There are so many literary journals out there, and this page (formerly titled “The Write Goals”) is the beginnings of a database I’m creating to help me organize which stories to send where. I try not to send a story somewhere without having skimmed through the magazine’s back issues, so I’m going to take notes on the stories I read as well as their submission guidelines. When I receive their responses to my stories, I will also post their feedback (but only if it is unique) on here.
Calling the zany, the thought-provoking, the humorous, and the quirky—we want to read your writing! The Offbeat, a literary journal specializing in undisputedly unique works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and sequential art, is accepting submissions. We cater to the bizarre, the whimsical, and the outlandish. Show us writing that falls off the beaten path in an intriguing way!
- Fiction: 4000 words
- Simultaneous Submissions: Yes
- Payment: None
- Reading fee: $3.00
- Found via The Review Review Calls for Submission
- No free back issues; print purchase of magazine only. Bahumbug.
- University of Michigan magazine
There are groups of us, in pockets all around the world, whose tastes lean a bit towards the absurd. Odd interactions fascinate us; our curiosity is piqued by those who push boundaries. We think it is in these situations where life really gets interesting. We want the many facets of your eccentricities to come together to create a publication catered toward the bizarre, the whimsical, and the outlandish.
Date Submitted: “What Counts” December 28 2016
Date Submitted: “What Counts” November 22 2016
At Driftwood Press, we are actively searching for artists who care about doing it right, or better. Driftwood Press is a quarterly literary magazine founded in Tampa, FL in 2013. We strive to provide our readers with the highest quality content. This includes fiction, poetry, photography, graphic narrative, literary criticism, and interviews. We are excited to receive your submissions and will diligently work to bring you the best in literary and artistic excellence. Our first issue was released on January 6th, 2014.
- Fiction: 100-4000 words
- Simultaneous Submissions: Yes
- Payment: None
- Reading fee: $3.99
- Premium Response time of less than a week $4.99
- Found via The Review Review Calls for Submission
- Free online back issues
- Acceptance rate is 4%
Driftwood Press accepts a wide-variety of literary fiction with a focus on symbols and themes. While our preferred style of prose is stream of consciousness, we appreciate anything from hybrid fiction to experimental works, from realism to absurdism, contemporary noir, minimalism or anything of literary merit. Some of our favorite authors are John Updike, William Faulkner, Don Delillo, John Steinbeck, Will Christopher Baer, George Saunders, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. We stray away from young adult, fantasy, romance, novel chapters, and mainstream mystery fiction.
Read Volume 1.4
- Cover art is a murky water colour city scene
- Waiting for the Hearse by Craig Cochran is the opening poem and wow. It’s very real, and much darker than I anticipated. “It took that sombitch one hour to kill/ the girl, but it took the state/ ten years to return the favor” (Cochran, 1, 2014).
- Fiction: “Exhumed” by Chris Kuriata. First person perspective about narrator’s wife being concerned with a “brutal” (Kuriata, 79, 2014) man who is introduced destroying a bird’s nest filled with babies. The babies get eaten by a cat. Later we find out that the man owns a cat. Wonderful characterization of the neighbor and obvious themes of death/mortality/bad hearts/negligence emerging. I see what they mean when they prefer theme strong work. Very dark indeed. It’s too bad they don’t accept creative nonficiton.
Date submitted: None. I’m going to wait until I have something darker to submit (pedophile story or suicide story but more fleshed out and themey).
Eastern Iowa Review aka Port Yonder Press
Most journals and reviews want a story; we want magic in the language & fire in the flow, a show to impress over drama to incite. Please stretch your lyrical wings. Give us the beautiful, the musical, even the odd & quirky. Think Annie Dillard meets Gertrude Stein.
- Longform lyric essay: 2000-10,000
- Short Lyric Essay: 500-1999
- Simultaneous Submissions: accepted
- Reading Fee: none or $3.50 to have it read in 3 weeks
- Reading months: October-March
- No identifying info in the submission
- Payment: Contributor copies
- Include a short 50 word bio in the space allowed on the Submittable form
- “Family friendly” and avoid “illnesses,” “relationship problems.”darkness for darkness’ sake.” Ha this may not be the place for me.
We would like to see the gentle or redemptive or calm within the honest, the light of the flame within the darkness; and though the flame may burn at times, show us the blue streaks within the flame, the pink of the scars, and what the healing means to you, not how loudly you screamed at the touch.
What we seek: Place-based themes, literary vitality, moral consequence, the sharply beautiful and achingly honest but without a lingering on the darkness. Your submission should be considered “crossover” work: that is, suitable for most ages, though certainly not dumbed down or soft or overtly religious works.
Date Submitted: “Contagious” December 28 2016.
- Thanksgiving story about invitro fertilization. Very realist. Very slow. Not my style at all.
Story read: Burial by Colleen Kolba. Very short. I’m not quite sure what to make of this one–if it’s satire or meant to be taken as speculative fiction.
We look for beautifully crafted narrative mindscapes that move us with their linguistic, emotional expanse and powerful imagery, We wish to witness the manner in which the absence finds its presence by wringing the silence. All this, however, with a certain aesthetic humility.
- Simultaneous submissions: yes
- Fiction: 3 at a time max 3000 words total. No non-fiction–too bad.
