaps if publishers published more and better books – rather than the rubbish they publish that sells – such as horror – science fiction – craft – gardening and cooking books – the industry would be better off. Sex sells and so does stupidity. All you need to do is drop by any of the very few places that sell books – apart from Amazon – and you will see lots of books – but very little literature.
Started in 1998 but quickly became one of the best and best known literary magazines in the country. It has been honored by national anthologies more times than many literary magazine that have been publishing for over 100 years.
No mention of The Sun on your list? Clifford Garstang ranks it as the #1lit mag for non-fiction.
How could you not include TLS – the Times (UK) Literary Supplement? Founded in 1902, it’s long been considered the world’s best literary magazine!
Many thanks for the work you’ve done in the past and continue to do on this essential list. I am excited to put this into use.
No longer accepting submissions for tales
As of 7:20 ET on Wednesday, 5/31/23, each item on your list has a blank space next to the numeral for the ranking. The blurbs are visible, but the names of the lit mags are not. This is true on both Chrome and Edge.
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Each author has organized a literary feast with these magazines. An essential bookmark for writers looking for recognition.
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These are great Magazines, I am a regular reader of LEKH Magazine too. it is a great for aspiring as well as experienced writers.
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The Black Warrior Review was founded in 1974. Not 1947. I should know – I was its PE for the first several years.
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