Who Reads Lit Mags? We Do! Spotlight on Black Fox Literary Magazine, Weird Lit, Del Sol Review, CALYX, and NewMyths.com
Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.
A quick announcement from Becky: I’ve updated the Save the Dates page with the times and days for all sessions and interviews. A few errors were also corrected. Please have a look and save those dates!
Hi, all. Jessica here. It’s the first Thursday of the month, which means we all get to share what we’ve been reading in lit mags!
As always, I’ve been keeping a list of all works mentioned in this series, including works shared in the comments section, which you can find right here.
This month, for these unsettlingly “oh my god what now” times, all my picks are absurd. You could call them many things: speculative fiction, slipstream, magical realism, weird… but at their core, they all blur the line between reality and the extraordinary. My favorite thing about this kind of writing is that moment when something odd happens, something that at first glance just seems like nonsense, and suddenly my mind goes quiet. The sense of doom, the worry, the constant hum of alarm all fade away as I focus on making sense of the impossible. It’s a moment of pure discovery, like biting into a donut when you weren’t expecting jelly in the middle. Something that once felt rigid and unyielding in my brain becomes fluid, as a brand-new thought takes shape, stretching and shifting until it fits into place.
You could call them many things: speculative fiction, slipstream, magical realism, weird… but at their core, they all blur the line between reality and the extraordinary.
The first story that I read that made me feel this way was actually suggested in one of the comments of last month’s post: “Everything they taught us about horticulture is a lie” by S Maxfield, published in issue #27 of Black Fox Literary Magazine. The story begins with magic as a metaphor for the intoxicating rush of first love, then flirts with the idea of enchantment by providing little details like a stuffed bear named Abracadabra. And then, magic unmistakably appears in a breathtaking moment that completely hijacked my brain and heart in such a way that it felt like spring during the coldest day of the year.
Black Fox Literary Magazine is a delight to read online. Its layout feels like reading an actual book, and I especially appreciate the page-turning sound effects. For those who prefer to print out their favorite pieces (like me), the magazine makes it easy to download a PDF and select just the pages you want to hold in your hands. Then you can underline and circle lines like this one from S Maxfield: “Stephanie Hannaham smiles and a thousand peonies bloom.”
Another magazine that I have been enjoying immensely is Weird Lit. A relatively new publication with just three issues at the time of this post, it already gets so much right. From its clear sense of identity to the way each piece is introduced by the editors, it never feels like a random collection of writing. I also appreciate that each of the editors took the time to include unique bios worth reading about themselves, making them feel like real people rather than distant gatekeepers handing out rejections.
There hasn’t been a single story in this magazine that I haven’t loved, but the one I feel most compelled to spotlight is “My Giraffe” by Lexi Franciszkowicz. What I adore about this story is how utterly bizarre and unrelatable it is—a narrator with a pet giraffe that can do things no giraffe should be able to do—yet somehow, through the precision of its details, I found myself thinking, same girl, same. And then there’s the ending… deliberately disorienting in a way that makes my brain buzz as I try to puzzle it out. Absurdist fiction can sometimes feel like the author is getting away with something, bending reality just for the hell of it. But here, there’s a real emotional arc, and that’s what makes it work so brilliantly.
The next lit mag I am excited to highlight is Baffling. On their submissions page, the editors of Baffling describe their vision:
We are looking for speculative stories that explore science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a queer bent. We want queer stories and we want trans stories and we want aro/ace stories. We want indefinable stories. We welcome weird, slipstream, and interstitial writing.
I love that Baffling is embracing the full spectrum of queerness within speculative fiction, allowing imagination to roam free in the realms of magic and the beautifully strange. There’s something deeply comforting about a space where queerness and limitless creativity coexist so effortlessly.
The latest issue of Baffling, Issue 18, revolves around the theme of sex, and the stories are, indeed, intoxicatingly sexy. So much so that after reading one in particular, I admit I wanted a cigarette, although I haven’t smoked since college and settled for lighting a candle instead. The story I am talking about is “The Glass Wife” by K-Ming Chang. This story is a fever dream of intimacy and transformation, where a woman made of glass becomes both lover and mirror, and it’s sensual and tactile in a way I never imagined possible.
