34 Brand New Literary Magazines!
Lit mags launched in 2022
Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.
As the new year begins, I thought it would be a good time to look at some of the brand new literary magazines that have entered the fray.
Exploring new lit mags can give readers a sense of shifts and trends in independent publishing. Taco Bell Quarterly, for instance, launched in 2020 and describes itself as “a reaction against everything. The gatekeepers. The taste-makers. The hipsters. Health food. Artists Who Wear Cute Scarves.”
Also in 2020, newly launched Wrongdoing announced: “This publication loves artistic merit more than it loves credentials; we want the best you've got, or whatever's still resisting rejection.”
The formation of magazines like this may be testament to a new ethos in literary publishing. Stuffiness and formality are out. Accessibility and playfulness are in.
Among the new lit mags launched in 2022, you will find a fair share of similarly anti-elitist sentiment. (I had a good laugh at the name of one magazine, Alice Says Go Fuck Yourself. Imagine putting that one on your NEA application!)
You will also find magazines with interesting and unexpected themes. One new journal is inspired by martial arts. Another is dedicated entirely to pro-wrestling. Yet another accompanies every story with photographs of a writer’s workspace.
Three of the lit mags on this list have also launched on the Substack platform. It will be interesting to see how this model works for editors and whether this trend continues to grow.
As for those of you considering whether to submit your work to these venues, certainly new lit mags offer advantages. The competition is smaller. Response time is likely quicker than more well-known magazines deluged with submissions. New editors might be more likely to eagerly promote your work. And you might build long-lasting relationships with these editors.
Of course, when considering a new publication, writers should exercise caution. Of the 73 new lit mags I listed in 2020, fourteen have already closed. One more, Wrongdoing, has stopped taking magazine submissions. (They have switched to publishing chapbooks only.)
If you’re not sure about submitting to newer magazines, Submitit Founder Erik Harper Klass has some great advice here:
Then again, if the past year has shown us anything, it’s that large and/or long-standing lit mags can also be vulnerable to ceasing publication. (Briar Cliff Review, Confrontation, Ruminate and Saint Ann’s Review are but a few that have recently announced closing or going on hiatus.) Meanwhile, magazines like Astra and Bookforum, both backed by profitable corporations, folded last month.
So, as with anything—love, war, literary magazine publishing—one thing we know for sure is that there are no guarantees.
In the meantime, we can certainly light a cigar and offer some hearty claps on the back in honor of these sweet newborn lit mags, freshly come into this world.
128 LIT “is a print and online literature and art magazine based in New York City that has an international focus. This is a re-orienting place that unlearns, confronts, and disrupts euro-centric narratives and aesthetics. 128 LIT is committed to publishing poetry, translation, fiction, essays, hybrid works, and art that startle and move. We want the pages to happen to the reader and viewer.”
After…. “Relatively few artworks can claim to be wholly original: to have been conceived of without reference to any other work of art. Indeed, a great many artworks are the result of inspiration taken from someone else’s art – or from the ‘art’ perceived in natural forms.
Such art, commonly termed ekphrastic, describes, commentates on, draws from, branches off of, enters into conversation with, illuminates or acknowledges another’s work. It’s this you’ll find here on After... in the form of poetry which connects itself to creations by other artists.”
Alice Says Go Fuck Yourself. “This magazine is a safe space for hot messes and outliers. If someone doesn’t feel confident that their work is worthy of high literature—or if they don’t give a fuck about high literature—but they have a rant, a sarcastic tale, a satire, or an innocent Beatrix-Potter-style reminiscence regarding their beloved succulents, we will read it and perhaps we really want it. Perhaps we didn’t know what we needed until we read exactly this.”
Alternative Milk Magazine “is an independent biannual online art and literary magazine.”
Bivouac Magazine “is a new literary journal publishing poetry, prose, and creative nonfiction. We are based on the NH seacoast.”
bloodbathhate. “We are looking for writing, poetry, and art that feels like a car crash. We want stories that have been waiting to be told. Writing by people who wear too much eyeliner and listen to the Cure. We want gritty, anemic poetry and art that your bitchy art teacher wouldn’t hang up. We want grudges and bite marks and grandiose visions. Anything visceral is appreciated.”
Body Fluids. “disconcerting literature. something gross. something weird. uncalled for. unwelcome.”
The Bureau Dispatch “is an ode to the writer’s bureau; an ongoing collection of stories accompanied by photographs of writers at their places of work.”
Cherub. “Howdy! Welcome to Cherub, a multi-genre quarterly literary magazine. Send us your poetry, fiction, flash fiction, nonfiction, and whatever else you’ve been dreaming up—we’re looking for the weird and the wonderful. “
Clinch “began in San Francisco, 2021, when founding editor Grant Young envisioned a publication for literature on the martial arts. He wrote that the magazine would showcase ‘the lessons learned from Jiu Jitsu…or a poem on Cory Sandhagen’s flying knees.’ The founder and editors have since expanded Clinch’s interests to writings that move as a martial artist would: by waiting for the right time to redistribute its driving force.”
Copihue Poetry. “Founded by two immigrants in Chile, Copihue Poetry is a biannual literary magazine named for the national flower of our chosen home. We seek to publish exciting new work that moves beyond the imaginary borders of language, state, and culture. As a multilingual journal, we present poetry written in English, poetry written in Spanish, and poetry translated into English alongside the original language.”
Eggplant Tears is “[a]n online publication for exploring transmasculinity and creating community for trans men, butch lesbians, drag kings, and all non-binary and intersex people who identify with masculinity.”
