Best Short Fiction Literary Magazines in 2026

Print magazine for Short Fiction,

NER was founded by poets Sydney Lea and Jay Parini in New Hampshire in 1978. By publishing new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that is both challenging and inviting, New England Review encourages artistic exchange and thought-provoking innovation, providing publishing opportunities for writers at all stages in their careers.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Ginosko: A Greek word meaning the recognition of truth from experience.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

The Incandescent Review is an entirely non-profit, teen-run literary magazine, and our team hails from across the globe: from San Jose to Shanghai, from Atlanta to Athens. Our purpose is to create a platform for teens and young adults to express their opinions and emotional response to world issues in the form of poetry, prose, visual art, and more.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Based in Central Texas, The Raven Review is a literary magazine that publishes poetry and short fiction that explores the human experience through dark, atmospheric writing. Since 2019, the magazine has been publishing both seasoned and newbie writers with the explicit goal of helping them gain exposure.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Shorts is a free online magazine launched in February 2020 with the aim of bringing together writers and creative artists from all over the world. Shorts particularly encourages submissions from marginalised communities, and from new and emerging writers. Shorts was established in a time of growing isolationism on the part of the UK and the US, and aims to combat this by uniting global creatives and nurturing unheard voices. It is an LGBTQ+ friendly platform with a liberal outlook.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Sky Island Journal is an independent, international, free-access literary journal. We publish accomplished, well-established authors—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices. Our mission is to provide our over 100,000 readers in 145 countries with a powerful, focused, advertising-free literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally.

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Print magazine for Short Fiction,

Islandia Journal is a subtropical print periodical of art and writing. We publish work by people from South Florida or by writers and artists whose work deals with our region. All contributors are paid - starting at $50 for poems and visual art and $100 for prose pieces of all kinds, scaling upwards depending on amount work or research involved.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Lightspeed is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Beneath Ceaseless Skies publishes “literary adventure fantasy”: stories with a secondary-world setting and some fantasy feel, but written with a literary approach.

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Print magazine for Short Fiction,

The Greensboro Review is always on the lookout for new short stories and poems from writers at any stage of their career. The work you’ll find in the pages of the GR rarely conforms to any one theme, subject, or style—our editors read for those “bolts of lightning” that come with a surprising poem or story, the pleasure of spotting something new or discovering a fresh take on the familiar.

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Print magazine for Short Fiction,

We like stories that start quickly and have a strong narrative arc. Poems that are passionate about subject, language, and image are welcome, whether they are traditional or experimental, whether in formal or free verse (closed or open form). We publish all forms of creative nonfiction, from personal narrative to lyric essay to immersive journalism; we appreciate when an essay moves beyond the personal to tell us something new about the world.

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Print & Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine continues to bring together celebrated authors, new talent, and award-winning stories, poems, and articles, as it has since its launch in 1930. Originally published as Astounding Stories of Science Fiction, Analog remains the unparalleled literary magazine in the genre, and rewards readers with realistic stories that reflect both the highest standards of scientific accuracy and the far reaches of the imagination, as well as lively articles about current research on the cutting edge of science.

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Print magazine for Short Fiction,

Hayden’s Ferry Review looks for well-crafted work that takes risks, challenges readers, and engages us emotionally and artistically. A small portion of our publication is solicited from established authors, while the majority of our contributors are chosen from the thousands of manuscripts we receive each year.

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Online magazine for Short Fiction,

Invisible City is an online publication of the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco that publishes in the fall and spring. We seek work that encourages us to see the world from new perspectives and different angles, ones that we may not have previously considered or imagined.

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Print magazine for Short Fiction,

PROMPTED is a celebration of the power of inspiration, and the places our imagination can take us with the slightest nudge. Each story is inspired by a one-sentence prompt, and written in a single week.

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