literature review magazine

Absolute Darkness

Miranda July

The polycrisis, everything all at once.

Changing My Mind

Loaf or Hot-Water Bottle

Allyship risks appropriating the cause of an oppressed people and drowning out the very voices it seeks to defend.

Feisal G. Mohamed Palestinian Solidarity, Then and Now

From the Archives

A negro nation.

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Alice munro.

Some Other, Better Otto

The White Umbrella

Our spring 2024 issue, two days twelve thousand years ago, angel jacks, gender wars.

Jars with Well-Fitting Lids

Rachel Cusk

In Utero and After

Nicholson Baker and I

Rosaura at dawn.

Litany for a Prolonged Dream

Banquo’s Ghost in Paterson

Memories Don’t Live Like People Do

Candy darling’s “newspaper” centerfold.

Langston Hughes's "China"

Ed Ruscha's "Every Building on the Sunset Strip"

New perspectives, enduring writing..

Support our award-winning little magazine. Subscribe to The Yale Review and receive four print issues per year.

Current Issue

With its latest city issue, World Literature Today showcases Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a cover feature that gathers nine porteño writers, guest-edited by Kit Maude. Additional highlights include the latest installments of the columns “Bearing Witness” and “Untranslatable.” + the book review section offers up the best new books from around the world, and interviews, reading lists, poetry, essays, and a postcard from Bordeaux make the May issue your perfect summer reading companion.

WLT  Weekly

Jury Announced for the 2025 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Interactive Storytelling in Three Recent Video Games

Most read content.

From Climate Crisis to Polycrisis

Three Poems from Ireland

10 Questions for Hwang Bo-reum

E-NEWSLETTER

Join the mailing list, news & events.

World Literature Today Announces 2024 Student Translation Prize Winners

Invitation to Participate in WLT’ s 2024 Readership Survey

Feature Section

That time I took all the buses in Buenos Aires in order to write a book about taking all the buses in Buenos Aires

Taking all the buses of Buenos Aires, a writer on a mission makes the city his own.

Structured Poetry

Buenos Aires is many things, including a city for walking, snapping photographs, and writing poetry in notebooks while nibbling a medialuna in a coffee shop. Porteña writer Cecilia Pavón lets us peek into her notebooks as she wonders, Why can’t life be just drinking coffee and writing in notebooks with soft covers?

Utterly Supernova’s Ride through Buenos Aires

“Seasons don’t exist anymore, they declare, complain, it’s all come undone. Blame Derrida. And then comes the rain and the cold. And that’s what really gets you, they’re the worst.”

Featured Book Reviews

Alexandria: The City That Changed the World

Sweet Malida

Zilka Joseph

Seasons at the Patch

Kerry Shawn Keys

Reading Genesis

Marilynne Robinson

Scary Story

Alberto Chimal. Trans. D. P. Snyder

Your Absence Is Darkness

Jón Kalman Stefánsson. Trans. Philip Roughton

“Some of our people will hate you as they hate themselves. / You must create a life / without giving them all your life’s attention,” from “Rite of Baptism,” by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Two Romanian American Poems

“The manual couldn’t be clearer about how even moisture / trapped in sugar could ruin the melangeur, / so when the granite wheels screech and some unseen / plastic insert breaks, you anger, but decide not to let // an inattention so small dictate how you should love,” from “Melangeur,” by Mihaela Moscaliuc

Dead Horse Bay

“n the free circulation of commodities, there is no center or edge. We are all part of the same untraceable sludge,” from “Dead Horse Bay,” by Santiago Acosta (trans. by Tiffany Troy & The Women in Translation Project)

Fiction & Creative Nonfiction

End of Maneuvers

“I’d never gone into the cemetery by bicycle. I’d always gone around—it didn’t seem right to use its streets as a shortcut. But it wasn’t really a shortcut, more a passage into another dimension.”

Today Is Yesterday

“Recently arrived in Buenos Aires—not a city but a dangerous miracle, buzzing with electricity like a tract of unequal promises—I lived alone, and on summer nights I liked to sleep on the floor, the window open, watching bad movies on channel 13 past midnight.”

It’s 2050, and five African nations have surrendered their sovereignty to form a new nation. Alande Mukumbi, the new president of Embo, is determined to prove the naysayers wrong. 

The Proudest Street in the World: A Brief History of the Buenos Aires Pride March

Each November, Buenos Aires’s Pride march proceeds down a ten-block stretch that is the “spine of Argentine history,” fulfilling Eva Perón’s famous prediction: “I shall return, and I shall be multitudes.”

Reflecting on his love of football, Oliverio Coelho has an epiphany: some players on the pitch stand out, not just for their skill, but their intelligence, and it is these players that establish the beat for the expression of political solidarity that, in these difficult times, is the ultimate goal.

Reading Dostoevsky Now, from the Margins

Against increasing calls to “cancel” Dostoevsky due to the Russian nationalism espoused in his writings, Ani Kokobobo chooses to hold on to a Dostoevsky of the margins, a Dostoevsky who tests us ethically when we rationalize horrible means to justify an imagined greater good.

7 Questions for Sébastien Delot

Seven questions for Sébastien Delot, curator of the exhibit Etel Adnan, Between East and West (February 1–June 30, 2024) at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) in Saudi Arabia.

A Griot of the Black German Experience: A Conversation with Katharina Oguntoye

Karlos K. Hill interviews Katharina Oguntoye, a renowned Black German educator, activist, and community leader, as part of his ongoing column Bearing Witness, which highlights the efforts of cultural figures doing works of essential good around issues of social justice.

8 Questions for Isabel Zapata

Eight questions for (and eight answers from) Isabel Zapata, in whose new collection, A Whale is a Country, animals are concrete, fully drawn fellow beings, and we are invited to see them in new ways. 

Previous Issues

January 2024

November 2023

September 2023

View more back issues on our website , or visit JSTOR for archival issues dating back to 1927 .

Tell us what you think about the current issue or about the website by filling out our form .

Subscribe Or donate! 

• print archive
• digital archive
• book review

Harvard Review 61

Situating Max Jacob in English

The Body Keeps the War

When Tarzan Met Leonardo

Helen Vendler on Book Reviewing

Revisiting Diane Wakoski’s “Complete Motorcycle Betrayal Poems”

Mother's Day in the Aquarium

The Bed & Breakfast by Molly Dektar

Reading Backwards with Louise

Voice Commands: A Poem

The prophets were given the secrets of the universe, but I am only seeking my own. —Burhan Sönmez (trans. by Alexander Dawe), “Rome, Italy, 1966”

Each day she woke, bracing herself for the smaller disasters of dying… —Amanda Gunn, “Shalimar”

I do not like speaking about him in the past tense, but I suppose it is a way of coming to terms with the catastrophe. —Edward Hirsch, “In Memoriam: Adam Zagajewski”

Afterwards, black ants / returned again / to their row of life in the grass — Antonia Pozzi (trans. by Amy Newman), “God of the Wild”

Maybe there’s much to celebrate about a room full of young people who are aware of the demands love makes, who don’t buy the lacy lies we tell on Valentine’s Day or after a hit of ecstasy. — Eric LeMay, “Star-Crossed Something-or-Others”

He’s telling you what he’s doing: What I’m telling you are true, true stories—distressingly true stories that I want you to believe—but the method that I’m using to make you believe in the stories is a trick. —Interview with Carole Angier, author of Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald

HARVARD BOOK REVIEW

Land of Milk and Honey

Oracle Smoke Machine

The Book of Failures: Poems

To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul

Chasing Rivers: A Whitewater Life

Fierce Elegy

I Sing to Use the Waiting

Spooky Action

So Late in the Day

So Many People, Mariana

New England Review

Vol. 45, no. 1 (2024), selections from the current issue, imad rahman, ed thinks of everything.

Husband Ed accidentally severed a couple fingers off his left hand and there’s no way he’s going to the ER so please let’s not even go down that road, Tanya Chandra posts. 

Ed once worked for the hospitals and saw things he wasn’t meant to see. The lawyer would tell me to stop right there, Tanya Chandra replies . . .

Share this:

Wanna see me bark like a dog? Or bleat like an old nanny-goat? Or maybe honk goose-like? Or keen like the hawk? Sometimes even I play  at the hoary eagle, thundering the threatening  laugh of warlike fowl . . .

Grady Chambers

Second Summer

What I came to like best in that apartment  was the view through the bedroom windows.  They looked west, and forever,  the evening star cresting in the early evening. 

The June moon blackened by the heat;  children tramping through the city’s fountains like giants in a stream— . . .

