Best Fiction Literary Magazines in 2025

Print magazine for Fiction,

Arguably America's most esteemed journal of humor writing. Submission to be made separately for their web and print editions. Short stories, flash fiction, and personal essays are not something we typically run on the website. Instead, we're in the market for short, conceptual humor. We strongly recommend reading through our archives to get a sense of the style of writing we're after.

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Online magazine for Fiction,

Lightspeed is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

Epiphany is committed to publishing literary work, wherever it may fall on the spectrum from experimental to traditional, that is realized both in its vision and its devotion to artistry. We are especially open to writers whose explorations of new territory may not yet have found validation elsewhere.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

We like stories that start quickly and have a strong narrative arc. Poems that are passionate about subject, language, and image are welcome, whether they are traditional or experimental, whether in formal or free verse (closed or open form). We publish all forms of creative nonfiction, from personal narrative to lyric essay to immersive journalism; we appreciate when an essay moves beyond the personal to tell us something new about the world.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

The Greensboro Review is always on the lookout for new short stories and poems from writers at any stage of their career. The work you’ll find in the pages of the GR rarely conforms to any one theme, subject, or style—our editors read for those “bolts of lightning” that come with a surprising poem or story, the pleasure of spotting something new or discovering a fresh take on the familiar.

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Print & Online magazine for Fiction,

Featuring the world’s most celebrated crime writers alongside brilliant new voices. Cutting-edge content includes suspense thrillers, whodunits, and noir, reviews, and an editor’s blog. Join us … if you dare!

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Print magazine for Fiction,

The Antioch Review, founded in 1941, is one of the oldest, continuously publishing literary magazines in America. We publish fiction, essays, and poetry from both emerging as well as established authors.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

Ninth Letter is a collaborative arts and literary project produced by the Creative Writing Program and School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Edited and designed by faculty and students as part of the core curricula of both programs, the journal's mission is to present original literary writing of exceptional quality, illuminated by cutting-edge graphic design.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

One of the oldest quarterlies in the nation, Cimarron Review publishes work by writers at all stages of their careers, including Pulitzer prize winners, writers appearing in the Best American Series and the Pushcart anthologies, and winners of national book contests. Since 1967, Cimarron has showcased poetry, fiction, and nonfiction with a wide-ranging aesthetic.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

We publish a wide range of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, translations, photography, and work in emerging forms by both established and emerging writers. Work from our pages has been consistently selected to appear in the anthologies Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

In 1997, Francis Ford Coppola launched Zoetrope: All-Story, a quarterly magazine devoted to the best new short fiction and one-act plays.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

The Massachusetts Review is one of the nation's leading literary magazines, distinctive in joining the highest level of artistic concern with pressing public issues. As The New York Times observed, "It is amazing that so much significant writing on race and culture appears in one magazine." MR was named one of the top ten literary journals in 2008 by the Boston Globe.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

EPOCH magazine publishes fiction, poetry, essays, cartoons, screenplays, graphic art, and graphic fiction. The magazine is edited by faculty in the Department of English Program in Creative Writing at Cornell University.

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Print magazine for Fiction,

As the name implies, we only publish fiction; we are looking for the best new writing available, leaning toward the unconventional. Fiction has traditionally attempted to make accessible the inaccessible, to bring the experimental to a broader audience.

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Print & Online magazine for Fiction,

Indie Bites is a quarterly indie fantasy anthology, created to promote the work of indie authors. It features short fantasy fiction (prose and poetry) from self-published, hybrid and unpublished authors, together with interviews and reviews of indie books from book bloggers.

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