I make these closing lists twice a month and every damn time, the song “Closing Time,” plays in my head.
Sometimes, my partner asks me, “Don’t you wish you could just pull your brain out and wash it sometimes?”
Yes, yes, yes I would like to wash that fucking song out of my head.
If I’ve said this before, I’m sorry, I can’t remember, I’m too busy trying to get the voices in my head to agree — one voice singing, …you don't have to go home but you can't stay here... The other, screaming.
All of the magazines below close by January 31st (some sooner). I’ve included descriptions, genres, pay & fee info, and founding date.
Some highlights:
I keep getting a ‘your connection is private’ warning for Defunct Magazine, so I am not sure if they are still accepting submissions. Irony pending. Please let me know if you have this issue.
Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is a new mag. The editor reached out before they were listed and seems like they’re off to a good start. Nice website, paying what they can.
Gorgeous design alert: Gigantic Sequins. Love their website and vibe. So clean and pretty.
Ploughshares and The Paris Review (for poetry only), are closing soon for all of you out there who love rejection letters.
Astrolabe pushed their reading period to March so they were nixed from this list but still love them for putting so much effort into their designs.
Wigleaf is closing. It’s a tippy-top spot of flash with a no-bullshit design.
Ecotone opens on the 16th and closes on the 31st. They are a top tier spot with a taste for eco lit. Finding their submission guidelines is annoying though. They’re under ‘About’ and then to the left-hand navigation.
Loads more great mags, some of my favorites, are closing this month. A lot of good places have limited windows like this at the beginning of the year so be sure to check out several as you peruse. ANMLY, Zhagaram, Salt Hill, and so on and so on.
We have a workshop coming up this Sunday (January 21st) for anyone who is trying to grow their own newsletter (or Substack ^^).
Start a Newsletter to Supercharge Your Platform, Network & Business with Courtney Kosak
It’s 1PM-4PM EST. Three hours packed with info, tricks, tips, and all that fun stuff.
Courtney will share her advice for planning clickable and shareable content, sustainable editorial strategies, and cultivating a dedicated online community. Learn more here.
**CLOSING TODAY**
(Jan 15, 2024) The Bond Street Review, a PDF-only journal of new poetry and flash fiction since 2011, is published bi-annually (in January and July) through the Ink Publications website and mailing list. • Accepts - Poetry, Fiction, Flash Fiction • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2011
(Jan 15, 2024) We are a small literary magazine that embraces the mania. Give us your favorite 3 am works. Sleep deprived and living off of caffeine or otherwise. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art, Photography • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2022
(Jan 15, 2024) great weather for MEDIA focuses on the unpredictable, the fearless, the bright, the dark, and the innovative. We publish solo poetry collections, plus a yearly anthology of poetry and prose selected from open submission. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Flash CNF, Poetry, Hybrid • Fee: none • Pay: $10 • Founded in 2012
(Jan 15, 2024) an online, free access literary journal published by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) • Accepts - Poetry, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Flash CNF • Fee: none • Pay: none
(Jan 15, 2024) Passager (passage + passenger) is a small, independent literary press and journal whose mission is to publish the work of older writers, encourage the imagination in the later stages of life, and create beautiful and welcoming publications. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 1990
(Jan 15, 2024) Defunct is a celebration of what is over, & what isn’t yet. We’re mourning. We’re functioning. Let’s show the world what we want & need through what we’ve lost. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Review, Translation, Wtf is genre, send anything • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2010
(Jan 15, 2024) miniskirt is a destination for love & romance. we want your flirtations, your short & sweet confections. we adore romcom, but if you’ve got something dramatic, send that our way too! • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Flash CNF, Poetry, Art, Photography • Theme - Issue 27 • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2021
(Jan 15, 2024) Philly Poetry Chapbook Review (PCR) is an online home for literary journal dedicated to chapbooks, specifically poetry. • Accepts - Review • Theme - Call for submissions: poetry chapbook reviews, craft essays, and author profiles. • Fee: none • Pay: $10 • Founded in 2023
(Jan 15, 2024) At 34 Orchard, we like dark, intense pieces that speak to a deeper truth. We’re not genre-specific; we just like scary, disturbing, unsettling, and sad. • Accepts - Fiction, Poetry • Fee: none • Pay: $50 • Founded in 2019
(Jan 15, 2024) A good-looking biannual black & white indie literary arts journal that has been in print since 2009. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art, Comics • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2009
(Jan 15, 2024) A new quarterly, print and digital magazine, based out of the University of East Anglia, dedicated to creative nonfiction. • Accepts - Nonfiction • Fee: 3 • Pay: Yes • Founded in 2019
(Jan 15, 2024) Brand-new digital literary magazine for ages 13-19 to submit. We are interested in hearing anything you have to share! We do not have any examples yet, but we want to make the cutest (and most efficient, of course) design possible and will share progress as we go! • Accepts - Wtf is genre, send anything • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 15, 2024) Looking for 100 word stories or 150 for a weekly publication. • Accepts - Flash Fiction, Micro Fiction • Theme - None. Literally couldn't care less. • Fee: none • Pay: $5 per piece • Founded in 2023
(Jan 15, 2024) Since 1971, award-winning journal at Emerson College discovering fresh voices in contemporary literature. Published four times a year; new writing daily on blog. • Accepts - Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: Yes • Founded in 1971
