8/21/19

The Publishing Life: 89 Literary Journals, Magazines and Reviews opening for creative writing submissions on September 1st, (2020 updated)



Literary Journals, Magazines and Reviews opening for creative writing submissions September 1st, 20192020
September is quickly approaching and that means many college journals (among others) are reopening for submissions. Here is a list of journals that open for submissions on September first unless otherwise noted. If you're not familiar with a journal be sure to read a bunch of it before you decide which pieces to submit, or if it's a good fit for your work at all.

(Updated for 2020)


A couple notes:

Simultaneous Submissions: Sending the same story or poem to more than one journal for consideration at the same or in overlapping time periods. Most journals/magazines are on board with simultaneous submissions, they realize that there are hundreds and even thousands of venues for your words and with acceptance percentages almost always in the single digits, it makes the most sense to spread your work out a little to publications where you think the pieces will fit and hope someone will snatch it up.  Some places emphatically do not accept simultaneous submissions, if that's the case do not, please please don't send them simultaneous submissions.

Snail Mail: Slang for the postal service, as in actually mailing physical pieces of paper with ink on them to the actual office of the magazine with a Self Addressed and Stamped Envelop (SASE) for the journal to return with either an acceptance or a rejection. Not many journals on this list do not accept online submissions, but there are a few, and there are still a good number out there that just don't specify any flash guidelines. Places like Antioch Review, Epoch and Zyzzyva among others still like to have the paper in their hands when they read your writing. I've indicated these journals with the pictured icon:

Useful Resources

The Review Review: The Review Review is a great reading and publishing resource with hundreds and hundreds of reviews, interviews and articles. Highly recommended.

New Pages: New Pages is a great site that has tons of reviews of literary magazines, journals, reviews lit mags, zines etc. They also have lists, articles and are generally a great resource when submitting.

Duotrope: Duotrope costs $5 a month or $50 a year but it is a tremendous service. Even if you just want it for the fall months I'd highly recommend it. Do your research, bookmark/save/list as much as you can then you can supplement with other free sources like The Review Review, New Pages, PW.org, Submission Grinder etc. They do have a tracking system as well that you can use/contribute to the community to give a more accurate picture of response times.

Submission Grinder: This resource is a little more geared to genre fiction, and you'll find a lot more trade magazines and markets that cater to a particular genre as opposed to general literary fiction and poetry. One thing to note is that while many literary journals pay their contributors in a copy of the journal or perhaps just the publishing credit and good will, many trade publications pay for their fiction from $.01-$.10 per word.

Submittable: It goes without saying if you're doing online submissions, at least of literary poetry or prose, you're already using Submittable but if not you will be using this list as the majority of journals only accept their submissions through that portal. The cost depends on the journal, most are either free or $3 which is roughly the cost of a manila envelop with postage and an SASE like you'd use for a snail mail submission so it's not too big of a deal, though it definitely makes you appreciate the journals that can absorb the cost and not pass it along to the writer. They also have a Discovery tab where you can check for upcoming deadlines or search by tag. The search function is still in the works but the discovery tab is good to check around the end of a month for closing submission windows.

About the journals selected:

I used a number of resources to collate this list including the 2019 Pushcart Prize anthology (list of journals and presses nominating), a trusted and very heavily notated 2007 Poet's Market, Duoptrope, Submittable and Erica Verillo's blogpost about University-sponsored journals. I omitted a few 'journals' which were very low-effort/poor design because they appeared more like a blog than a magazine. There are certainly some smaller online journals in this list, but the quality of their writing and journal design (in a couple cases the writing quality prevailed over bland design). Basically, if it looks like a Geocities page I didn't include it. Also some journals inevitably got missed that were listed as a press, had a very limited demographic or just got lost in the huge shuffle of lists. If you represent a journal opening in September  please comment and I'll include you.

Onto the list!

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89 Journals Opening for Submissions on September 1st (unless noted)

AGNI

Antioch Review (Only snail mail submissions, but they're a great journal and worth your stamps.)

