45 Literary Magazines To Submit To

Have you ever wanted to publish a short story in a literary magazine but didn’t know where to start. According to Duotrope.com, there are over 4,800 literary magazines today. Which ones are the best? How do you find the right for your story?

In this resource, I have handpicked 45 literary magazines that are among the best in their respective genres. While this isn’t a complete list of all 4,800 literary magazines, it is a good place to get started with your research.

If the magazines below don’t fit your particular writing style, check out duotrope.com. It’s a fantastic search engine and aggregator of literary magazines. I find their 100 most favorited markets list particularly helpful (make sure to change the dropdown menu to “Most Favorited Markets”).

If you write science fiction, fantasy, horror, or crime, you can find new anthologies and open submission announcements at Horror Tree.

For a complete explanation of how to research and submit to literary magazines, check out the book Let’s Write a Short Story! 

Have fun exploring all these literary magazines!

And for help on submitting your short stories for publication, check out this guide on how to publish a short story.

Note: This list changes frequently as new magazines are added and others close. Please check back frequently.

“Literary” Literary Magazines

Tin House
Crazy Horse
AGNI
Black Warrior Review
One Story
The New Yorker
The Threepenny Review
Zoetrope: All-Story
Boulevard
The Sun Magazine
McSweeney’s Quarterly
Camera Obscura
Virginia Quarterly
The Atlantic
Granta 
Pank

Science Fiction / Fantasy Literary Magazines

Strange Horizons
Clarkesworld
Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine
Apex Magazine
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Daily Science Fiction
Lightspeed
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Andromeda Spaceway Inflight Magazine
Abyss and Apex
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Psuedopod (audio stories!)

Horror Literary Magazines

Horror Tree
Unnerving
LampLight
Nightmare
The Horror Zine
Liminal

Flash Fiction Magazines*

Short Fiction Break (up to 2,000 words)
Horror Tree (100 words or less)
Daily Science Fiction
Vestal Review
Flash Fiction Online
Smokelong Quarterly
Foundling Review (up to 2000 words)
Every Day Fiction
Twenty20 (20 words or less)
Brevity (750 words or less)

*Flash Fiction is generally defined as 1000 words or less, although some magazines allow stories as long as 1500 words while others only accept stories under 500.