Where to submit your writing

How to find literary magazines and small presses where you can publish your fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

Jul 25, 2024

Over the past year I’ve been writing a book called How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses. It’s due out in February 2025, and a big part of writing it has been pulling together submission resources that help writers figure out where to send their work. The book is much more than that too: it’s about submission “strategy,” behind-the-scenes logistics, and most of all community.

But How to Submit really began when Janice Lee invited me to start assembling the Where to Submit list at Entropy, which I ended up running for four years. It became a widely-used resource in the lit mag and small press world, and I was happy to have the opportunity to share submission resources with writers like me.

Entropy is gone now (RIP!) but this post will help you research and make decisions about where to submit. It’s all my take, of course, and you should follow your own intuition and judgment when following what I say below.

If you have questions, feel free to put them in the comments and I’ll answer them.

Where to Submit

There are three different types of resources that will help you find submission venues. Ranked Lists organize publications hierarchically, estimating each venue’s relative level of prestige. Unranked Lists provide a broader view of the many venues for submission, organizing publications using tags and categories instead of prestige. Getting Involved, which is less a resource than a practice, is the most long-term of these options, since it means building relationships with publication venues over time and learning about their suitability for your work through those relationships.

1. Ranked Lists

Ranked lists arrange publications from top to bottom, hierarchically. Even if you are not interested in prestige or conventional success, these lists can be a helpful tool for understanding where you are submitting. Prestige works as an engine for everything from response times to selectiveness to the resources and staff a publication is working with, so it will affect your publication experience regardless of your goals.

It’s important to recognize there is no objective “best,” and that these resources calculate prestige solely on the basis of their specific criteria. They can’t give you the final answer on where to submit. Instead, I think of them as a public service that allows writers to gain a quick familiarity with the reputation of the most well-known publications.

For literary magazines, the two most reliable rankings are maintained by writers who have decided to share their own processes for determining where to submit:

Clifford Garstang’s Literary Magazine Rankings. Clifford Garstang uses a by-the-numbers method to rank literary magazines by their number of inclusions and honorable mentions in the Pushcart Prize anthology over the last ten years. Garstang’s rankings give a rough but reliable view of how much attention literary magazines typically receive. There are separate lists for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.
Erika Krouse’s Ranking of 500-ish Literary Magazines for Short Fiction. Erika Krouse’s list can be used for any genre, even though its focus is short fiction. Rather than Garstang’s Pushcart Prize-focused approach, Krouse uses a complex system based on prizes, circulation, payment to writers, and “coolness” to divide literary magazines into tiers. Her list includes information about each of these categories plus deadlines, response time, and maximum word count. It is particularly helpful for thinking through which magazines are comparable to one another in terms of reputation.

Other rankings exist, if you want a different perspective. John Fox, at his blog BookFox, assembles lists using criteria similar to Clifford Garstang’s, except they are based on the Best American Short Stories anthology. Brecht De Poortere has assembled a database ranking lit mags based on a wide collection of criteria. For science-fiction and fantasy writers, Eric Schwitzgebel runs a ranking of lit mags on The Splintered Mind.

Small presses’ prestige can be harder to track. This is in part because prestige is concentrated in books published by major, corporate publishers. Most major literary awards go to imprints owned by the Big 5—Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster—even if those imprints appear to be separate publishers. Prestige certainly exists in the small press world, but it’s often based more on hearsay and reputation than measurable recognition.

That said, there are several resources that will give you an idea of which small presses are regularly receiving attention:

The CLMP Firecracker Awards. The Firecracker Awards are given annually to small press books published in the categories of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Poetry by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), an organization that advocates for independent publishers. There are also awards for Magazine/General Excellence, and Magazine/Best Debut.
Book Reviews. Browsing book reviews will help you get a sense for which publishers’ books are being read and considered publicly. Mainstream venues rarely pay attention to small press books, so make sure you find the right outlet. Review venues for small press literature include Full Stop, Rain Taxi, and The Rumpus. There are many other literary magazines that feature book reviews on their websites or in print.
Additional Literary Awards. Major awards like the Pulitzer and National Book Awards aren’t great ways to rank small presses, since small presses aren’t usually well represented (except in the poetry category). There are, however, awards that have proven more welcoming to small press writing, such as the Lambda Literary Awards and PEN Book Awards. Regional book awards, often organized by state, regularly make room for small presses as well.

All of these lists come with your regularly scheduled caveat: Rankings, honors, and awards only count as much as you let them. Let your goals be a guide when deciding how important prestige is to you.

2. Unranked Lists

Instead of envisioning the literary world as a hierarchy of prestige, unranked lists represent each publication as part of a horizontally organized literary landscape. These lists don’t claim to judge. The benefit of this approach is that it leaves the judging up to you.