The Four Faced Liar publishes fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry and visual art.
Fulminare Review. “Welcome to Fulminare Review, a magazine dedicated to that which lies above us; the sky. In a world so dominated by what lies below, we have chosen instead to look up. We believe that writing is, as Virgil stated in the Aeneid, the way for which one journeys to the stars. Consequently, our motto, sic itur ad astra, means exactly that. Whether your art be of hardship and doubt or of joy and jubilation, we wish to see it. Show us the sorrowful tale of a lonesome dragonfly, a wounded bird, a person born with invisible wings. Make us feel the lilt of the Earth and the moon as we dance around the sun. Take us away to the heavens of old myths and folklore. It’s all fair game.”
The Heimat Review. “At Heimat Review, our mission is to provide a home for poetry and prose. We believe that language - narratives, questions, and reflections - offers a vibrant way to explore where we come from, where we are, and where we hope to be.”
Hex Literary “publishes very short speculative texts on a weekly-ish basis. We like it weird.”
The Hooghly Review. “Founded by Tejaswinee as a passion project in July 2022 from the city of Chandannagar on the banks of the Hooghly river in West Bengal, India, and co-edited by Ankit Raj Ojha, The Hooghly Review is a digital non-profit and free-access magazine of literature & arts with the aim to shine a light on emerging and underrated writers, storytellers, poets, artists, and other creatives across the globe.”
HOWL “is a platform for Irish writing from home and abroad.”
Minyan Magazine “is an online quarterly literary magazine run by Liz Marlow. Our mission is to publish the finest poetry and flash fiction by Jewish writers and their allies. The magazine's name, Minyan, refers to a group of ten adults needed for a worship service in Judaism. Each issue of Minyan will contain the work from ten writers.”
Mootpoint Magazine “is a literary journal that publishes fiction and poetry and maybe some other kinds of stuff soon.”
Needle Poetry “is a print and online journal. We want to explore and showcase experimental work that plays with sound, language and form. We want sharp, piercing writing that leaves the reader inspired and full of questions. We want work that explores identity, history, relationships (romantic, platonic, environmental), science, the arts, biology and anything else your writerly mind would like to set on paper.”
One Wild Ride “is a new, limited-run literary journal sharing stories about caring for our aging parents and those who raised us.”
Powder Out Press “is a literary magazine that is debuting at the end of Quarter One, 2023. We are looking for stories, creative essays, poetry, and art focusing on the world of Professional Wrestling.”
The Primer. “Curating the unique, the experimental, and the original, The Primer is your textbook of the oddly beautiful. Here, you’ll find existential questions pondered with aesthetic delight, and encounter unusual angles subtended from diverse fields. Gathering inquisitive, and open-minded creatives together, we are building a community of curious thinkers who sensitively attend to the nuances of the world around them, and we invite you to join us in this contemplation – and celebration – of the strangely beautiful experience that we call life.”
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal “features poems with a strong musical element—a definite rhythm and accompanying melody usually generated by similarity of sounds.”
Seaside Gothic “is a magazine from the edge of the sea where the frontier of civilisation meets the wild of the water. We live beside the seaside and write amidst the changing of the tide on paper warped by the salt in the air and wet from the spray of the sea. From this divide we look for writing that expresses the sense of border living that is shared between the coast and the ocean, where language is pushed to the horizon and words take on new form as they find their home where the sea meets the sky.”
Soft Star Magazine “is an online publication featuring stories of science fiction, futurism, and speculative fiction with a healthy dose of optimism. No dystopias here; Soft Star stands for curiosity, openness, and the inherent magic of the unknown.”
SugarSugarSalt Magazine. “Our mission is to spotlight amazing CNF pieces that readers may have missed the first time around, as well as to eventually publish new work from the genre’s best writers, both established and emerging.”
Suspended Magazine “is meant for the stories that are complete, yet seem unfinished. The endings hang and dangle off the final page like a pendulum seeking answers. We want your poems or short fiction stories that are suspended in this regard, have suspenseful endings, or are ambiguous in nature at any or every turn. Send us your visual art that makes onlookers question its meaning.”
Through Lines Magazine “is a digital magazine that drives against the current of faceless news, information, and hostile interactions. Each issue will feature a different theme, such as an emotion, an object, a color, or a person, and create a space where people from communities at odds can engage in storytelling through writing, art, photography, and even recipes.”
Verum Literary Press. “‘Verum’ means ‘true’ in Latin, which echoes what this magazine was made for and dedicated to; the truth. Through publishing poetry, short stories, and art, from those who are often disregarded, we aim to create a space that cultivates original and honest artistry. We are interested in the gaps formed between what we want to say and what we do. The intricates and striking tenderness of just exactly who we are.”
Word West Revue “is a home for western-y writing and art and a whole lot more. a place to reimagine ‘the west’ and ‘westerns’ from new angles, overlooked perspectives, in both analogue + digital. we’re into subversion and surprise. we're into road trips and weird americana, ufos and cosmic country—from the mountains to the deserts to the beaches to the plains. go west-ish.”
Wyngraf “was founded to promote and encourage fantasy stories that focus on the little things: friends, family, home, travel. Our authors create worlds that readers get lost in… and dream of someday visiting.”
Yum! Lit publishes poetry, prose, art, video and music.
All of the above journals were founded in 2022, or shortly before. Information is taken directly from their websites.
Know of more baby lit mags? Tell us!
Do you have experiences of your own publishing in newer journals? Please share.
Thank you so much for including Clinch!
Pangyrus Lit Mag is going strong at 9 years old and we'd love to see your work! pangyrus.com