The Hard As Fuck Lit Mag List: Breakfast Sandwich featuring Andrea. A Firth

13 highly competitive literary magazines that are killing it. (The Sub Club List #8)

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For this week’s Sub Club, I asked one of our favorite writers and lit mag resources, Andrea A. Firth, to give us some tips on submitting (and getting accepted) to hard as fuck magazines. 

We’re also making this week’s Sub Club List open for everyone. Because, hey, why not? But if you’d like to support the work we do here, you can upgrade to a paid membership or become a Sub Club Member.

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Let’s start with a question: How do you know if a literary magazine is hard as fuck to get published in? Well sometimes you just know—like The Sun and Granta for the CNF’ers, and Ploughshares and Paris Review for the fiction writers, and for the poets, well there’s Poetry and The American Poetry Review. (If you aren’t reading a couple of the H-as-F journals in your genre(s), start now—It’s the best way to learn what top-tier journals publish and if your work fits.)

The list of hard as fuck lit mags runs deep. To find them, check out the annual lit mag rankings compiled by Clifford Garstang and Erika Krouse. Reliable, albeit traditional, comprehensive lists.

Acceptance rates are another way to evaluate the lit mag hierarchy, but those come with some caveats. You need to consider both the volume of submissions and the data source. For example, the poetry magazine Rattle reads over 200,000 poems a year and publishes 300—their acceptance rate is 0.2%. Yes, it’s hard as fuck to get in, but also consider the volume, the vast number of poems you are in competition with (although, note that submissions to Rattle are always free). The lit mag Cleaver reports that they receive more than 3,000 submissions a year and publish 7.25%, about 220 pieces. Still hard, but considering the volume, its an easier lit mag to get in. Both Rattle and Cleaver publish their acceptance rates, based on actual and current data, on their websites. Most journals don’t share these stats. Searchable databases (like Chill Subs and Duotrope) also report lit mag acceptance rates, but these rates are based on what writers report back about their submission experiences. Rejections are often under-reported, so acceptance rates tend to look higher than actual, but these databases can give you a sense of what you’re up against and how the lit mags compare.

I’ll tell you a quick story of my journey with one H-as-F lit mag, The Missouri Review. (TMR is #47 out of 143 lit mags on Clifford’s CNF list, and in tier 2 out of 7 tiers on Erika’s list.) I submitted four essays to TMR in four years, always my very best (IMHO) and each time the rejection letter said we are quite interested in seeing more of your writing, and often the editor added some extra cheer like, we were very impressed by your writing. Four No’s, but I thought I must be getting somewhere. Year five, essay five, I entered TMR’s annual contest for the Perkoff Prize. I didn’t win. Boo :-) I was a finalist in CNF. Yay! But only the winners got published. What the fuck!

That essay got published the next time I submitted it and three of the other four essays got published too, all in journals I’m proud to be a part of. Do I still want to get an essay published in TMR? Damn straight. Why? For me, H-as-F mags are part of my publishing bucket list. Is publishing in an H-as-F lit mag essential to my “success” as a writer or for any individual piece? No. 

Here are my takeaways for submitting to H-as-F journals :

• Aim high (and realistically)—you and your writing deserve it.

• Consider your goal—mine is to publish in quality journals with editors that respect and support my work. Most H-as-F lit mags align with that goal, but lots of other journals do too.

• Send your best work (workshopped, revised x’s 10, polished to a shine)—there’s a reason these mags as hard as fuck to get into

• H-as-F journals often take a while to reply—simultaneously submit to other journals that you would be proud to be published in.

• H-as-F publications get your writing noticed, for sure, but you can make that happen too, share the links to your published pieces, everywhere.

And that Breakfast Sandwich, easy as fuck, here goes.

• Ingredients: An English muffin, three pieces of white cheddar cheese (or whatever cheese is in the fridge), one egg, and two pieces of bacon

• Make the bacon (I bake it in the oven, less mess).