*"There is a $3 service fee for online submissions (current subscribers may submit online without charge*). This is not a reading fee." - take that as you will
(Jan 15, 2024) A poetry magazine that primarily focuses on tiny poems + tiny issues (3-4 times per year). • Accepts - Poetry • Theme - Blue • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2021
**CLOSING AFTER TODAY**
(Jan 20, 2024) Vernacular is anything that reveals a sense of place. The informal city. The local and the vulgar. • Accepts - Hybrid • Theme - Place and the Informal City • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 20, 2024) Arboreal Literary Magazine features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art by diverse creators from around the globe. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Art, Photography, Humor, Comics • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2022
(Jan 20, 2024) if you're a student-athlete, submit anything about your training, sports updates, or whatever's on your mind • Accepts - Nonfiction, Interview, Photography, Wtf is genre, send anything • Theme - Sports & Athletics • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 21, 2024) At Cease, Cows we want to explore the contemporary, the strange, the big questions. We want to feel cultural pulses, expose mental arteries, bathe in both the sanguine and sanguinary. We want to publish prose with fire and truth. • Accepts - Micro Fiction, Poetry • Fee: $2 • Pay: none • Founded in 2013
(Jan 21, 2024) A literary magazine for Middle Eastern/South West Asian North African writers & artists. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art • Theme - Middle Eastern/South West Asian North African literary and visual arts • Fee: none • Pay: $20 • Founded in 2023
(Jan 22, 2024) An international, multidisciplinary literary arts journal that fosters working relationships between faculty, students, and published artists in order to engage its annual theme with care and reflective insight.
• Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Review, Video, Audio, Play, Art • Theme - Design and Devotion • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 1927
(Jan 25, 2024) Washington Square Review, an award-winning journal of new fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, translations, and interviews, is published biannually by the students and faculty of the NYU Graduate Creative Writing Program. • Accepts - Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 1996
Beneath the Mask Literary Magazine
(Jan 25, 2024) Beneath the Mask is a creative magazine that reveals one's unfiltered self. We aim to highlight artists, ranging from ages 11-23, by creating a landing platform for their unrestricted creativity and diverse voices. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Flash CNF, Poetry, Art, Humor, Wtf is genre, send anything • Theme - Monotone • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 26, 2024) Divinations Magazine is a literary publication for writers of the future. With a focus on horror and the uncanny, each issue will feature original fiction, non-fiction and poetry. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry • Theme - Siren • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) an international journal to share the spirit of haiku • Accepts - Poetry, Nonfiction, Flash CNF • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2018
(Jan 31, 2024) Masque & Spectacle is a bi-annual arts and literary journal. We publish all forms of creative writing, including hybrid works, drama, literary journalism, and essays, as well as visual art, photography, video, sound art, and reviews. • Accepts - Fiction, Poetry, Play, Nonfiction, Review, Art, Video, Audio • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2014
(Jan 31, 2024) Mysterion is an ezine of Christian-themed speculative fiction. We seek quality speculative fiction with Christian characters, themes, or cosmology. • Accepts - Fiction, Art • Fee: none • Pay: Yes
Arts & Letters: A Journal of Contemporary Culture
(Jan 31, 2024) Arts & Letters is Georgia College's MFA literary journal. We publish the best fiction, poetry, cnf, and drama from emerging and established talent. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid • Fee: $3 • Pay: $10 per page • Founded in 1999
(Jan 31, 2024) We publish well-crafted poems, whether in free verse or in traditional forms, poems grounded in the specific, which speak in fresh language and telling images. • Accepts - Poetry • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2005
(Jan 31, 2024) connecting young spirits and a plethora of narratives together, forming a beautiful piece of shared dreams and musings x • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Review, Interview, Art, Photography, Wtf is genre, send anything • Theme - Passion • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(February 1, 2024) We publish consciousness-forward fiction and thought. Send us short stories, creative non-fiction, critical essays, autotheory, and novel extracts in the revolutionary spirit of High Modernism. We want the most fearless, risk-adept writing we can find. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Review, Interview, Translation, Art, Photography, Play, Wtf is genre, send anything • Theme - Issue Four General Submissions • Fee: none • Pay: $10 • Founded in 2022
(Jan 31, 2024) Mt. Hood Community College's magazine of the arts is edited, designed, and published by students at Mt. Hood Community College. Each issue runs 200+ pages and includes photography, visual art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art, Photography • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 1969
(Jan 31, 2024) Every spring, RBR publishes work from Pitt Community College students, faculty, staff, alumni, and anyone who supports the mission of the North Carolina community college system. RBR accepts short stories, poetry, flash fiction,creative nonfiction and visual art. • Accepts - Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Art • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2016
(February 1, 2024) An international journal of literature and the arts. We provide a platform for works of art that challenge conventions of form and format, of voice and genre. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Flash CNF, Poetry, Hybrid, Translation, Comics, Video, Game, Wtf is genre, send anything • Fee: $3 • Pay: Yes • Founded in 2010