Barnstorm (Now reads all year)

Bellingham Review (September 15 opening)

Birmingham Poetry Review (Snail mail submissions only)

Booth 

Bryant Literary Review

The Common (Place themed journal)

Copper Nickel

Crab Creek Review (Now opens September 15)

Crazyhorse

Cutbank (September 15th opening)

descant (September 15th opening)

Epoch (September 15th opening, no simultaneous submissions and only snail mail but they're one of the best journals out there. COVID has greatly affected the journal, check guidelines before submitting)

Evansville Review

Exit 13 (Travel, adventure or geography themed poems)

Faultline

Fiddlehead (September 15th opening, Canadian journal)

Five Points (Now opens 8/15, but has a $4.75 fee {$3 for flash fiction})

Flyway

Fourth Genre (Non fiction only)

Fox Cry Review

Fugue

Gettysburg Review

Grain (September 15th opening, Canadian journal)

Greensboro Review (Now reads 12/15-2/15)

Gulf Coast

Gulf Stream Magazine 

Halfway Down the Stairs ("The Calling" themed issue)

Harpur Palate

Hotel Amerika

Hot Metal Bridge (appears to be defunct)

Hudson Review (Fiction submissions open)

Idaho Review (currently closed, no date announced)

Ilanot Review (Themed issue: Home/Work) (currently closed, no date announced)

Indiana Review

Iowa Review

The Literary Review (currently closed, no date announced)

Lost Balloon

Lunch Ticket

The Lyric Review (Snail mail only, also they almost only publish formal or rhymed verse)

Madcap Review

Madison Review

Muzzle Magazine (now reads 12/15-2/1)

Nashville Review

New England Review (Closed until later in Fall to catch up on Spring submissions)

New Letters 

New Ohio Review (September 15th opening)

New South

Ninth Letter

The Normal School (currently closed, no date announced)

North American Review (Open during the school year)

Notre Dame Review

Passages North

Pembroke Review (September submissions are free, open for paid submissions until April)

Penn Review

Plume (Now starts reading 9/15)

Poet Lore

Poetry Northwest (They accept fiction year-round)

Posit

Prairie Schooner

Redivider (Now reads submissions all year)

RipRap (September 12 opening)

River Teeth (Non fiction only)

Rockhurst Review

Seneca Review

Sewanee Review

Slant: A Journal of Poetry

South Carolina Review (Doesn't mention specific genre guidelines) (currently closed, no date announced)

South Dakota Review

Southern Indiana Review (September 15th opening)

The Southern Review

Southwest Review

Split Rock Review (Also opens for Rewilding which is "an anthology that explores the current state of the natural environment.") (Now starts reading 11/1)

Spoon River Poetry Review (September 15th opening)

The Stillwater Review

Subtropics (Only open September 15-30, a 15 day submission window) (currently closed, no date announced)

Superstition Review (Now only reads in August)

Sycamore Review

Tampa Review

Tar River Poetry (Now starts reading 10/1)

Third Coast (September 15th opening) (currently closed, no date announced)

upstreet (Only fiction and non fiction—no poetry) (currently closed, no date announced)

Willard and Maple (Only reading Champlain students writing until 2021)

Willow Review (Snail mail only)

Willow Springs

Windsor Review (Canadian journal) (DEFUNCT)

Zyzzyva (Snail mail only)

*Special note:

Portland Review (Labor themed issue has a September 2nd deadline(currently closed, no date announced)

Into the Void (Canadian journal with a September 7th deadline)

Grist (September 15th deadline(currently closed)

***

Now you have plenty of reading and research to keep you busy in the time leading up to September. One submission tactic I have is to take some time reading a journal, even if I'm familiar with it, because editorships change, tastes change etc. After that I'll find the poems of mine which seem like they would most fit in at the journal and save the doc file ahead of time. That way when the second or so rolls around you are all set with your literary pise en place and ready to disseminate your writing into the world.

You don't want to carpet bomb all the journals on this list by any means, but if you've done your due diligence sending out a dozen or so submissions is totally understandable as the summer is when poems gather dust. Of course lot of this depends on how many poems, stories and non fiction essays you have that are ready for publishing. Also bear in mind that many of these journals are produced by colleges and might not open their submission portals promptly on September 1st. Don't bug them, do a few writing prompts and just check back in a few days.

***

Pathetic plea time. I  am a submitting writer as well and will be trying to get my first collection/s published this year which means many submission fees. If you could find it in your heart and wallet to donate a dollar or two it would really go a long way. Every cent donated will go toward submission fees. Hook me up with like $25 and I'll even thank you in my book when it's accepted. Thank you now, however, for your readership and support! Best of luck on your writing journeys, and if you'd like to see anything at Notebooking Daily that you don't see thusfar please let me know! The Fall Writing Exercise Series kicks off on September 1st which will include some new exercise categories and more ekphrastic prompts; and I will be profiling more journals.