• Make the over-easy egg— Takes about 3-4 minutes in a frying pan with a dollop of butter. 

• Lightly toast the English muffin.

• Build the sandwich: muffin (bottom ½), cheese, warm egg, bacon, muffin (top ½)—this order guarantees that the cheese melts.

The key to the breakfast sandwich is to have the egg whites set around the yolk—that way, the yellow goo doesn’t run all over your chin on the first bite. Enjoy.

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Weekly Specials 

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Bellevue Literary Review 

"An independent literary journal that probes the nuances of our lives both in illness and health." 

Fast Facts: Since the journal’s debut in 2001, BLR has published work by some of your favorite authors like Amy Hempel, Rick Moody, Ha Jin, Edward Hirsch, Naomi Shihab Nye, Cornelius Eady, Sharon Olds, Paul Harding, Abraham Verghese, as well as the early work by Leslie Jamison,  Celeste Ng, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine. 

Genre: Fiction (5000), Nonfiction (5000), Poetry (5) 

Special Sauce: Amanda, the editorial assistant, sent this video on submitting to BLR. 

Cath feels! Read:  

• In Another Life by Lara Palmqvist 

• Mad Love by Acamea Deadwiler  

• Ambiguous Loss by Ceilidh Barlow Cash 

BY THE NUMBERS: Founded in 2000. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $5, Payment: $50-100 (Responds within 150 days). They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate.

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The Cincinnati Review  

"Since its inception in 2003, The Cincinnati Review has published many promising new and emerging writers as well as Pulitzer Prize winners and Guggenheim and MacArthur fellows."

Fast facts: The Cincinnati Review is currently open for submission of their summer contest through July 15th. They are especially interested in “working against past and present inequities by publishing work by individuals from systemically marginalized groups, including writers of color, nonbinary and trans writers, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, neurodivergent writers, disabled writers, working-class and low-income writers, and all others who consider themselves underrepresented in contemporary literature.”

Genre: Fiction (40 pages), Nonfiction (20 pages), Mirco fiction (500), Translations, Poetry(5) 

Special Sauce: “Keep an eye on your spam/junk/promotions folders for correspondence from magazines; we do what we can, but we have no control over the Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail algorithms (if only!).

Follow directions, like making sure you don’t have identifying information on submissions for our summer contest, open through July 15.

If you use track changes during the drafting process, accept or reject all of the changes before you send! Sometimes we find ghosts of previous drafts lurking in the document in electronic form.

And send us the pieces that you keep thinking about after you close the notebook or the laptop, the ones that have heat and tension, the story, essay, or poems that only you could have written. Thank you for trusting us by sending them our way!” - Lisa Ampleman, managing editor 

Catch feels! Read: 

• excerpt from “Netherworld” by Amy Benson 

• excerpt from “Vines” by O Thiam Chin 

• “Love Poem with a Shop-Vac Full of Wasps” by Brittany Cavallaro 

BY THE NUMBERS: Founded in 2003. Sim-subs are fine. No fee to submit. Payment: Yes (Responds within 180 days). They nominate for Pushcart. prizes. They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers.

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The Common 

"A literary organization whose mission is to deepen our individual and collective sense of place. Based at Amherst College, we aim to serve as a vibrant common space for the global exchange of ideas and experiences through three main areas of activity: publishing, public programming, and mentorship and education."

Fast facts:  The Common publishes pieces of literature that embody particular times and places both real and imagined; from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon: literature and art powerful enough to reach from there to here. In short, we seek a modern sense of place. They also provide a number of mentorship and education programs, like the Literary Editorial Fellowship and The Common Young Writers Program

Genre: Fiction (10,000), Nonfiction (10,000), Poetry(5) 

Special Sauce: “Sense of place can mean lots of different things. We've published pieces that take place all over the world, on the moon, in a surreal clothing store, far into the past or future, and in vivid but geographically-indefinite settings. We like to say that place should be a character in the work we publish!