Mairead Small Staid

M. & I

Madame M. had been married to more than eighty men. They looked identical: had they ever gathered in the same place, she could have lined them up like paper dolls, holding hands, cut oh-so-carefully from a single folded sheet—but they never did. Instead, each replaced the last, as he had replaced the man before him . . .

News & Notes

Behind the Byline

NER fiction reader Anastasia Langner speaks with contributor Imad Rahman about delusional characters, the IRL body versus the online body, and domestic tension in his story “Ed Thinks of Everything” (45.1).

Meet the Interns

Zoe Eng & Cole Chaudhari

This spring, Zoe Eng and Cole Chaudhari spent their Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons in the New England Review office. Here they interview each other for our “Meet the Interns” series.

News & Notes

Introducing NER 45.1

Spring 2024

March 15, 2024 Filed Under: Featured , News & Notes

The print edition of NER 45.1—our first issue of the year—is on its way to subscribers and our online preview is now live! Enjoy striking prose by Debra Spark, K. R. Mullins, Noah Marcel Sudarsky, and Imad Rahman, gripping poetry by Rob Colgate, Lisa Russ Spaar, Tianyi, and Grady Chambers, fresh … Continue Reading

Leslie Sainz

March 4, 2022 Filed Under: Featured , News & Notes

Leslie Sainz, whose poems "Self-Determination Theory" and "Propaganda Ghazal" appear in NER 42.4, talks with NER poetry editor Jennifer Chang about poetic space, ancestry, and her new role as NER's managing editor. Jennifer Chang: I was struck by how space and syntax relate to and … Continue Reading

June 7, 2024 Filed Under: Featured , News & Notes

Imad Rahman NER fiction reader Anastasia Langner speaks with contributor Imad Rahman about delusional characters, the IRL body versus the online body, and domestic tension in his story "Ed Thinks of Everything" (45.1). Anastasia Langner: It's my understanding that you're based in … Continue Reading

June 5, 2024 Filed Under: Featured , Interns , Meet the Interns , News & Notes

Zoe Eng & Cole Chaudhari, spring 2024 interns This spring, Zoe Eng and Cole Chaudhari spent their Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons in the New England Review office. They organized and hosted an event for our new student reading series, read paper submissions, interviewed authors … Continue Reading

NER's Faculty & Alumni Reading at Reunion

Saturday, June 8, 12:30 PM EST

May 29, 2024 Filed Under: Events , News & Notes

Left to right: Jack Brisson, T Cooper, Porter Fox, Carolyn Orosz, & Stephen Snyder Reunion weekend at Middlebury College brings together alumni from far and wide, and to celebrate the occasion New England Review is hosting a reading for five Middlebury College faculty and alumni … Continue Reading

Marianne Boruch

May 24, 2024 Filed Under: Featured , News & Notes

Photo of Marianne Boruch courtesy of David Dunlap Staff reader Megan Howell speaks with NER author Marianne Boruch about close listening to your protagonist, drawing inspiration from maternal figures, and her story "The Empty Child" from NER 45.1. Megan Howell: Throughout the … Continue Reading

• Subscribe/Order
• Give to NER
• Advertising
• Back Issues
• Emerging Writers Award

ner via email

Stories, poems, essays, and web features delivered to your Inbox.

Email Address

Your browser is ancient! Upgrade to a different browser or install Google Chrome Frame to experience this site.

Literary Review

Fresh discoveries for even the most avid reader. Subscribe to  Literary Review today and enjoy:

✓ Eleven illustrated issues per year, delivered to your letterbox ✓ Bumper double issue for December and January ✓ Unlimited access to the website  online archive,  extending back to 1979 ✓ Unlimited access to the  Literary Review app  (available on Apple devices and Kindle Fire)

To contact the subscriptions department by telephone, please ring +44 (0)1778 395 165. Institutional subscriptions are also available for universities, libraries and schools.

Renewing your Subscription?

If you choose to switch your subscription to direct debit –  our best rate – you will receive a set of limited-edition postcards by Children’s Laureate and Literary Review cover illustrator Chris Riddell (while stocks last). Simply enter the code POSTCARD to take advantage of this offer.

Renew your subscription here . Please note: our subscriptions page changed in February 2018. If you subscribed before that, when you visit the renewals page, you will need to click the ‘Find my Account’ tab and enter your details. Your subscription ID can be found on your renewal letters, on the carrier sheet that comes with each issue of the magazine and on the email confirmation received when first subscribing.

Having found your account, please add the subscription you would like. Finally, please register in order to complete the renewal order. And thank you for your patience!

If you cannot find your subscription ID, please contact Warners, our subscription bureau, on +44 (0) 1778 395 165.

Digital Access for Subscribers

If you have a print subscription to Literary Review , you’re entitled to read all the pieces we have online for free. One option is to visit the regularly updated archive on our website. Please make sure you register  before attempting to access the archive. You’ll need your subscription number (beginning E00) and delivery postcode.

Alternatively, you can browse PDF replicas of all back issues for free (an app is also available for this function). To access the PDFs and app, please follow these instructions.

• Go to www.exacteditions.com/print/literaryreview
• Enter your subscription number (beginning E00) and delivery postcode.
• Create an account by entering an email address and creating a password.
• Access to the digital edition is yours.

Lastly, if you would like to read Literary Review solely on web, iOS and other app platforms, please visit Exact Editions .

Giving a Gift Subscription

Gift subscriptions can be sent to UK, European and Worldwide destinations, for 1 and 2 years, or given as a rolling direct debit UK subscription, which offers our best rate . All donors can choose the starting issue of the subscription. When selected, click ‘view basket’ on the top right of the subscription page.

You will then be invited to create an account for subscription. Please be aware that you’ll be asked to enter separate billing details and delivery details.

If you have a discount code, please enter it at the top of the page before choosing your subscription.

Institutional Subscribers

Literary Review offers institutional subscriptions for libraries, universities, places of learning and governmental departments. For further information, please click here .

Institutional subscriptions include: access online and via the  Literary Review  app to all users; access to the full searchable archive going back to the magazine’s inception in 1979; authenticated access (included Shibboleth in the UK); statistical reporting available via the library admin’s account; individual page URLs for bibliographic referencing; full technical support via Exact Editions.

Comments are closed.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i subscribe.

Literary Review subscriptions are handled by our subscription bureau, Warners. You can take out a subscription from Warners by calling them on (+44) 1778 395 165 or via this website . To subscribe, click here and follow the instructions for new subscribers, buying a subscription as a gift, or renewing a subscription, as appropriate.

A subscription to Literary Review includes eleven 64-page issues per year, including a bumper double issue for December and January. In addition, subscribers gain access to the online archive and the Literary Review app , which is available on Apple devices and Kindle Fire

How do I change my subscription address?

To change your subscription address, please contact our subscription bureau, Warners. They can be reached on (+44) 1778 395 165 or email .

How do I access premium content on this site?

Premium content is available to anyone with a valid Literary Review subscription. To access premium content for the first time, click ‘ Register ’ in the header and enter your name, email address, subscription ID (beginning E00) and delivery postcode.

An email will be sent to you containing an activation link which provides you with a secure password.

Please note, your subscription ID and delivery postcode must match those found on your subscription confirmation email or on the carrier sheet that comes with each issue of the magazine.

I’m a subscriber – why can’t I see the content?

Premium content is available to anyone with a valid Literary Review subscription, so it’s a case of clicking ‘ Register ’ and entering your name, email address, subscription ID (beginning E00) and delivery postcode. You can read more about the process here

Once you have signed in to the website, you’ll be able to view all the reviews and back issues.

How do I find my subscription ID?

Your subscription ID can be found on your renewal letters, on the carrier sheet that comes with each issue of the magazine and on the email confirmation received when first subscribing. If you did not receive such an email or cannot otherwise find your subscription ID, please call or email Warners, our subscription bureau, on (+44) 1778 395 165 or email .

Registering on the Literary Review website

To access premium articles on this site, you need to: 1 Purchase a subscription – Subscribe 2 Register on this site – Register

Once you have a Literary Review subscription, register here to view our archive of articles.

You will need to enter: Your Name

Your email address Please ensure this is your correct email address as you will be emailed with further details.

Subscriber Number This is printed on your magazine delivery slip and included in your subscription email after online purchase.

Delivery address postcode This is printed on your magazine delivery slip and included in your subscription email after online purchase.

Once submitted, we will send you a registration confirmation email to validate the email address you have just entered.

Your Registration Confirmation Email

You will receive this email immediately after you have submitted your registration, but please allow up to 20 minutes for it to arrive.

If you do not receive an email from our site, please check that it has not been sent to your spam or junk folders. If so, please mark it as a legitimate email.

Hotmail, Gmail, Googlemail users, please check your Spam or Promotions folders.

