Best Literary Magazines in 2026

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry,

Ploughshares has published quality literature since 1971. Best known for our award-winning Ploughshares literary journal, we also publish Ploughshares Solos (digital-first long stories and essays) and a lively literary blog. Since 1989, we have been based at Emerson College in downtown Boston.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

The Paris Review is a quarterly English language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. Since relocating to New York City, it has become one of the world's pre-eminent publications of its type.

Submission guidelines →

Print & Online magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

Black Warrior Review is the oldest continuously-run literary journal produced by graduate students in the United States. BWR publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and art twice a year.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

The Gettysburg Review, published by Gettysburg College, is recognized as one of the country's premier literary journals. More than one-hundred short stories, poems, and essays first published in The Gettysburg Review have been reprinted in the various prize anthologies. Online submissions are $3 and snail mail submissions are free!

Submission guidelines →

Print & Online magazine for Art, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Scripts, Short Fiction,

Curlew Quarterly, New York’s literary and photo journal, publishes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, which includes nearly all forms of reporting and journalism. Launched in August of 2017, our printed journal and online Daily celebrate the lives, homes, and work of poets, writers, and distinct professionals living in New York, NY.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry,

Each issue of Ecotone brings together the literary and scientific, the personal and biological, the urban and rural. Much of the writing we publish addresses the idea of place: overlapping habitats both real and aesthetic.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

It's time to see your name in print! Send us your previously-unpublished submissions for inclusion in Mslexia. There are 14 opportunities to submit for women writers of all specialisms: poetry, fiction and non-fiction, with five slots kept solely for subscribers to the magazine.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

There are vanishingly few magazines left in this country which seem pitched at the general literary reader and which consistently publish such interesting, high-quality criticism, reflection, argument, fiction, and poetry. Threepenny is thankfully still out there.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

The mission of New Letters magazine, its radio companion, New Letters on the Air, and BkMk Press, is to discover, publish and promote the best and most exciting literary writing, wherever it might be found. We publish and serve readers and writers worldwide. In recent years, New Letters has won a National Magazine Award, the industry's highest honor, plus multiple Pushcart Prizes, and is reprinted often in Best American anthologies.

Submission guidelines →

Print & Online magazine for Art, Fiction, Poetry, Short Fiction,

Flora Fiction is a collective of creative muses and inspiration. From original writing to reviews in music and entertainment, there’s always something to be discovered.

Submission guidelines →

Print & Online magazine for Art, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Short Fiction,

Seaside Gothic is a quarterly literary magazine from the edge of the sea where the frontier of civilisation meets the wild of the water.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

The annual literary journal of Boise State's MFA program, publishing fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

Epiphany is committed to publishing literary work, wherever it may fall on the spectrum from experimental to traditional, that is realized both in its vision and its devotion to artistry. We are especially open to writers whose explorations of new territory may not yet have found validation elsewhere.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

The Oxford American is a nonprofit, quarterly literary magazine dedicated to featuring the best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Over its quarter century, the Oxford American has won four National Magazine Awards — including an award for General Excellence in 2016.

Submission guidelines →

Print magazine for Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction,

We publish a wide range of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, translations, photography, and work in emerging forms by both established and emerging writers. Work from our pages has been consistently selected to appear in the anthologies Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.

Submission guidelines →