- Response time: within 10 days
- Reading fee: none
We admire all forms of experimental, hybrid and avant-garde literature, collaborative writings, visual and graphic outpourings – anything that literature is capable of. Our primary interest lies in works which inspire an active cathartic response, and not a sentimental passivity. To achieve this end, we seek poetry and prose where imagination, symbolism, metaphors, lexical ingenuity and a strong imagery guide reality to examine the creative chaos beyond its straitjacket cliff.
Date Submitted: “The Fly” submitted January 2 2017
Previous submission: Flash fiction “Flight”
The first priority of The Wax Paper is to expand our understanding of the people we share the world with, and in doing so, expand our understanding of ourselves. Pieces will be selected on their ability to illuminate the humanity and significance of the subjects that inhabit the work.
- Simultaneous Submissions: Yes
- Response time: within 4 months
- Word count: not available
Story Read: The Keening by Scott McClelland
- I LOVED this story. It’s written in non traditional form. The whole thing is dialogue without any dialogue tags between a father and his two kids about the death of their mother. Written in Irish dialect as well to give it character. So good
Story Read: Another Form of English
- An older gentleman in his mother obsess over crossword puzzles and “Word Golf” from a Nabakov novel.
Work that require[s] patient observation, remained steadfast in its empathy, and displayed genuine vitality.
Date Submitted: What Counts January 2 2017
- $3.00 reading fee
- Brand new magazine
- Spring and fall issues
- Previously unpublished work including things published on blogs
- Simultaneous Submissions: Yes
We’re looking for work that resists or subverts established forms and genres.
Date Submitted: “Contagious” January 2 2017.
Thrice Magazine
The main thing Thrice Fiction means to feature is the forms fiction can take. So along with the more standard, straight-up, rote, causative stories that go from A to B to C, there will always be the form benders. Is it poem or is it short story? Is it recognizable at all? Does it tip a hat toward the phenomenon of flash fiction? The answers are; who cares? Does it have to be? And why not? Respectively.
- Simultaneous: Yes, but identify it as such
- Reading fee: no
- Reading period is over as of two days ago. Poop!
The next submission start date is April 1st 2017.
funny, weird, what-the-eff-stories
- SS: Yes
- Double space, times new roman 12
- Word Count: 2000 or below
- Payment: no
- First 50 words of your story part of the submission guidelines to get their attention
Story read: “One, Two, Three…Four Hundred Words Exactly” by Zan Bockes
- First person narrative (likely exactly 400 words) about a guy writing an essay on OCD who has OCD. Meta. It was quirky, but I didn’t get a whole lot out of it. I wish I was funny.
Submission Date: None. I’ve previously submitted “A Love Story” to them. This was their response:
Dear Kat,
- Open to Bachelor/graduate students
- SS: accepted
- $3.00 reading fee
- Word count: 5000 max
- No genre fiction
- “Please provide a cover letter—no longer than one page—including: a brief bio; the name of the college or university you attend and your degree program or major; your contact info: and a brief statement about why your submitted work is a good fit for Mistake House.”
- Really well-written, and very realist. It’s about the son of a failing musician.
Date Submitted: What Counts Jan 2 2017
To those who heed the call of the woods, kick off your boots and settle in
- Reading period Jan 1st to 31st
- Double-spaced
- 2500 words max
- No reading fee
- Three month response time
I perused the current issue, and I’ve found nature imagery in almost every post. It’s a lovely modern magazine, but I don’t have a piece ready for it.
We are an online journal with a mission: To produce a great product, promote well-wrought, unpredictable, and entertaining literature, and, above all, to provide an accessible, writer-friendly platform. We understand how difficult it is, as writers, to navigate the literary realm—in a world of increasingly common “submission fees,” lengthy response times, and standardized declines, The Indianola Review is setting itself apart from the pack. We don’t charge for standard submissions and never will, nor will we send you emails asking for money. If writers pay us for submissions, using our premium categories, we’ll provide unheard of benefits—96-hour response times, for example. We discover writers from our submissions pool, not from our list of friends or back-room solicitations. The Indianola Review exists to serve writers and provide a valuable and worthwhile literary experience.
- No submission fees
- 8 week response time
- 5000 words max
- Double spaced, page numbers, and contact info on first page
- Simultaneous Submissions accepted
- Word count in top right corner
We want original, unpredictable fiction with vivid characters that experience conflict throughout a purposeful, precisely wrought plot. If you decide to break this rule and you do it well, we want that even more.
Piece read: Inheritance by Sara K. Stephens
“I am not a good mother.
I am a great mother. Daughters don’t leave mothers like me.” Love that. Wow. This is a short piece, but so, so powerful. Just wow. It all comes back to the title.
Submission: “What Counts” Jan 12 2017
- They do not accept simultaneous submissions. Too bad.
We seek original literary poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from emerging and established writers. We are open to all styles and subjects. Our main criterion is excellence in any form it takes… We are particularly interested in stories that exist for the sake of character and atmosphere.
- $2.00 Submission fee
- 7000 word max
Read: Hotel Sisyphus by Andrea Nolan
- Really enjoyed this story. It’s long, but so well written. It’s set in Mexico and the protagonist is a drifter caring for an abandoned hotel. There’s only about one line of dialogue in the whole thing. The structure is similar to my old man story, but the darkness is similar to my serial killer story. I’m not sure which would be better suited.
Date Submitted: “The Fly” Jan 13 2017
WritingPun 
I seriously loved reading your list! Very inspiring and I plan to publish my own writing goals^^
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