The registration confirmation email confirms your username and provides you with a link to set your password. Please click that link.

Setting Your Password

The link in the registration confirmation email will take you to the page on our site to set your password.

You will see that we have already created a password for you. Please copy this or type in a strong password of your own.

Make a note of the password – note that strong passwords are not always easy to remember, so please copy/paste it somewhere safe.

When this is done, click the ‘set password’ button. You will be directed to a page confirming that this has been successfully set.

Once you have set your password, please keep a note of it and sign in here Remember that you can sign in with either your User Name or your Email Address

Sign in to the Literary Review website

If you’ve not yet registered, please read Registering on the Literary Review Website

Once you’ve registered on our site, you can sign in to access the premium articles on our site.

You will need to enter:

Your Username OR your email address You will have a note of your username in the Registration Confirmation Email we sent you after you registered on our site The email address you should use is the one to which the Registration Confirmation Email was sent

Your password This is the password you set during Registration

How do I set my password?

Your password is set as part of the registration process – please read Registering on the Literary Review Website

Once you’ve registered, you will receive a registration confirmation email immediately afterwards, but please allow up to 20 minutes for it to arrive.

How do I change my password?

If you’re looking to change your password, click ‘ Sign In ’ at the top right of this site, and click the ‘lost my password’ link. You’ll be prompted to pick a new password.

I’ve lost my password

You can set a new password easily. Click ‘ Sign In ‘ at the top right of this site, and click the ‘lost my password’ link. You’ll be prompted to pick a new password.

I’ve forgotten my username

Unfortunately, we cannot reset your Username – however, do remember that you can Sign In using your Email Address in this field instead.

My password doesn’t work

Problems with Sign In are usually for the following reasons:

Incorrect Username/Email Address or Password Remember you can sign in using either your Username OR your Email Address. When you enter incorrect details during Sign In , the screen will display relevant error messages to help you resolve the problem – usually this is an incorrect or mismatching Username or Password.

If you are having trouble with your Username, try to Sign In with your Email Address instead.

If your Username/Email Address is correct, then your password you are entering does not match, so you can set a new password .

Your Registration did not complete Perhaps the password on your account was not set? Sometimes after registering, subscribers do not click on the registration confirmation email we automatically send. The quickest way to determine this is to follow the procedure to set a new password .

When you do this, there are two outcomes:

1) You will see a message informing you the Username you entered is invalid, or that we do not have an account matching your email address. In this case, please Register .

2) Your Username or Email Address is registered on our site, and we will send you a notification to your Email Address which includes a link to set a new password.

How do I change my details?

If you’re looking to change your delivery address or update your subscription, contact our subscriptions bureau, Warners. They can be reached on (+44) 1778 395 165 or email .

If you’re looking to correct details previously entered incorrectly when trying to access premium content on this website, such as a subscription ID or a delivery postcode, click ‘ Sign In ’ at the top right of this site and you will be prompted to enter the correct details.

How do I change my subscription ID / delivery postcode for registering?

If you have tried to register for the website and did not have your subscription ID (beginning E00) or delivery postcode to hand, you will be invited to re-enter those details whenever you try to sign in. Simply click ‘ Sign in ’ on the top right of this site and enter the correct details when you have them available.

I can sign in, but cannot view premium articles

Once signed in, please look at your ‘ My Subscription ‘ page to see whether there are any errors.

The on-screen readouts will indicate the problem and advise how to resolve it.

The most common problems are:

Incorrect Subscriber Number Your subscription ID (beginning E00) can be found on your renewal letters, on the carrier sheet that comes with each issue of the magazine and on the email confirmation received when first subscribing.

Incorrect or Mismatching Delivery Postcode The delivery details we have on our records can be fiound alongside your Subscriber Number (above). Please note that this is the postcode for the sddress to which your copies of Literary Review are delivered.

Your Subscription has Lapsed Literary Review subscriptions are handled by our subscription bureau, Warners. You can renew your subscription from Warners by calling them on (+44) 1778 395 165 or via this website .

If your problem does not appear to be caused by any of the above, please email [email protected] and we will do our best to help you.

The Kenyon Review

Spring 2024.

The Spring 2024 issue of The Kenyon Review includes Beth Bachmann ’s 2023 Short Fiction Contest-winning story, chosen by judge Danielle Evans ; fiction by Nick Almeida and Lauren Cassani Davis ; poetry by Fatima Jafar and Marcus Wicker ; and a folio of Literary Curiosities, which features work by Jennifer Chang , J. D. Debris , Summer Farah , Eliza Gilbert , Christine Imperial , Phoebe Peter Oathout , Tega Oghenechovwen , Maya C. Popa , and more. The cover art is a detail of Chitra Ganesh ’s City Inside Her , from the artist’s Architects of the Future portfolio.

From the Issue

From the angelic doctors.

They took their name from Thomas Aquinas, and they beat me within an inch of my life . . . An inch of my life, as if life is distant, […]

Children in the World

he cannot sleep because he wants a story he cannot sleep so I tell him the one story I remember about my mother as a young girl how she sat […]

Adam Mickiewicz

My correspondence with Adam Mickiewicz began in an unusual way. I was living in Moscow again, the city appearing to me each morning as if from behind the curtain of […]

See our print and digital subscription options, all of which include full access to The Kenyon Review archive.

Writers Workshops

We are delighted to offer a range of residential and online programs to support writers at every stage of their writing journey.

Winter Online Adult Writers Workshops

January 28 – March 24, 2023

Residential Adult Writers Workshops

July 7-13, 2024

Young Writers

At Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshops, talented high school students from around the world join a dynamic and supportive literary community to stretch their talents, discover new strengths, and challenge themselves in the company of peers who are also passionate about writing.

Young Writers Winter Online Workshops

January 21 – February 25, 2023

Young Writers Residential Workshops

June 23 – July 27, 2024

From the Archive

Selections from KR ’s history from the editorial team.

Translation

Summer/Fall 1999

By Robert Dana

Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade. —Andrew Marvell, “The Garden” This is the summer of the black rose, the summer of Joseph’s Coat, Boy […]

Summer 1996

Coming Onstage

By Bei Dao , translated by Dian Li

a childhood of blossoming diseases of the word we say no more pace leisurely through life see the ocean behind the fences the seasons in which we have taken rides […]

Autumn 1992

Seven Beginnings

By Olesia Nikolaeva , translated by Paul Graves and Carol R. Ueland

From the Russian. On leaving the city where new buildings, newcomers and the nouveau riches are lords, the desire to make it, to be happy,      to be convinced that hell […]

Submissions

We accept general submissions annually in the month of September and run contests for youth poetry in November, nonfiction in December, and fiction in January.

The Kenyon Review , an international journal of literature, culture, and the arts, is published in March, June, September, and December at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 43022. Since its founding in 1939, it has evolved from a distinguished literary magazine into a nonprofit arts organization. We remain devoted to nurturing, publishing, and celebrating the best writing from around the world.

Make a tax-deductible gift to The Kenyon Review today. The Kenyon Review has been in the heart of literature since 1939, publishing some of the world’s best writing by both new and established authors.

With your support, we’ll continue to cultivate talent and publish extraordinary literature from diverse voices around the world.

Sign up to stay in touch

Thank you for your interest in joining our mailing list. You can choose whether you want to receive all of our mailings, or just a selection by clicking one or more of the checkboxes below. We’re looking forward to being in touch soon!

The 9 best literary magazines in the world right now

This post was published in May 2019. To stay up to date with the latest independent magazine news and reviews, sign up for our monthly email newsletter

Much as we love magazines, a pitfall of many is that the writing inside doesn’t *quite* live up to the art. To redress the balance, we decided to round up our favourite independent literary publications — magazines where the writing is beautiful, and compulsive, and where sometimes, there are no pictures at all.

We are being deliberately vague about the term “literary” here: there are traditional fiction and lit. crit magazines listed, but we’ve also included a sci-fi publication, and a psychogeography title. The only thing that really unites the magazines on this list is that every one is an exceptionally good read.

The White Review

Published in the month the UK was meant to leave the EU, the 24th issue of The White Review invokes the power of black magic. The spell-infused opening essay takes seriously the idea of the sacred, and the supernatural, defining a witch as “one who uses language to cause change in the material world”. You can read that as a statement of editorial intent, as the interviews, poetry and stories in the issue return to this idea of finding language powerful enough to save us, or to somehow cut through. One of the nicest things about The White Review is that it’s academic, and earnest, but at the same time it’s playful. There’s a wicked, witchy element to the art in this issue, too: one of our favourite spreads features a series of latex teats.