The next lit mag on my list, Del Sol Review, has a distinctly contemporary feel, yet I always feel a sense of nostalgia when I read through it because I have been looking at it for so many years. Established in 1998, Del Sol Review has consistently impressed me with its wealth of content, all presented in a clean, uncluttered layout that never feels overwhelming.
One of my favorite poems, “I Was a Pinecone Once” by Beth Woodcome, comes from their issue #7, originally published in 2001. It reads like a quiet meditation on nature, the kind of poem that makes you exhale a little deeper. I could easily dissect it line by line, but honestly, it’s best experienced as a whole, because each part flows so seamlessly into the next.
More recently, Del Sol Review published a poem centered on drug use—normally not my favorite subject. Too often, it feels like a shortcut, a way for writers to introduce surrealism without fully committing, as if they’re afraid to let the strangeness stand on its own. I admit I bristle at stories and poems where the fun, absurd language is explained away by drugs because I’ve had people assume my own weird stories must be based on or inspired by drug use, which I find more than frustrating, because it feels like taking the magical away from the magical realism, like trying to shove limitless, expansive play into too-tight shoes.
But this poem is different. “Octopuses Rolling on Molly” by Kathleen Hellen is an exceptional gift for the mind. And, it isn’t magical realism at all. The statement preceding the poem states: Gül Dölen, Ph.D., assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, says when octopuses are on MDMA, it’s like watching “an eight-armed hug.” That single fact unlocked something in me—because honestly, I had never once considered octopuses doing MDMA. And yet, here we are.
Speaking of literary journals with a long history (or perhaps I should say herstory in this case), one of my favorites this month was CALYX. Since its inception, CALYX has been committed to publishing a diverse range of feminist voices, explicitly affirming its dedication to being a trans-inclusive feminist journal.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a print edition, the Volume 34:3 Summer/Fall 2024 issue, and I took my time savoring each page, beginning with the artwork in the center. One piece that especially captivated me was Tiffany Dugan’s “A Moment,” a collage with colored pencil and watercolor. Each time I looked at it, I saw something new. The colors reminded me of Matisse’s blue and orange paintings, and the interplay between bold, sweeping shapes and delicate, flower-like details gave it a fleeting, ephemeral quality, just as its title suggests.
A poem from CALYX that especially made me pause was “The Dead Consider the Living” by Nicole Olweean. Even the title feels off—shouldn’t it be the other way around? Throughout the poem, our usual perspective is inverted, as we consider the world from the dead’s point of view rather than the living’s, which feels impossible and strangely hypnotic. This image in particular is a stunner:
They do not consider honey alive or dead, but both: the only thing on earth glowing with afterlife.
I kept returning to it, struck by its beauty and mystery. How does the narrator know this? As I try to make sense of it, even now, the honey itself seems to glow brilliantly in my mind.
Lastly, I didn’t think I was going to be able to include any nonfiction in this month’s post, but then I came across the current issue of NewMyths.com, #69. And I stumbled upon Peter Jekel’s “Journey Into Darkness,” which recounts the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet. I’ve always been intrigued by the story of Pluto, and I love that the author delves into how Pluto captured the minds of science fiction writers, from imagined origin stories to predictions about its moons and characteristics from Edmond Hamilton, which ended up being accurate before their actual discovery. Now, with its demotion and mythical inspirations, Pluto feels less like a celestial body and more like an absurd dreamscape.
I can’t wait to hear about what you’ve been reading in lit mags lately. Share everything that’s caught your eye, but just putting it out there: I’d love to focus on poetry next month, and I’d really appreciate it if you all let me know which poems from lit mags you’ve discovered.
Like last time, please note that, while I look forward to reading our Lit Mag Brags each month and seeing what and where everyone has been published, I’d like this to be a resource for what we’re reading, not what we’ve written.
I can’t wait to see what everyone suggests.
 | A guest post by
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One of the Weird Lit Mag editors here — thanks for the thoughtful highlight of our little magazine!
Thanks Jessica. Enjoying the Weird Lit stories. Quite a treat.