In addition to embodying a sense of place, we are looking for fiction and essays that deliver on three counts: premise, plot, and prose. Writing should feel alive, deliberate, and authoritative. It should answer a "so what" question (what has changed/been learned, gained, rejected, stayed the same, and why does it matter?), convey details clearly, and offer a fresh perspective. 

In terms of poetry, we look for poems that do something interesting or new when it comes to place (not as excited by travalogs or landscapes). We enjoy unexpected approaches to voice, language, and subject. Interesting aural qualities—music, silence, and dissonance—appeal to us greatly as well, especially when paired with emotional resonance, sensory engagement, and grappling with uncertainty.” - Sofia Belimova, Literary Editorial Fellow

Catch feels! Read: 

• “Albatross” by Anna Badkhen  

• “Ramadan in Saint-Denis” by Ala Fox 

• “Spa Days” by Keetje Kuipers

BY THE NUMBERS: Founded in 2010. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $3 Payment: Yes (Responds within 240 days). They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Decent Twitter following with 5,000+ followers. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate.

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Granta 

"Granta magazine and Granta Books share a remit to discover and publish the best in new literary fiction, memoir, reportage and poetry from around the world." 

Fast facts: Subs open until June 30th! Since publisher Sigrid Rausing acquired Granta publications in 2005, they published tons of known authors like  A.M. Homes, Barbara Demick, Rebecca Solnit, Eleanor Catton, Ben Lerner, Madeleine Thien, Jenny Offill, Mark O’Connell, Lisa Halliday, Han Kang and Sayaka Murata. Also, check out their podcast for the latest author interviews! 

Genre: Fiction (10,000), Nonfiction (10,000), Poetry (4) 

Catch feels! Read: 

• Ocoee by Kwame McPherson 

• Jealous Laughter by Joanna Biggs 

• 86 by Natalie Shapero

BY THE NUMBERS: Founded in: 1889. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $3-4 Payment: Yes, but don't know the amount. They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. We've noticed they're good about promoting their writers. They are active on socials. They have a print run. 100,000+ Twitter followers. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate.

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The Sun 

"We’re looking for narrative writing and evocative photography from all over the world. Send us work that maps the human landscape, where the light catches on the faintest joy, where darkness sometimes threatens to overwhelm, and where ✗ never marks the spot." 

Fast facts: Each monthly issue celebrates life, but not in a way that ignores its complexity. The personal essays, short stories, interviews, poetry, and photographs that appear in The Sun’s pages explore the challenges we face and the moments when we rise to meet them. 

Genre: Fiction (7000), Nonfiction (7000), Poetry (5), Photography  

Catch feels! Read:  

• Shock Value By Chaya Bhuvaneswar 

• Observations On Ice By Synne Borgen 

• Pain By Our Readers

BY THE NUMBERS: Founded in 1974. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $2.50 Payment: $200+ (Responds within 90 days). *They nominate for Pushcart. prizes. They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. We've noticed they're good about promoting their writers. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate (We have them at a 2.5% acceptance rate but we only have 66 tracked submissions for them. The editors themselves set their acceptance rate at 0.1%). They give free contributor copies to everyone they publish. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers.

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Honorable Mentions

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New England Review: “New England Review gives readers a vital snapshot of the literary moment, four times a year, in its richness, complexity, and diversity." 

• Founded in: 1978. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $3 Payment: $50+ (Responds within 90 days). *They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. They have a print run. They give free contributor copies to everyone they publish. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers. Their current theme until July 31st is “Chungking Express.” Take that as you will. 

Black Warrior Review: “Black Warrior Review is named for the river that borders the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. BWR publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and art twice a year, + an annual online issue."

• Founded in: 1974. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $3 Payment: Yes (Responds within 180 days). They nominate for Pushcart. prizes. They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate. They give free contributor copies to everyone they publish. 20,000+ Twitter followers. Currently open for fiction! 