The Stinging Fly

An Irish literary magazine of new writing, the latest edition of The Stinging Fly (their 40th) received 982 submissions of short stories alone. The 14 that made the cut are tight and unusually spare. Sally Rooney is a contributing editor, and on these pages there’s an echo of her attention to the minute detail of how we see ourselves and are seen by others. In the very first story in the collection, Harpies, our narrator describes herself: “I am small, brunette, and round. I crouch next to beauties like a full stop. I accentuate.” Usually you can smell the weakness in a story — its bagginess or self-indulgence. Reading The Stinging Fly you get that delicious feeling of surrender; of being in safe hands.

Flaneur presents one street per issue, spending months living in their chosen location — most recently they moved to Taipei – before heading back to Berlin to piece the whole magazine together. They define their approach as “literary” in the sense that it is self-consciously subjective. The picture they build of a street is woven together out of scraps of private correspondence, polaroids, and half-memories. One of our favourite pieces in the last issue, which zeroes in on a street in São Paulo, tells the story of racial segregation in Brazil via a conversation overheard in a lift.

Freeman’s looks like a book but it self-defines as a magazine. “I think a magazine is tracking and engaging with culture,” explains editor John Freeman, who used to head up Granta. “It has an ongoingness, whereas an anthology freezes a moment, perhaps, and puts it in two covers.” The fifth issue is about power: it’s topical, but in a pleasurably sideways way. One of the most beautiful things here is a poem by Julia Alvarez that reimagines Penelope, happy alone, disappointed when Odysseus finally comes home: “He’s back, disguised as an old man/ to test my virtue … I would be rid of him.”

Oxford American

Self-described as ‘a magazine of the South’, the rich, difficult essays in Oxford American come as a surprise. One painful piece in the Spring ‘19 issue is about the propagandic power of plantation houses, and the architecture of white supremacy: “beauty is often a con — a lure … Think of Stalin’s symmetrical Seven Sisters. Think of Vivien Leigh’s face, that dress made of drapes.”

A science fiction magazine funded by the sale of its own delightfully 80s type-face, the first issue of Visions is all about ‘Home’. Interspersed with bright yellow pages of flash-fiction written in collaboration with a computer bot, stories are bizarre, but they also have a quiet, poetic quality. One of our favourite pieces in the issue imagines a future where the whole human race will be homeless, because we will have induced ourselves into “ultra-high frequency radiation, and shone ourselves into the depths of interstellar space”. Another highlight is a dinner-date with a hologram of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Somesuch Stories

The fourth issue of this UK literary journal is themed ‘redemption’, a word editor Suze Olbrich defines as borderline archaic. But the idea of absolution still sticks its pins into us. In a largely secular world, we share what Olbrich calls a “gnarly yearning for liberation from guilt; for forgiveness — for salvation”. It’s a great theme, and while the stories on these pages are uneven, when they’re good, they’re very very good. Like Luke Turner’s beautiful, ambivalent essay on cruising, looking back on encounters he is now old enough to recognise as abusive. And Kieran Yates’ fan fiction about women of colour in popular culture; from Padma Patil, to Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

American Chordata

One of the defining characteristics of New York-based American Chordata is that it looks really good. Mixing short stories and poetry with photography, the pictures aren’t specially commissioned. Instead, art director Bobby Doherty mines the internet for art all year long, and then sets his favourites next to the text in a strange, non-illustrative way, almost like collage. In the most recent issue — AC’s eighth — a short story about a murderess with a twig growing out of her stomach is bookended, sensuously, by a black-and-white image of two teenagers snogging.

Zoetrope: All-Story

Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, Zoetrope was originally conceived as a way to inspire independent movie-making, by providing a space for writers to publish their short fiction and plays. The magazine’s role-call of contributors is ludicrously star-spangled — the rotating guest-designer spot has been filled by Bowie and Lynch, to name only Davids. But what makes this magazine remarkable is how lightly it wears its famous names. Virtually unknown outside literary circles, and boasting just around a thousand Instagram followers, you get the feeling the only thing its editors really care about is the quality of the fiction. Which, of course, is consistently excellent: the latest issue opens with a horrible, wonderful short story about a woman who can only get to sleep when pinned down by the weight of somebody else’s flesh.

More from Literature:

Podcast: James Guerin, Berlin Quarterly

Hear James Guerin, founder of Berlin Quarterly, on why he wants to make things that stay in the world

Sampler: A Void magazine

Literature made more provocative and exciting — order for free shipping now

Still magazine joins Stack

We're excited to welcome the genre-bending literary and photography title

More Roundups:

Independents on the climate crisis

Seven magazines dedicated to the defining issue of our time

Skeuomorphic magazine design

On making magazines that look like other things

Nine tasty food magazines

Fill up on our pick of today's food and drink publishing

Join our magazine club! Subscribe to Stack and every month we'll pick a different independent title and deliver it to your door. You never know what you'll get next...

Jump to navigation Skip to content

Search form

• P&W on Facebook
• P&W on Twitter
• P&W on Instagram

Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

Every week a new publishing professional shares advice, anecdotes, insights, and new ways of thinking about writing and the business of books.

Find publishers ready to read your work now with our Open Reading Periods page, a continually updated resource listing all the literary magazines and small presses currently open for submissions.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.

Find a home for your work by consulting our searchable databases of writing contests, literary magazines, small presses, literary agents, and more.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Get the Word Out is a new publicity incubator for debut fiction writers and poets.

Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.

Let the world know about your work by posting your events on our literary events calendar, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

Find a writers group to join or create your own with Poets & Writers Groups. Everything you need to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other poets and writers—all in one place.

Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.

Search for jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more within our free, frequently updated job listings for writers and poets.

Establish new connections and enjoy the company of your peers using our searchable databases of MFA programs and writers retreats, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

• Register for Classes

Each year the Readings & Workshops program provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops. Learn more about this program, our special events, projects, and supporters, and how to contact us.

The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award introduces emerging writers to the New York City literary community, providing them with a network for professional advancement.

Find information about how Poets & Writers provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops.

Bring the literary world to your door—at half the newsstand price. Available in print and digital editions, Poets & Writers Magazine is a must-have for writers who are serious about their craft.

View the contents and read select essays, articles, interviews, and profiles from the current issue of the award-winning Poets & Writers Magazine .

Read essays, articles, interviews, profiles, and other select content from Poets & Writers Magazine as well as Online Exclusives.

View the covers and contents of every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine , from the current edition all the way back to the first black-and-white issue in 1987.

Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

The Time Is Now offers weekly writing prompts in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. Sign up to get The Time Is Now, as well as a weekly book recommendation for guidance and inspiration, delivered to your inbox.

Every week a new author shares books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired and shaped the creative process.

Listen to original audio recordings of authors featured in Poets & Writers Magazine . Browse the archive of more than 400 author readings.

Ads in Poets & Writers Magazine and on pw.org are the best ways to reach a readership of serious poets and literary prose writers. Our audience trusts our editorial content and looks to it, and to relevant advertising, for information and guidance.

Start, renew, or give a subscription to Poets & Writers Magazine ; change your address; check your account; pay your bill; report a missed issue; contact us.

Peruse paid listings of writing contests, conferences, workshops, editing services, calls for submissions, and more.

Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.

Read select articles from the award-winning magazine and consult the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.

• Subscribe Now

Literary Magazines

• Add Literary Magazine Listing
• Edit Literary Magazine Listing
• FAQ/Criteria
• Contact the Administrator

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff and listed in the Literary Magazines database. Here you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, and contact information—everything you need to determine which publications match your vision for your writing and your writing life. Use the filters below to find magazines with reading periods that are open now or opening soon (within the next thirty days), accept unsolicited submissions, and match all of your criteria for the perfect publisher of your work.

34MAG | 34thParallel Magazine

Your story short or long, fiction or not, novel excerpt, memoir or memo, Netflix screenplay (Barbie spin-off), greatest eX-tweets, etc.

Your poetry, enigmatic Dylan verse, Spotify lyrics, Instagram meme, TikTok haiku (ex-Taylor Swift),...

In some ways it’s ridiculous to rank literary magazines by the number of awards they’ve received, but it still can be useful for writers to figure out where to submit.

(If you’re looking for nonfiction or essay rankings, go to my Ranking of Literary Nonfiction Markets ). 

The list below arranges literary journals in order of how many times they’ve had a short story or special mention in the last eleven years in the Best American Short Stories (BASS). I award a certain number of points for the winners and a lesser number of points for every special mention. Every October I’ll update the page to reflect the new year.

There were seventeen newcomers added to this year’s list, up from twelve newcomers last year. Some of the journals were new, and some have been around quite a well and only now are being recognized by BASS.