(Jan 31, 2024) A magazine of poised prose, precarious poetry, and photography to pilot our own realms again. • Accepts - Flash Fiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Art, Photography • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2016
(Jan 31, 2024) The global online literary platform for high school students. We invite high school students worldwide to submit creative writing, join our editorial staff, write blog posts, take workshops, and grow into leadership roles. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2004
(Jan 31, 2024) The Zhagaram Literary Magazine is a publication aimed at publishing culturally-rooted literature and art. Founded in Bangalore, the Garden City of India, we are open to submissions from writers all around the world. Give us a glimpse of your heritage. • Accepts - Poetry • Theme - Mythical Mosaics • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) A biannual literary journal publishing outstanding new fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and art by people at various stages in their literary and artistic careers. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Review, Art, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: none
(Jan 31, 2024) Where The Meadows Reside is an art collective weaving various mediums for the pursuit of exploration and uncertainty. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art, Photography, Wtf is genre, send anything • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) Quarterly literary magazine founded in 1953 • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: Yes • Founded in 1953
(Jan 31, 2024) Poetry Northwest was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, Nelson Bentley, and Edith Shiffert (“Far Eastern”) as co-editors. • Accepts - Nonfiction, Poetry, Review • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 1959
(Jan 31, 2024) online literary magazine that publishes, promotes, and comments on art and writing in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the world • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art, Photography • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2011
(Jan 31, 2024) Change Seven is an online literary journal. We seek to publish the best available fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, book reviews, and more from both established and emerging talents. • Accepts - Poetry, Hybrid, Fiction, Nonfiction, Photography, Art, Video, Audio • Fee: none • Pay: none
(Jan 31, 2024) The Bookends Review is an independent creative arts journal dedicated to bringing you the best original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, essays, book reviews, and visual/musical works from around the world. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Interview, Art, Audio, Video • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2012
(Jan 31, 2024) A biannual perfect-bound journal of poetry and art. • Accepts - Poetry, Photography • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2008
(Jan 31, 2024) Our longstanding mission is to seek out and share work of fresh and lasting power, poems that speak startling, complicated, necessary truths and that do so in surprising and beautiful ways. • Accepts - Poetry, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 1950
(Jan 31, 2024) Inner Worlds is a quarterly digital zine of speculative stories about how we experience our selves and our world. • Accepts - Fiction • Fee: none • Pay: £0.01 per word • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) Hellbender Magazine—formerly Cheat River Review—is a home for fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art • Fee: none • Pay: none
(Jan 31, 2024) We accept original, previously unpublished poetry (your personal website/blog/social media do NOT count). • Accepts - Poetry • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) Brink is an in-print literary journal publishing hybrid, cross-genre work of creatives residing outside traditional artistic communities and disciplines. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: $25-$100 • Founded in 2021
(Jan 31, 2024) Open All Year | Free submissions 1st week of every month | Fast response and Editorial Feedback available | We pay $55 • Accepts - Poetry • Theme - Love & Sex • Fee: none • Pay: $55 • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) Space and Time Magazine has been putting the best speculative fiction and poetry in ink for over five decades—a must-read for fans of speculative word. • Accepts - Fiction, Poetry, Translation, Art, Comics • Fee: none • Pay: see Genres section for details • Founded in 1966
(Jan 31, 2024) We feature stories under 1000 words. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2008
(Jan 31, 2024) A biannual magazine that seeks to reimagine place. Published by UNC Wilmington's Department of Creative Writing. AWP Small Press Publisher Award winner | ASME Award for Fiction Finalist. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Nonfiction, Flash CNF, Poetry • Fee: $3 • Pay: $100-$0 • Founded in 2005
(Jan 31, 2024) As an organization for cultural omnivores, we aim to nurture experimentation in the arts and encourage broad-mindedness and cultural inclusion. • Accepts - Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry, Art • Fee: none • Pay: $15 per piece • Founded in 2013
(Jan 31, 2024) A Nashville-based national magazine of literary arts, faith and culture. • Accepts - Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translation • Fee: none • Pay: see Genres section for details • Founded in 2016
(Jan 31, 2024) Fruitslice is a grassroots quarterly publication highlighting and archiving the 'goings-on' in the hearts and minds of queer artists. • Accepts - Wtf is genre, send anything • Theme - Platonic Love and Chosen Bonds • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
(Jan 31, 2024) abducted cow magazine is a magazine highlighting the weird and quirky! • Accepts - Wtf is genre, send anything • Fee: none • Pay: none • Founded in 2023
Thank you for doing this! Off to wash my brain out now....
So helpful! I'm thinking of submitting a sci-fi/philosophical story soon, so I'm keeping an eye out for submission opportunities. Thanks for this. :)