How to find the right literary magazine for your speculative or literary fiction story
- Andrew Hodges
- Aug 19
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 9
This blog post is packed with tips on how to to navigate the literary magazine space from an editor who writes speculative fiction and translates literary fiction.
Literary magazines and overwhelm for new writers
When I first became serious about writing fiction, around five years ago, I took some solid advice and used short stories as a canvas to learn fiction writing craft. A novel is a massive investment of time and energy. If you like writing short stories, I heard, why not nail craft points like close third person POV or start finding your voice without committing to writing a long manuscript that will almost certainly be bad.
When I was a complete rookie, the literary magazine world felt overwhelming. I knew I was a beginner and was acutely aware from my job as an editor that new writers often overestimate their skills. A beginner’s story was highly unlikely to be published. Worse still, it could end up being an embarrassing credit further down the line!
So I gave myself permission to have fun at that stage.
A year or two later, I started sending short stories to contest and magazines. Yet the overwhelm was still there. First, especially in the self-publishing space, there are lots of dubious contests and magazines that make money from the submissions fees while not offering tangible benefits or an audience to the writer.
Lit mags felt, on the one hand, like a freer and fun format than publishing a novel, but on the other hand, there was a fly-by-night quality attached to them, and it was difficult to gauge which ones were meaningful either in terms of finding readers or in terms of a useful credit.
Yet there are magazines that can help you find readers and get established as a writer.
How literary magazines can help an emerging writer get established
For instance, I know several trad pub authors who first published short stories. When I was a student of science fiction studies, I read "Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson, which is set in the same storyworld as Neuromancer. More recently (because that was aeons ago in publishing years), I read a short story about zombie sheep by RJ Barker.
The standard advice is that, if you enjoy the format, some lit mag publishing credits—in magazines that agents watch, and with relatively low acceptance rates—can enhance your query package.
It's also a useful exercise in literary rejection and placing a manuscript: acceptance rates are usually low and you will probably have to submit a story to a handful of magazines to find a home for it.
Side-note: Maybe you're aware that most traditionally published authors make just a few thousand dollars from each book and are not trying to reach a big audience with your writing. Well, many people simply love submitting short stories to lit mags with no intention of ever writing a novel! It's just a hobby they're passionate about. And that's cool too.
If you are trying to reach an audience, then it's worth learning about what kinds of literary magazines are out there. I did a little market research, though, and here are my notes:
What kinds of literary magazines exist?
Some literary magazines are well established and have a big following. The Paris Review is famous for literary fiction and there is a whole network of similar magazines in that area. For speculative fiction, big names include Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons. Strange Horizons skews more toward speculative literary fiction, the others toward more tightly plotted (genre) fiction.
These kinds of magazines have a strong reputation and a low acceptance rate to match. Literary agents follow many of these magazines, often scouting for new talent.
In the literary fiction space, there are also a bunch of magazines linked to MFA creative writing programs and universities. But I wondered, how much were these really just a platform for students and recent graduates of those programs?
Then there are loads of magazines that have a punk or DIY feel. Like zines, many of these would appear and disappear overnight. But then what would be the point of publishing in a magazine that might disappear as quickly as it appeared?
As for the MFA links, of course, connections matter. If you're a recognised name to the editors, then your chances of publication are higher unless they have blind submissions. But even so, experienced authors are often recognisable by their voice, and new authors are competing in blind submissions with highly experienced authors who have been refining their craft over many years.
As for the DIY-feel magazines: Do your research! Have authors you like or respect been published in that magazine? How does the website make you feel?
Why bother publishing in a literary magazine?
I also recommend you interrogate your why.
And why not write, revise, and publish a short story? If you feel you must or should publish a short story, for instance, to increase your chance of finding an agent for your novel, but you hate the short story format, then no need to bother. Credits are helpful, but so are many other things.
One approach I mentioned above is pure enjoyment: If you’re not trying to build any kind of writerly career for yourself and are just having fun, then credits in a prestigious outlet don’t matter. You might want such credits anyway, to prove a point or meet a challenge you’ve set yourself, but you don’t need them.
As for payment: if you’re trying to make money by publishing in literary magazines, my advice is don’t bother. There are much easier ways to earn money than by getting up to standard and publishing stories regularly in literary magazines. Although receiving payment is good and an important form of recognition.
Tips for publishing in a literary magazine
If you’re trying to build up a portfolio, then I have a few tips for you.
Tip one: Read, read, read. If you don’t regularly read short stories, your book is less likely to jell with current market conventions, and you’re less likely to find a lit mag for your story, even if you’ve mastered the technical aspects of craft. It feels weird to have to say this, but there is a kind of new author who believes strongly in his own brilliance, believes his stories will shake up the literary scene, etc. And sometimes these kinds of authors do strike gold, but they are the minority and usually end up being insufferable.
Tip two: Make a list of desirables. Pick a coupe of top-tier lit mags you’d like to publish in, a few mid-tier ones, and a few respectable (i.e., not vanity) lower tier outlets. Submit to these in order. If you’re struggling to find the right magazines for your story, you could try a service like Chill Subs, where experienced editors will read your story and suggest magazines for you.
Tip three: Get comfortable with rejection. I used to work as an academic, and academic journals are somewhat similar to literary magazines. When you’re a complete beginner, submitting to academic journals can be overwhelming and the chances of rejection are much higher, as you struggle to place your work and are less aware of the conventions of the discipline. The big difference is that you can generally expect many more lit mag rejections than academic journal rejections, as there are very few spaces in literary magazines and hundreds of submissions because submissions are much more open to all than your average academic journal.
So what did my journey look like?
I quit academia in 2019 (when I became a full-time book editor)
I started writing fiction in 2021 and submitted my first stories to magazines or competitions in 2023, starting slow.
In 2023 I had some success in a literary translation competition (John Dryden Literary Translation Competition), making the longlist.
In 2025 I had my first literary translation short stories accepted. One by a relatively new literary magazine (The Brussels Review), and another by a Croatian magazine (Relations).
Along the way, I was rejected from these lit mags/writing competitions:
Cymera short story competition x2
BFS short story competition
Taco Bell Quarterly
Broken Antler Quarterly
Shoreline of Infinity
SWF First 5 Pages Prize 2023
I believe it takes around three years of serious engagement to develop your skills and find your voice from being a total beginner. Fiction writing is like any skill: you have to put in the hours, and anyone who suggests it comes from a natural wellspring of talent is lying!
The speed of the curve depends on your background. If you've been involved in WorldCons and fan culture from a young age, your curve will be faster. If you don't make time for writing and reading, your curve will be slower.
And there will always be flukes and one-off successes along the way for many, because fiction writing is very subjective!
How do you feel about literary magazines? Get in touch and let me know!
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