If you’d like help with your short story, I offer an editing service that will take your short story to the next level.

From copy-editing to character advice, I give detailed feedback on what’s working and what needs to be improved in your story.

Read more and contact me .

On statistics : statistics is a epistemic methodology prized by our modernistic, science-obsessed world as the primary way to Know Things. The cold hard facts trumps subjective knowledge, right? But I would argue that statistics gives us only a very limited view of the world, and one which necessarily skews “proper” knowledge.

Let me be less philosophical and more practical: Please don’t overestimate the important of the list below. The list below does not tell you whether a literary journal is good or not, it only tells you whether the Best American Short Story editors happened to like the flavor of stories in a literary journal. That, necessarily, is entirely subjective, and I encourage you to discover for yourself the type of fiction each literary magazine publishes, as well as explore the many  excellent  literary journals that don’t appear on this list.

I dislike some “high” level literary journals and really love “low” level literary journals. So while my tastes are not necessarily reflected by the list below, that’s good, because it will force you all, my lovely, devoted readers, to form your own judgments.

For those of you already deep in the literary magazine world, I hope that this Best American Short Story list is one aid among many to help you figure out where to submit and subscribe.

Southern Review and Zyzzyva had great showings this year. Zyzzyva moved from 15 to 11, continuing their upward momentum, and Southern Review moved from 12 to 7.

On the other hand, we had an enormous amount of shut-outs this year.  One Story , American Short Fiction , Atlantic Monthly , AGNI ,  Virginia Quarterly Review and Glimmer Train got completely shut out — not a single point for any of them. Which basically means their fiction didn’t resonate with this year’s editor, Roxane Gay. 

Gulf Coast has moved up a great deal over the past few years, up to a respectable spot more commensurate with their reputation, and Passages North got on the map in a big way, going from zero points to 5 points this year.

Another lit mag that’s worth noting is Fifth Wednesday Journal . They’ve been consistently amassing nods from the BASS editors, and they should be on your radar to submit to.

Also, you accomplished short story writers might be planning on writing a novel next. In that case, I’d recommend you read my post on how to pull off a smashbang novel that lights your reader’s brain on fire .

It’s one of my best posts on storytelling and novel advice, so click that link above.

*If there is an asterisk next to the name, it means that journal is no longer publishing new material.*

Best Literary Magazines Rankings :

Related posts:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

14 comments

You say AGNI got shut out this year, but there it is at #16.

The numbers are from the last ten years. Just because one doesn’t get points this year, that doesn’t mean they drop to zero.

OK. I see. Thank you.

Fairly odd. “The New Yorker” is so very mainstream and so well-known that one is not very enlightened by the ranking. Moreover, their “fiction” is hardly in the same league as their non-fiction…..so when you rank them by “literary,” it’s not clear if you are referring to non-fiction OR fiction. Plus you include book REVIEWS further obfuscating matters. Too, no “New York Review of Books” as long as you’re going to include reviews of books as “literary”; in addition, I don’t see “Partisan Review”. Glad to see “McSweeneys” didn’t make the list: near-pure garbage. As I say, an odd list. Nevertheless, I’ll be checking out some of the them.

Yes, if you’re a writer the biggest acceptance of your short story would be New Yorker. I’m certain the NYRB does not apply to John’s list here, nor do any of them do only book reviews.

Also, thanks for the list John! It’s been useful for my submitting process for the last year plus!

NYRB of course also publishes poetry.

To be honest, I really think No Contact Magazine is one of the best lit mags out there in the game. I find their selection to be very current and their overall brand to be one of the best.

Slice, Redivider, Chicago Tribune, and New York Tyrant do not seem to be publishing anymore and probably warrant an asterisk. Would you consider my journal, The Summerset Review? We have been around twenty years.

Redivider is still going, with a Duotrope listing.

Sincere thank you for working this and other literary lists. We writers are a selfish lot, too happy to scavenge any leads down to the metaphorical bone, and run off without so much as a nod to who actually felled and dressed the meat.

And anyone complaining about the quality of the list. Come on, it’s free. And helpful. And you were too lazy to do it yourself (you know who you are).

Some folks in the comments didn’t bother to read how the list was made… SMH

Chicago Quarterly Review has two appearances and six distinguished stories in BASS between 2017 and 2021–surely that totals more than the 5 they’re given here?

Correction to my earlier comment: Chicago Quarterly Review’s two stories and six honorable mentions in BASS range between 2016 and 2021. (PS they also have two honorable mentions in the 2022 issue)

I believe it’s no coincidence. The publications with the most stories selected for Best American Short Stories are also the magazines available to the masses. If I had to pay for them, I would not be able to subscribe to the top 10. However with various Emagazine formats available via the local public library, I can be a regular reader of the top ranked magazines.

Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Looking to publish? Meet your dream editor, designer and marketer on Reedsy.

Find the perfect editor for your next book

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Best Literary Magazines in 2024

Showing 133 magazines that match your search.

West Branch

Print magazine for Fiction , Poetry , Non-Fiction ,

West Branch is a twice-yearly magazine of poetry and fiction, published by Bucknell University.

Submission guidelines →

👀 Average visits: 1,500,000 /month

🌍 Territory: USA

💰 Submission fee: $0

⏱️ Frequency: 2 times a year

🧑‍💻 Online submissions: Yes

Cimarron Review

One of the oldest quarterlies in the nation, Cimarron Review publishes work by writers at all stages of their careers, including Pulitzer prize winners, writers appearing in the Best American Series and the Pushcart anthologies, and winners of national book contests. Since 1967, Cimarron has showcased poetry, fiction, and nonfiction with a wide-ranging aesthetic.

⏱️ Frequency: 4 times a year

The Shallot: Journal of Mental Health, Art, and Literature

Print magazine for Fiction , Poetry , Short Fiction ,

The Layered Onion is looking for submissions for their publication, The Shallot: Journal of Mental Health, Art, and Literature. The Shallot’s goal is to amplify the voices of artists with lived mental and emotional health experience and accepts poetry and short stories/fiction under 1,001 words. The Shallot is part of The Layered Onion, a social benefit organization dedicated to uplifting the voices of artists with mental and emotional health struggles.

Looking for an editor to polish your manuscript?

The best professionals are already on Reedsy, come meet them. Create your free account to request free quotes today.

Learn more about the Reedsy Marketplace .

Ploughshares

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.

👀 Average visits: 176,000 /month

⏱️ Frequency: 3 times a year

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Online magazine for Fiction , 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.

⏱️ Frequency: 24 times a year

The Gettysburg Review

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 fee: $3

Print & Online magazine for Fiction , Non-Fiction ,

Our editorial mission is to encourage writers, new and established, to take themselves as seriously as possible — to write with as much energy and daring as possible, and to connect their own deepest concerns with the broader social and political environment; that is, to write, while it happens, a history of the present day. We welcome submissions from all writers. If you are considering sending work, please start by reading an issue or two. The best submission guidelines are those implied by the magazine itself.

ZYZZYVA is a critically acclaimed print journal, introducing readers to new work from the best contemporary writers and artists since 1985. Based in San Francisco, we have established a vigorous tradition of finding and fostering new talent, in our backyard and beyond.

🧑‍💻 Online submissions: No

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.

Uncanny Magazine

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

Uncanny Magazine is an online Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine featuring passionate SF/F fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, provocative nonfiction, and a deep investment in the diverse SF/F culture. Each issue contains intricate, experimental stories and poems with verve and imagination that elicit strong emotions and challenge beliefs, from writers of every conceivable background.

⏱️ Frequency: 6 times a year

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

F(r)iction is a triannual publication that boasts work from both industry legends and emerging writers. Each issue is carefully curated to evaluate an important cultural topic from vastly different perspectives. We accept short fiction, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, comics, and poetry submissions all year round, and also host contests featuring guest judges and cash prizes twice a year (each spring and fall). Every piece published in F(r)iction is also accompanied by custom artwork, making our journal a visual odyssey from cover to cover!

🌍 Territory: United States

Chicago Review

Since 1946, Chicago Review has published a range of contemporary poetry, fiction, and criticism.

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

On Spec adheres to a strong mandate that has served us well over the years. We discover and showcase quality works by predominantly Canadian writers and artists, in the genre we call “Fantastic” literature. We foster the growth of emerging writers in this genre, by offering support and direction through constructive criticism, education, mentoring, and manuscript development.

🌍 Territory: CA

Nimrod International Journal, founded in 1956 at The University of Tulsa, has been active in the discovery and publication of new writers for more than 60 years. Nimrod has also encouraged and rewarded new writers for more than 30 years through The Nimrod Literary Awards.

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.