The drawback of this approach, of course, is also that it leaves the judging up to you. How do you distinguish between such a wide swathe of publications? How do you know which is “best,” or best for you?

The most helpful unranked lists solve this problem by using tags and categories to narrow down publications based on criteria such as genre, word count, payment, submission fee, and deadlines. Here are the most reliable unranked lists:

Duotrope. Duotrope is a longstanding, comprehensive database with information on almost all active magazines and presses, including genre, style, word count, and payment, as well as submission response times. Built into Duotrope is a submissions tracker, if you prefer to use an external resource instead of your own personal system. A full subscription to Duotrope costs $5 a month.
Chill Subs. Chill Subs is like a free, Gen Z Duotrope (although some features have recently been monetized). Its database is large and ever-growing, and it takes a fun, irreverent approach to submissions. Features include Write or Die, which runs columns, interviews, and listicles; curated newsletters; and classes on writing and publishing.
Writer’s Market. Writer’s Market is the well-known, regularly updated print guide to nearly every submission venue, including not only book publishers and literary magazines but also trade magazines, literary agencies, and contests and awards. Since it is published in a print edition, it can be particularly helpful for tactile readers who prefer to underline, dog-ear, and flip through the pages.
Poets & Writers. Poets & Writers, which is best known for its magazine about the craft and business of writing, maintains expansive databases of literary magazines, small presses, and literary contests and awards.
CLMP’s Directory of Publishers. The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses has a similarly extensive list of member presses and magazines.
NewPages. NewPages is a whole website devoted to lists of literary magazines and small publishers, as well as graduate creative writing programs, independent bookstores, and writing conferences. They’ve been in the game since the 1970s, and their comprehensiveness rivals anything else on the internet.
Heavy Feather Review. After Entropy shut its doors at the end of 2021, Heavy Feather Review took up the mantle of “Where to Submit,” providing a regularly updated listing of small presses and journals that are open for submissions.

There are a number of other unranked listings, but they usually have few tags or categories, which makes them less easy to navigate. Among them are between the highway press’s publisher directory (which lists more than 1,500 presses), and The Nonconformist’s Big, Big List of Indie Publishers and Small Presses. If you’re looking to get a sense of the full breadth of small press publishing, these listings can act as a complement to the more robust resources I have listed above.

A final way to gain insight into the many publishers active today is to browse the exhibitors at the major annual writing conference, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP). These exhibitors are listed on AWP’s website each year. Even better, if AWP (or another conference or book festival) happens to be taking place near you, you can attend and get to know the publications personally by visiting their exhibitor booths.

3. Get Involved

The most long-term and, ultimately, most effective way to decide where to submit is to get involved in literary community. I know this is a lot to ask! It’s hard enough just to find the time to write and submit. But getting involved doesn’t have to be a major time suck. It includes all kinds of small acts you can sprinkle throughout your life. Once you take these steps, being an active part of the literary community often gives energy back to your writing—and to your life—in ways that more than justify the time and energy you put in.

The easiest way to get involved is simply by reading what small presses and literary magazines publish. There are many ways to find writing that inspires you:

Browse online literary magazines, subscribe to print literary magazines, and read books from a diversity of presses. Reading literary magazines and small presses doesn’t have to be a big financial investment, although it’s good to support the publications you submit to. Libraries are often looking for new books to add to their collection, and by requesting books from small presses you do both the presses and your local community a favor. If you want to become more familiar with the breadth of print magazines, many sell back copies (non-current issues) for as little as $5.
Attend local and online reading series. Many communities have regular reading series, where a single author or a group of authors shares their work aloud and answers questions afterward. Readings take place at bookstores, bars, and coffee shops. In addition, the Zoom reading scene has taken off in the last few years. If you follow writers on social media, you’re sure to see many announcements of online readings.
Use presses and magazines to guide your reading. One of my favorite ways to read is by letting publication venues, rather than authors, guide my reading life. That is, if I like a book, instead of reading another book from that author I’ll read another book published by that press. This is a great way to recognize the thoughtful curatorial work editors put into selecting which writing to publish.
Research the publishing histories of authors you like. If you discover a new author whose writing you like, look up which literary magazines and presses have published them in the past. Chances are, if you liked the author’s work, the venues that have published their writing will appeal to you too.

All of the above are effective and long-lasting methods for getting familiar with the literary landscape.

A more quantifiable, if more energy-intensive, way of getting involved is to give your time and labor to a magazine or press. If you are particularly ambitious, you could start a press or a literary magazine of your own. But relatively few people have the time, inclination, skills, or funding to do that. Instead, I would suggest beginning with manageable contributions to one or two publications you feel particularly drawn to.

