NOTE: We add to this page about twice a month. Check back often. ✅
I found David McDannald’s post about Literary Magazines seeking long form prose on Facebook. I checked out his site and recommend you do the same. Visit https://www.davidmcdannald.com/litmags-accepting-long-prose.
While I cannot guarantee that every listing is still active, I’m including 4 samples below that I just checked:
Agni https://agnionline.bu.edu/submit/ It’s a paying market.
Conjunctions https://www.conjunctions.com/about/submissions/
Conjunctions publishes short- and long-form fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid texts.
New England Review https://www.nereview.com/ner-submissions/
We welcome submissions in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, dramatic writing, and translation in all genres.
Story https://www.storymagazine.org/submissions/
Our online submission fee is $3.Story does not have any formal guidelines with regard to style, content, or length. We consider all “short” narrative fiction under 25,000 words in length. If you are submitting Flash Fiction, you are welcome to include up to five pieces as one submission. Please select one of the three categories that best fits the length of your story.
You’ll find a lot more at David McDannald https://www.davidmcdannald.com/litmags-accepting-long-prose. If you write short prose, there are listings there as well.
FYI, David McDannald is a writer and traveler who co-authored The Last Great Ape: A Journey through Africa and a Fight for the Heart of the Continent, published by Pegasus Books. His prose has appeared in many journals and magazines, including The American Scholar, Oxford American, Glimmer Train, The Gettysburg Review, and Sierra. In college, David double-majored in philosophy and business administration, which his advisor told him was the strangest double major he had ever heard of outside of politics-religion. Torn between different versions of the world, between creativity and pragmatism, partly due to the collapse in his childhood of his father’s business, he accepted a job at Goldman Sachs and there killed off the inner businessman that Texas had tried to grow in him. Read more at https://www.davidmcdannald.com/biography.
Markets Seeking Personal Essays
These ongoing deadlines posted with thanks to The Write Life
Boston Globe
The Boston Globe Magazine Connections section seeks 650-word first-person essays on relationships of any kind. It pays, though how much is unclear. Submit to magazine@globe.com with “query” in the subject line.
You can also submit to Boston Globe Ideas, which accepts pitches and submissions for first-person essays ranging from 650 to 1,000 words. All pitches and submissions should be sent to ideas@globe.com.
Dame Magazine
“For women who know better. Smart, fast-paced news and opinions on what matters most in our lives — That’s DAME.”
If you’re up for the challenge, send your pitch to editorial@damemagazine.com. Aimed at women in their 30s, the publication covers politics, race, civil rights, disability, class, gender, sex, reproductive rights, LGBTQ issues and much more. Rates are based on type of features, but they typically pay $200 for essays.
The Christian Science Monitor
Have an upbeat personal essay between 400 and 800 words on everyday life, like travel, parenting, home, family, gardening, neighborhood, or community?
Submit to The CS Monitor’s Home Forum. Send your completed essays to homeforum@csmonitor.com. They accept essays on a wide variety of subjects (and encourage timely, newsy topics), but steer clear of topics like death, aging and disease.
Kveller
Want to write for this Jewish parenting site? To submit, email submissions@kveller.com with “submission” somewhere in the subject line. Include a brief bio, contact information, and your complete original blog post — you can either attach it as a Word document or paste it into the body of the email. Suggested word count: 500-800. Per a well-loved private Facebook group for freelance writers, pay is about $50.
The Sun Magazine
Publications in The Sun Magazine have won Pushcart Prizes and been selected for Best American Essays — so if your story gets chosen, you’ll be in good company. And since the editors “tend to favor personal writing,” that I-driven nonfiction essay might just be the perfect fit. (Fiction and poetry are also accepted.)
Pay ranges from $300 all the way up to $2,000 for accepted personal stories and fiction prose. The easiest way to send your story is online through Submittable, but check the guidelines first before submitting.
Creative Nonfiction Magazine
One unique aspect to Creative Nonfiction Magazine is their high acceptance rate of unsolicited pitches. It’s a great stop for blossoming writers, as well as those with more experience.
To submit online, a $3 reading fee is charged to non-subscribers (and the magazine no longer accepts paper submissions). The fee ensures you will be paid if your work is accepted, which typically adds up to a $125 flat rate plus $10 per printed page. Plus, they often run essay contests with prizes ranging from $1,000-$10,000 per winning entry, and reading fees help offset that expense. Read over their submission calls before pitching since each issue sticks to a theme and may have different guidelines.
Contests With No Deadlines Specified
Barrelhouse: open to submissions of book reviews. No deadline given.
Electric Literature: accepting essay pitches at editors@electricliterature.com. No deadline given.
FiveThirtyEight: open to pitches for written pieces from reporters, academics, analysts, visual journalists, computational journalists, and other contributors. No deadline given.
The Fictional Cafe a virtual coffee shop and multi-media arts magazine created especially for writers, artists, and podcast lovers, seeks new material year round.
Make a Living at Writing–Lists 161 markets divided into a variety of categories. Peruse. Let me know if you find dead links and I’ll add that info here, okay? Thanks!
Vox: seeking pitches in a wide range of subjects. No deadline given.
The Women’s Media Center: accepting pitches for reported stories, opinion pieces, personal essays, and interviews on a number of different subjects.
Chill Subs is a new website to help poets and writers find the right home for their work “without wasting too much energy, losing your shit and hating yourself for being unproductive.” You can browse magazines or search with a variety of helpful filters, such as magazine name, contributors, response times, genres, specific demographics, and one of my favorites–vibe.
Poets Reading the News, founded in 2016, publishes original poetry about current events from around the world. We are currently open to submissions.
CHESTNUT REVIEW seeks submissions year round.
- Vita Poetica Journal Seeks Creative Work Explored Through a Spiritual Lens
- Deadline:Year-round
The Vita Poetica Journal is an online quarterly publication of creative work explored through a spiritual lens. This may be engaging directly with religious faith or a broader inquiry into meaning and the human experience. Submissions of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays, and visual art are welcome year-round. Please see our submissions guidelines at www.vitapoetica.org/journal/submissions.
Where did our contests with deadlines go? They may come back, but right now we’re trying a different approach.