🌍 Territory: Worldwide

💰 Submission fee: $5

Run a literary magazine? Submit it to our directory!

The halls of literary success are paved with authors who got their start appearing in literary magazines — such as Zora Neale Hurston, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Edith Wharton, Ursula Le Guin, J.D. Salinger, George Saunders, Alice Munro, Flannery O’Connor, and many more. 

For centuries, literary magazines have highlighted works that would otherwise struggle to reach readers. Poetry, short stories, essays are all forms of writing that own very tiny shares in the publishing landscape — except in the world of literary magazines, where they reign supreme.

If you’re an aspiring author, submitting to literary magazines is a great way to get your foot into the door of the publishing industry, as it allows you to build up your credentials and reach readers. That being said, having your work appear in a literary magazine isn’t as easy as hitting “submit.” While they can act as a stepping stone for writers who wish to go on to have a career in publishing, you shouldn’t view literary magazines as simply a means to an end — if only because doing so will very likely reduce your chances of ever actually being featured in one of them.

And on that note, let’s get started with our first tip for getting your work featured in some of the best literary magazines out there.

Tips for submitting to literary magazines 

Ensure you’re submitting to the right places.

When you think of literary magazines, your mind might automatically go to The New Yorker . Or it might go to independent webzines that specialize in very niche genres. Maybe you think of university-funded quarterlies like The New England Review . All this is to say that the range of lit mags out there is broad and the kinds of things they publish also ranges — from short lit fic to flash space operas, and everything in between. 

So before you decide to submit your short stories or poetry to a magazine, make sure you do your due diligence and research what kinds of things they publish, and where your work is really a match.

Don’t submit to tons of publications all at one

“Cast a wide net” shouldn’t be your mantra when it comes to submitting to lit mags. As mentioned, all magazines have their own styles. So spending your time ensuring your submissions are targeted at the right places is much more valuable than sending your writing to as many different publications as possible. Editors can usually scout fairly quickly the pieces that have been submitted en masse, without any regard for their specific publication.

Instead, make a list of the magazines you want to submit to and group them into tiers. Tier One can be your top five magazines, Tier Two your next five favorite, and so on. This is not only a good way to make sure you’re giving each submission care and attention, it’s also a good way to make sure you don’t get the same piece of writing accepted by two different magazines, forcing you to pull your submission from one of them.

When it comes to making your list, don’t only consider what magazines have prestige, huge audiences, or hefty cash payouts. The best magazines to submit to are the ones that you actually enjoy reading. Because chances are those are the magazines that are going to be most interested in the kind of things you’re writing.

Keep your cover letter short and to-the-point

Editors are not won over by cover letters. If you’ve written a great story and have publishing credentials to boot, sure, your cover letter might help win them over. But if your submission isn’t strong, your cover letter is going to mean nil. So let your cover letter mention the important bits, make sure it provides any specific information that’s requested in the submission guidelines, and let your entry do the heavy lifting. 

Typically, a cover letter will mention a couple of the previous places you’ve been published as well as any other relevant experience you might have. You can also add a personal touch by mentioning a previous story or issue you particularly enjoyed.

What your letter shouldn’t mention is every place you’ve been published (up to 5 will suffice). It shouldn’t summarize your entry, your life story, or your “writing journey,” and any previous experience you mention should be related in some way to writing, publishing, or your entry.

Thoroughly edit your story — and follow submission guidelines!

An editor is probably not going to banish an otherwise very strong entry to the slush pile because of a misplaced typo. That being said, they have lots of reading to do, and while most editors won’t consciously read an entry looking for reasons not to like it, at the end of the day they can only accept so many pieces. So if you make their jobs easier by giving them a reason to pass on your piece, they’re going to take it. If it’s not adequately proofread, there’s only so long someone can continue reading even the strongest writing before the spelling errors convince them to stop.

Another quick way to convince an editor to pass on your entry is to not follow the submission guidelines. If the guidelines ask you to include specific information or to format your story in a certain way, follow those instructions to a tee. If the guide doesn’t tell you how to format your story, go classic: Arial or Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced. To ensure your submissions look professional, you can always copy and paste them into our free formatting tool, the Reedsy Book Editor !

Editors do want to like your submission

The publishing world is competitive, so it’s natural for authors to stress about all the little details of submitting to a literary magazine — whether to add page numbers to their document, who to address in their cover letter, whether they’ll stand a chance as a brand new author, etc. And while we did just mention that editors generally won’t put up a fight if you give them a reason to pass on your entry, they also won’t toss aside a submission they love just because the full package isn’t 100% perfect.

Remember, editors are looking for quality art they feel is going to resonate with their readers. If you can provide them with that, they’re going to be on your side.

Don’t just do it for the money or prestige

If you’re submitting to lit mags with the hopes of raking in the cash, you are more than likely going to be disappointed. Sure, there are some big-time magazines out there that offer larger paycheques to their writers and widespread readership, but many of them don’t accept unsolicited submissions — or come with extremely steep competition.

Most literary magazines are run on very tiny budgets that can’t afford to pay the writers they feature. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t submit to them. The exposure and credibility an emerging writer can gain from having their work featured across a number of smaller, indie publications are still very valuable and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Have fun — and be proud of what you publish!

Yes, having your work appear in literary magazines can help build up your publishing resume. But if you’re not writing and publishing work you feel really proud of, what’s the point? Readers don’t need more stories that make it into magazines because they follow the right trends or say the right things, we want literature that the author clearly loved writing. 

So, as we mentioned earlier, don’t just submit a piece because you think it’s going to get you somewhere. Submit something because you think it’s strong, unique, and worthwhile. Write and submit work you can proudly stand by! 

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

Save your shortlist

Enter your email address to save your shortlist so that you don't lose it!

By continuing, you will also receive Reedsy's weekly publishing tips and access to our free webinars.

We sent over your shortlist. Thank you for using Reedsy's Magazine Directory, happy publishing! 🙌

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in the Reedsy Book Editor. 100% free.

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved June 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

New Writing on Granta.com

Essays & memoir | issue 167, power metals, nicolas niarchos.

‘The city, which is home to more than 300,000 people, is collapsing into the millions of shallow, square holes that have been cut into the ground.’

Nicolas Niarchos on mineral extraction in Manono, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Fiction | The Online Edition

The material, camille bordas.

‘Rehearsing in front of the mirror was for actors, according to them, not comedians. It was for vain people. A good comedian was the opposite of vain, they said.’

Fiction by Camille Bordas.

Podcasts | Issue 166

Podcast | andrew o’hagan, andrew o’hagan.

‘The world comes down on your head if you don’t tell people what they already believe to be true.’

Andrew O’Hagan on truth, journalism and fiction.

Sinking Town

Amitava kumar.

‘The reality of state capitalism is that it spreads devastation and calls it development.’

Amitava Kumar visits a sinking Himalayan town.

Fiction | Issue 167

Nikki shaner-bradford.

‘We figured some facts might quell the speculation. It was our duty as friends to put her mind at ease.’

Fiction by Nikki Shaner-Bradford.

Granta 167: Extraction

Camilla grudova.

‘“Love is a matter of yeast,” he said.’ A story by Camilla Grudova.

Where the Language Changes

Bathsheba demuth.

‘I am on the hunt for the Russian Empire, or what traces might still exist of its colonial enterprise.’ Bathsheba Demuth travels the Yukon river, following the history of the fur trade and the Nulato massacre.

Nuar Alsadir

‘Boredom is a complicated stink of an emotion, one that is far more layered than we presume.’ Nuar Alsadir on boredom.

Prairie Dogs

Benjamin kunkel.

‘After making sure our guests all had the drinks and/or drugs they required, I put on a Sun Ra record.’ A short story by Benjamin Kunkel.

Drone Wars for Mexico’s Gold Mountains

Anjan sundaram.

‘More than 111,000 people have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years.’ Anjan Sundaram on cartels, conflict and the rate of disappearances in Mexico.

Constructing a Nervous System

Margo jefferson.

Winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize Book of the Year

In this intimate and innovative memoir, Pulitzer prize-winning author Margo Jefferson gives us her own personal and intellectual formation.

From Josephine Baker’s radiant transformations, to Willa Cather’s aesthetics of whiteness, Jefferson shows us how we can find space in cultures that will not make room for us, and how, even in times of stricture, we might learn to construct ourselves.

From the Archive

Essays & memoir | issue 65, a small bengal, nw3, amit chaudhuri.

‘Those who stayed on had their reasons. . . and none of those reasons, it is safe to suppose, had anything to do with an overwhelming attachment to England.’ An essay by Amit Chaudhuri.

Art & Photography | Issue 25

Means of transport, john berger.