Here are some of the best ways to get started:

Write book reviews. Nervous that you don’t know how to write a book review? That’s OK. Start by reading a few examples, then write about your experience of reading a book in the most generous and thoughtful way you can. Even if you are relatively inexperienced, the author and publisher will be grateful for your words. Reviews are a gift, both to small presses who don’t receive mainstream media coverage and to the authors who publish with them.
Conduct interviews. Like writing reviews, conducting interviews with authors allows you to be part of the conversation by engaging with others’ work. Literary magazines are often looking for interviews to publish, and authors appreciate the chance to talk about their writing in a public forum.
Volunteer as a reader for a literary magazine. Much of the initial work of evaluating submissions is done by “readers” who read everything that comes over the transom before recommending pieces to higher-up editors. Literary magazines frequently need more readers to help them consider submissions more quickly. Some magazines will post calls for readers on their websites and social media.
Get involved in a reading series. Bringing authors together for a regular literary reading is a great way to meet people who are actively publishing books. Presses and writers always appreciate when someone can host authors on tour. Consider offering to help with (or start) a reading series near you.
Participate in writing groups, workshops, and classes. This option might not directly connect you with publishers, but it will help you build community with other writers. You can learn a lot from your writerly friendships, not only about writing and publishing but also about your own goals as a submitter.

I believe in getting involved because it increases your familiarity with the literary landscape and helps you become an authentic part of it. When you’re part of the conversation, deciding where to submit feels less like an attempt to break into an unfamiliar scene than a continual act of participation. Publication begins to fit into your life naturally. I can’t promise that getting involved will help you get published, and you shouldn’t think about your contributions as a quid pro quo. But you can treat your literary contributions as a gift to the community you’re asking something from, too.

There is one final way to connect with writers, editors, and publishers: social media. Much of what I know about the literary landscape comes from years of X and Instagram, along with stints on Facebook. There’s no other way that I know of to keep up with so many interesting venues at once, to get a feel for their sensibilities, and to build your own relationship with the work they are doing.

If you already have or choose to create a social media presence, think carefully about how you spend your time on it. Which people, publishers, and communities do you want to be involved with? How can you use your time in the digital realm to end up with more inspiration, not less? How can social media act as a conduit to better reading, writing, and living, rather than vacuuming all those things out of you?

Stay connected with your purpose in being on social media. Resist clickbait and distraction if you can. Go back for the new books you learn about, the new presses and magazines you come across, and the little interactions that make the literary world feel like it’s filled with living, breathing people (which it is!).

Regardless of which of the above strategies you prefer, getting involved is an important tool for writers deciding where to submit. Seeing your work in print is most meaningful when you’re part of a larger conversation—a conversation you’re helping to grow.

Putting It All Together

It’s important to remember that these lists are only the beginning. As you research, you’ll make your own lists of preferred venues for publication and narrow down your vision for what publication will look like.

If you’re not sure where to begin, here’s what I would do if I were just starting out: First, spend some time browsing the ranked lists. Do some journaling about your goals, think about what prestige means to you, and note the differences between more- and less-resourced venues for publication. When you’re ready to submit, get a Duotrope account. I wouldn’t keep the account forever, since it costs money, but I would use it for your first year or two of submitting in order to build your own criteria for submissions. Use Chill Subs and Heavy Feather Review to supplement and the other lists when in doubt.

Once you’ve spent some time working through the above methods, consider what you might do to expand your involvement in literary community. You could change your reading habits to include one new literary magazine or small press each season. You could spend ten minutes each day searching for new publishers and authors to follow on social media. You could apply to be a reader for a lit mag. Take it slow and steady. Building literary community is a lifelong process.

Soon, your relationship with submitting might become a more positive one. When submitting your writing, you may no longer have to look up every literary magazine in the world. Instead of depending on ranked lists, you may carry a list of dream journals around in your head (or in a Google document). You may know the exact search criteria to use on Duotrope or Chill Subs for each story, essay, or poem you write. While writing, you may even find yourself thinking, “This would be perfect for _____.”

To me, this type of deeply interwoven relationship with publishing is the goal. Literary magazines and presses become not just places to publish your pre-existing writing, but active inspirations for your work. Your writing begins to have the feel of a conversation between you and every other writer and editor. Let publishers’ work speak to you, and soon yours will speak to them.

Just a reminder that this kind of information plus a lot (!) of advice and support for the process of submitting will be available in How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses, due out in February 2025. Looks like the cover is up now on Amazon and Bookshop, so take a look for an early glimpse of the book!