• “Submitting advice: At BWR, our masthead editors turnover every year. The best way to know what these editors are looking for is to pay close attention to our fiction, nonfiction, and poetry calls for submissions, in addition to our mission statement. During voting on pieces for each issue, we frequently call back to the vision of each genre editor as a way to know when we’re hitting the mark in the editing process. 

  In addition, submitting early in the submission window is best! We typically receive half of our total submission pool in the 48 hours before the deadline. While editors always read each submission we receive, you stand out by submitting early. 

  Lastly, the masthead of BWR is a group of graduate students who read, curate, and vote on each piece. We submit our work to magazines too! We know what it’s like to be rejected. It is in your best interest to not give up if you receive a rejection from BWR—we shift and change with each new editor, refreshing and renewing our taste each year. Often, BWR’s contributors have submitted to our magazine multiples times by the time of their acceptance.” - Katie DeLay, Editor

The Forge: "The Forge Literary Magazine was founded by volunteers from the Fiction Forge, an international online writers’ forum." 

• Founded in: 2016. Sim-subs are fine. No fee to submit. Payment: $75/piece. They nominate for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, and Pushcart. They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate. Decent Twitter following with 5,000+ followers. Submission period ends on June 30th. 

Joyland: "Joyland is based on the idea that fiction is an international movement supported by local communities. Our editors work with authors globally to highlight the most exciting voices in literary fiction and creative nonfiction." 

• Founded in: 2008. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $4.50 Payment: $100/piece (Responds within 112 days). They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers.

Chestnut Review: "Our mission is to provide a literary home to stubborn artists and writers. We believe literary markets should be open to everyone, and we are passionate about holding the door open for all writers who wish to enter ours."

• Founded in: 2019. *They don't accept simultaneous submissions. Fee to submit: $0-5 Payment: $120/piece (Responds within 30 days). They nominate for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, and Pushcart. They are popular and have been bookmarked over 200 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers. 

Ploughshares: “"Since 1971, award-winning journal at Emerson College discovering fresh voices in contemporary literature. Published four times a year; new writing daily on blog."

• Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $3 Payment: $90-450 (Responds within 150 days). They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate. They give free contributor copies to everyone they publish. 50,000+ Twitter followers.

 Conjunctions: “Bard College’s literary journal Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters.” 

• Founded in: 1981. Sim-subs are fine. Yes Payment: Yes (Responds within 120 days). They've been bookmarked over 100 times on Chill Subs. They are active on socials. They have a print run. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate. Popular on socials with 10,000+ Twitter followers.

Chicago Quarterly Review: "Independent literary journal honored by Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize."

• Founded in: 1995. Sim-subs are fine. Fee to submit: $3 No payment for publication. (Responds within 180 days). They are active on socials. They have a print run. Highly competitive with <1% acceptance rate. They give free contributor copies to everyone they publish.

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Hit Sub party 

Tuesday, June 27, from 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM EST 

Hoagie Tiers & Up will receive a Google invitation the day before the party. Another accountability week because you keep asking for it! 

Set aside this time to submit to the places you have on your list. Treat it like an appointment you have to make. We will submit live and then briefly chat about how it went. 

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We hope this list and facts don’t scare you. Keep submitting, keep learning. With enough persistence and determination, you will get there. And we are rooting for you along the way. 

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Andrea A. Firth is a writer, editor, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been a freelance writer for over twenty-five years and has taught writing in both the college and community settings. She is an editor for the Brevity Blog. Andrea is also cofounder of Diablo Writers’ Workshop where she teaches creative writing, provides editorial consulting, and supports a vibrant writing community. Andrea has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California. Her writing focus is personal essay, literary journalism and hybrid work. She was a finalist for the Missouri Review's 2021 Perkoff Prize in Nonfiction, and you can read a selection of her writing at her website and find her on Instagram.