‘Use these photos as means of transport. Ride on them. No passes needed. Go close. Imprudently close. They leave every minute.’ John Berger on images of violent dispossession from South Africa and Lesotho.

Essays & Memoir | Issue 8

Sugar daddy, angela carter.

‘However unconsciously, as if that were an excuse, he’d prepared a potentially lethal bed for this daughter’s lover.’ Angela Carter about her father.

Highlights From Granta Books

Sandra newman, £ 18.99, study for obedience, sarah bernstein, £ 9.99, justin torres, £ 14.99, the glutton, a. k. blakemore, the dimensions of a cave, greg jackson, an ordinary youth, walter kempowski, nature's calendar, kiera chapman,rowan jaines,lulah ellender,rebecca warren, every drop is a man's nightmare, megan kamalei kakimoto, £ 12.99, though the bodies fall, noel o'regan, birnam wood, eleanor catton, £ 20.00, sheena patel, £ 8.99, recommended reading, essays & memoir | issue 165, from zanzibar to marbach, abdulrazak gurnah.

‘The tragedies inflicted on the people of East Africa as a result of European rivalries are belittled and forgotten.’ Abdulrazak Gurnah on German East Africa.

Last Week at Marienbad

Lauren oyler.

‘The only thing on the schedule was spa.’ Lauren Oyler on her trip to Marienbad.

Poetry | Issue 162

Ecstatic joy and its variants, peter gizzi.

‘surely this is about water jetting from a spring, / a languid rafting with no particular destination’ Poetry by Peter Gizzi.

Fiction | Issue 111

Missing out, leila aboulela.

‘She had held the day up with pegs; not only her day but his too.’ Fiction by Leila Aboulela.

Subscribe to the Granta newsletters

News, prizes and events, when i sing, mountains dance and chilean poet shortlisted for oxford-weidenfeld translation prize.

When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Sola (trans. Mara Faye Lethem) and Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra (trans. Megan McDowell) are both shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.

Our Share of Night Shortlisted for The Kitschies

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell) is shortlisted for The Kitschies Red Tentacle award, awarded to speculative, sci-fi and fantasy novels.

I’m A Fan Wins a British Book Award

I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel wins the Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards.

• Rights and Permissions
• Job Opportunities and Internships
• Terms and Conditions
• Privacy Statement
• Cookie Policy

Granta magazine is run by the Granta Trust (charity number 1184638)

The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by Granta or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us .

• 12 Addison Avenue
• London W11 4QR
• United Kingdom
• Tel +44(0)20 7605 1360

The login details that you entered were not correct.

Your subscription is no longer active please visit us here to subscribe., please enter the account details that you created whilst subscribing..

Welcome to the Timberline Review

the Timberline Review  is an all-volunteer literary journal published by Willamette Writers. Our focus is on showcasing emerging talent. We are proud to share our new issue of the Timberline Review , available now.

We are proud to announce our 2024 contributors! Find out more here and join us at the launch of issue 13 at the Willamette Writers Conference! The event is free and open to the public. RSVP here .

Submission are open November 1st to December 15th every year. Our editors and readers are currently working on the 2024 issue!

Every issue includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, and artwork. Here are our 2023 Pushcart Prize Nominees:

“She Lived with Cats” by Ruth Q. Leibowitz

“Once Starved, Never Full” by Rene Lytle

“Half Truths Spent at Slipping Rock” by Mary Sweigert

“Wings” by Teresa H. Janssen

“How to Get a Best Friend” by Brenna Twobears

“Standing in Water” by Kathleen Caprario-Ulrich

Find out more about issue 10 in the slider below.

A journal of humanity and human experience

Coming up next

Subscribe now to get our latest issue, featuring the winners of the 2024 blr literary prizes., as featured on npr's morning edition, npr’s neda ulaby reported on  blr ‘s 20th anniversary, featuring  blr editor danielle ofri, along with author celeste ng. long before celeste ng reached stratospheric popularity with  everything i never told you  and  little fires everywhere , she was an emerging author, whose story “girls, at play” appeared in  blr  and then won a pushcart prize., whiting award winner, blr was awarded a whiting literary magazine prize for “excellence in publishing, advocacy for writers, and a unique contribution to the strength of the overall literary community.”, blr off the page.

Writing and the Environment

Off The Page: Cabbages and Kings

Off The Page: Her Marked Black Body

Discover more, ode to impotence.

Thank goodness every so often a monument closes down for renovation…

Her Marked Black Body

The macabre moon / Once lunged at me / It hisses red / Hangs voyeuristically / Wants me to stand in its balkanized light.

Sloth, That Wicked Siren

Why he stopped showering, no one could say for sure, though everyone had their guesses.

Your Quiet Affair

Your affair with Connie Gervais starts the way you imagine most do.

Chronic Care: “Broken Leg” by Keith Carter, Photograph (Toned Gelatin Silver Print 1998)

The girl in black dress and tights stands behind the fawn,/ hands clasped, their white blur forming almost/ a heart.

Dotty Adams remarked that she hadn’t known there were any Jews in the neighborhood. Some people wondered if the men in long black coats and broad-brimmed hats were Goths, like those boys at Columbine.

THIS BE MADNESS

We were out of heroin and broke. Didn’t have pills. Nothing to drink or huff. “I’ve got a plan,” I said. 

Synaptic Space

What happens in that leap/ that in-between, that cleft?

My husband has been into town./ I can smell the out of doors/ in his hair, on his cheek

Praise & Recognition

``With every issue, Bellevue Literary Review probes our understanding of the human body and mind in new ways. It is essential reading for anyone who deals with sickness and health, anyone interested in narrative medicine, anyone who simply needs a dose of deep grace and humanity.”

“The editors have produced a journal of uncommon literary quality.”

“I subscribe and receive literally hundreds of magazines every year. Of all those magazines, none stands out more than Bellevue Literary Review.”

“These two non-fiction pieces in BLR are powerful, honest, and heartrending. They lifted me up because of the truths released onto the pages. Both deal with problems our family is suffering through, so on a personal level, the authors are helping me grapple.”

“BLR's contents are at once practically instructive, and yet intangibly inspiring and utterly gripping. I can’t imagine my work as a writer, or a doctor, without it.”

“After reading it cover to cover, I came away walloped by the breadth and depth of the pain it highlights.”

“No human thing is more universal than illness, in all its permutations, and no literary publication holds more credibility on the subject than Bellevue Literary Review.”

“A kaleidoscope of creativity. . . The selections are unsentimental and often unpredictable.”

“What is most impressive about BLR, though, is how the editors can stretch their own boundaries.”

“Ask any healthcare worker, ask any patient who has come back from illness and fear, and you will hear stories that might change your life. That's what BLR offers.”

“BLR is loyal to its theme but never constrained by it, uncovering boundless tonal and narrative possibilities as it contemplates the body as a physical entity, probes the manifestation of mental illness, or reckons with how the racialized and gendered body is perceived.”

“BLR is open to many modes and styles of work; it has no house style except humanity (though excellent editing doesn't hurt either).”

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• Behind the Mic
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Emergence Magazine
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• The History of Literature
• I’m a Writer But
• Lit Century
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

Ten Debut LGBTQ+ Authors on the Books That Shaped Them As Writers

Jiaming tang, jessie ren marshall, brittany rogers, alana saab and many more reflect on their formative texts, can we reschedule in praise of carl sagan, iconic pothead, gabrielle bellot on the many benefits of marijuana (and a man who was ahead of his time), america’s campus witch hunts are only the second worst thing happening to professors right now , steven w. thrasher on the importance of global academic solidarity, rebecca solnit: the loneliness of donald trump, on the corrosive privilege of the most mocked man in the world, the literary film & tv you need to stream in june, summertime, and the streaming’s easy, may’s best reviewed fiction, featuring new titles by claire messud, colm tóibín, miranda july, and more, 18 new novels you need to read this summer, more light, more books, remembering paul auster, ursula k. le guin on how to become a writer, (step one: write), my mother will live forever in the stories of alice munro, jonny diamond on the timeless genius of canada’s greatest writer, who will finish your manuscript when you die, tessa fontaine on the ways writers can prepare for the worst case scenario, claire messud on writing the past that lives within us, jane ciabattari talks to the author of “this strange eventful history”, here’s your 2024 literary film & tv preview, 53 shows and movies to stream and see this year, lit hub’s most anticipated books of 2024, 230 books we’re looking forward to reading this year, 24 sci-fi and fantasy books to look forward to in 2024, exciting new series’ and standalones from kelly link, lev grossman, sofia samatar, james s.a. corey, and more, we need your help: support lit hub, become a member, you get editors’ personalized book recs, an ad-free reading experience, and the joan didion tote bag, queen christina, lesbian icon on sweden’s delightfully nonconformist monarch.

