15 Magazines That Will Boost Your Writing Career
Top Tier Magazines with all the fixings based on Katherine E. Standefer's latest in Lit Mag News
Not everyone is trying to make writing their career. Not everyone is just writing as a hobby. Most people, I suspect, are somewhere in between. But if you're aiming to make writing a career, and don't have the money or time for an MFA, it can be hard to know what the path might look like.
That's why I love essays like Katherine E. Standefer's latest in Lit Mag News: How Literary Journal Publishing Built My Career. It's loaded with great advice that I won't repeat here because, if you're interested, it's worth a read. But I thought it would be nice to highlight the magazines she mentions in it. She attributes her writing career (as a nonfiction author) to publishing in these magazines.
Before Chill Subs, that was how I found submission opportunities. I didn’t have an MFA, mentor, or group of active writing friends. Instead, I read these sorts of articles, pulled the magazine's names from them, then researched them to see if they fit my work. So that's what I've done here for you. Katherine is a nonfiction writer, but most of these magazines also accept poetry and fiction.
As a related tip, this is similar to other ways I've found magazines I like. Rather than only exploring magazines, I found writers I enjoyed that had similar vibes to my work then stalk their literary bios to find publications I might want to check out.
I've gone a step further today with the information (and will do this from now on with paid lists) and pulled not just fees, but what fees are by genre. For poetry/flash, the number of pieces they take are in parenthesis. I also made note of their response times, founding date and country, popularity on Chill Subs, their social media presence, how to submit, whether they nominate for prizes, and any other information I have (for example, if they are listed on Erika Krouse's Top 500 Fiction Markets). I will continue to add more and more information to these paid lists as we collect it, making them more and more comprehensive.
Any important information on reading period details, I snagged fresh from their guidelines today.
Click any of the magazine’s names to be redirected to their guidelines. As to acceptance rates, for this list you are looking at 1-3% rates (sometimes much less).
This is one of our paid subscriber lists this month. Our paid subscriptions are what give us the ability to gather all of this information and maintain our database. If you have the means, you can upgrade here.
Of course, we are always happy to comp those in need, just let us know. Our next free list will be Monday (Sep. 4th).
Ninth Letter
Ninth Letter is a US-based magazine founded in 2004 that charges fees, pays writers and responds within 120 days. — The award-winning literary arts journal edited and produced by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The journal's mission is to present original literary writing of exceptional quality, illuminated by cutting-edge graphic design. [CS Listing]
Genres [Fiction. Flash. (3) Nonfiction. Poetry. (3)]
$3 fee for all genres for print submissions (open now)
Accepts submission for print publication from August 15 - February 28th. Submission fees are waived during the month of December or until we hit our cap of 300 submissions per genre.
Authors whose work is selected for this issue will receive a small honorarium ($25 per poem, $75 per story or essay)
They nominate work for Pushcart, BOtN. Our records show that they are active on social media. They are in the Top 1% of most popular magazines on Chill Subs. They are well-established on social media (20K+ following) (Listed in Erika Krouse's Top 500 Fiction Magazines). They accept simultaneous submissions. Submit via Submittable.