Eleanor Medhurst Considers the Aesthetic and Practice of Queerness in 17th-Century Europe

How Eva Le Gallienne Revolutionized Early 20th-Century Theater

Barrie Kreinik on Reviving a Queer Icon of the Roaring Twenties

Six Writers on How They Tackle Writer’s Block

Leslie Jamison, Rumaan Alam, and More Discuss Their Strategies

John Kaag on the Bloods, the Little-Known Dynasty that Shaped American Life and Philosophy

The Author of “American Bloods” in Conversation with James Hibbard

On Family Tragedy, Joan Didion’s Parties, and Storytelling: Griffin Dunne on His Debut Memoir

Lisa Liebman Talks to the Actor, Producer, and Director

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Featuring New Titles by Sarah Perry, Carrie Courogen, Joseph O'Neill, and More

June 3 – 7, 2024

• Climate scientists are examining nineteenth century whaling logbooks
• Feisal G. Mohamed looks at the history of Palestinian solidarity
• On San Francisco's AutoErotica, the last bookstore of its kind

to the Lithub Daily

Support lit hub..

Lit hub Radio

News, Notes, Talk

Daily Fiction

From Service

Swift River

From swift river.

“Exit Muse,” a Poem by Zoë Hitzig

“Auld Lang Syne,” a Poem by Michael Lista

Dominic hoffman on finding the music in narration.

In conversation with Jo Reed on Behind the Mic

Furiosa Brings History to the Mad Max Wasteland"> Furiosa Brings History to the Mad Max Wasteland

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

The Best Reviewed Books of the Week

5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week

Ice Cold Reads for a Hot Summer Night

Alejandro Nodarse on Writing a Thriller About the Real Miami

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

• About the News
• Community Standards
• Subscribe or Renew
• Change of address or delivery
• About the e-edition
• Subscriber log-in
• Newspaper / web ads
• Special issues
• Classifieds
• Business & Professsional Listings
• The ‘Redbook’
• Guidelines and Policies
• Classified Ad
• Obituary / Memorial
• Residential Listings
• Business Listings & Advertisements
• Guide To Yellow Springs Listings
• YSHS Senior submissions
• Give your feedback!
• Village Events
• Village Schools Calendar
• Bulldog Sports Schedule
• List your business
• ’Redbook’ online
• Classifieds Online
• Submit a Classified

You must login to comment on articles or post in the forums. Find lost password Register for a free account

In recent weeks, Antioch professor of writing and aesthetics Brooke Bryan has begun the work of reviving some much beloved literary institutions: the Antioch Review as well as the Writers’ Workshop. The first, re-inaugural workshop will be held at Antioch’s campus July 8–12. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)

The Antioch Review and Writers’ Workshop to be revived

• By Reilly Dixon
• Published: June 4, 2024
• No Comments

No comments yet for this article.

The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article. You must login to post a comment.

Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account .

What's New?

Featured photos.

Surround sound: 2018 PorchFest in Yellow Springs

Mudpuppies: children's center visits john bryan pottery, steps to remember, sliding into home, dewine's ducks, board, not bored, aaron's lens - books, street fair fare.

Recent posts

Horror-comedy filmed in Yellow Springs

Tin Can Economy | Home away from home

Request to censure school board member fails

Great Council State Park now open

Street Fair to return Saturday, new focus on waste reduction

Mob mentality

Annual Yellow Springs Strawberry Fest set for Friday

Yellow Springs Film Festival establishes Julia Reichert Award

St. Mary Development Corp. exits low-income housing talks

From the Print

Shop the news, support the news.

Public notices

View all Yellow Springs Public notices.

Quick search…

Ysnews search page, recent comments.

• Don Hubschman on Gregory Lee Hasser
• Don Hubschman on Glen Helen Nature Preserve gears up for annual Ecocamp
• Don Hubschman on Joseph E. ‘Joe’ Lewis
• Don Hubschman on Locals protest firing at Antioch College’s Wellness Center
• Donna Burkle on Ardis Macaulay

• Search by Group
• Search by Event
• Search by Theme
• © 2024 The Yellow Springs News
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy

Remember Me

Forgot your password? Register for a free account

Username or E-mail:

You will receive a new password via e-mail.

Welcome to the new Ploughshares website! To learn more about logging in and what to expect, read here .

Regular Reading Period

Ploughshares welcomes unsolicited submissions of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction during our regular reading period,  open from June 1 to January 15   at noon EST . The literary journal is published four times a year: blended poetry and prose issues in the Winter and Spring, a prose issue in the Summer, and a special longform prose issue in the Fall. Our Spring and Summer issues are guest-edited by different writers of prominence.  To submit to the journal, including the Fall Longform Issue, please see our  guidelines here .

Our Look2 essay series seeks to publish essays about under-appreciated or overlooked writers. The Look2 essay should take stock of a writer’s entire oeuvre with the goal of bringing critical attention to the neglected writer and his or her relevance to a contemporary audience.  To submit a Look2 essay query to the journal, see the  guidelines here .

Emerging Writer’s Contest

In the spirit of the journal’s founding mission, the Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest recognizes work by an emerging writer in each of three genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. One winner in each genre per year will receive $2,000 and publication in the literary journal. We consider authors “emerging” if they haven’t published or self-published a book.  The 2024 contest—judged by Dantiel W. Moniz in fiction, Porsha Olayiwola in poetry, and Augusten Burroughs in nonfiction—has closed. The winners will be announced this fall.

Manuscript Submission

Review cart.

No products in the cart.

Reference Examples

More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual . Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual .

To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of work (e.g., journal article ) and follow the relevant example.

When selecting a category, use the webpages and websites category only when a work does not fit better within another category. For example, a report from a government website would use the reports category, whereas a page on a government website that is not a report or other work would use the webpages and websites category.

Also note that print and electronic references are largely the same. For example, to cite both print books and ebooks, use the books and reference works category and then choose the appropriate type of work (i.e., book ) and follow the relevant example (e.g., whole authored book ).

Examples on these pages illustrate the details of reference formats. We make every attempt to show examples that are in keeping with APA Style’s guiding principles of inclusivity and bias-free language. These examples are presented out of context only to demonstrate formatting issues (e.g., which elements to italicize, where punctuation is needed, placement of parentheses). References, including these examples, are not inherently endorsements for the ideas or content of the works themselves. An author may cite a work to support a statement or an idea, to critique that work, or for many other reasons. For more examples, see our sample papers .

Reference examples are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 10 and the Concise Guide Chapter 10

Related handouts

• Common Reference Examples Guide (PDF, 147KB)
• Reference Quick Guide (PDF, 225KB)

Textual Works

Textual works are covered in Sections 10.1–10.8 of the Publication Manual . The most common categories and examples are presented here. For the reviews of other works category, see Section 10.7.

• Journal Article References
• Magazine Article References
• Newspaper Article References
• Blog Post and Blog Comment References
• UpToDate Article References
• Book/Ebook References
• Diagnostic Manual References
• Children’s Book or Other Illustrated Book References
• Classroom Course Pack Material References
• Religious Work References
• Chapter in an Edited Book/Ebook References
• Dictionary Entry References
• Wikipedia Entry References
• Report by a Government Agency References
• Report with Individual Authors References
• Brochure References
• Ethics Code References
• Fact Sheet References
• ISO Standard References
• Press Release References
• White Paper References
• Conference Presentation References
• Conference Proceeding References
• Published Dissertation or Thesis References
• Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis References
• ERIC Database References
• Preprint Article References

Data and Assessments

Data sets are covered in Section 10.9 of the Publication Manual . For the software and tests categories, see Sections 10.10 and 10.11.

• Data Set References
• Toolbox References

Audiovisual Media

Audiovisual media are covered in Sections 10.12–10.14 of the Publication Manual . The most common examples are presented together here. In the manual, these examples and more are separated into categories for audiovisual, audio, and visual media.

• Artwork References
• Clip Art or Stock Image References
• Film and Television References
• Musical Score References
• Online Course or MOOC References
• Podcast References
• PowerPoint Slide or Lecture Note References
• Radio Broadcast References
• TED Talk References
• Transcript of an Audiovisual Work References
• YouTube Video References

Online Media

Online media are covered in Sections 10.15 and 10.16 of the Publication Manual . Please note that blog posts are part of the periodicals category.

• Facebook References
• Instagram References
• LinkedIn References
• Online Forum (e.g., Reddit) References
• TikTok References
• X References
• Webpage on a Website References
• Clinical Practice References
• Open Educational Resource References
• Whole Website References