Note: We intended to publish a different article today, and erroneously sent an email announcing this article, which we published last month. I apologize for the error. Here’s the article we did mean to publish (and announce) today: 17 Approachable Literary Journals
It is good to start out by submitting your work to literary journals that have fast response times. It is rewarding to hear back from journals within a month, rather than a year later, when you have forgotten all about them.
Submitting to journals with fast response times helps keep you motivated. Not all the journals are currently open to submissions, but the majority are.
All of these journals respond to submissions within a month. The response time data is based on information from Duotrope and The (Submission) Grinder.
This fictional humor website, which leans towards all things literary, responds to submissions within a week.
They publish flash fiction, prose poems, and hybrid forms and respond within a week.
SOFTBLOW, an online poetry journal, responds to most submissions in less than three days.
This literary journal publishes science fiction and fantasy short stories and responds to most submissions within a week.
The Penn Review publishes original poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual artwork, and responds to most submissions within a week.
Radar Poetry is a wonderful electronic poetry journal that responds within three weeks to submissions.
This electronic literary journal focuses on publishing poems. Their turnaround time is a week. The submission email address (without guidelines, but please submit no more than three poems), is at the bottom of the page.
An electronic magazine that publishes fantasy and horror short stories. They respond within four days.
They publish flash fiction online and respond within a week. They are based out of Indonesia.
A electronic journal of poetry and nonfiction. They respond to submissions within two weeks.
The Eunoia Review describes themselves as a publisher of “beautiful thinking”. They respond in three days or less.
This flash fiction publisher responds to all submissions within two weeks.
Front Porch Review
A long running e-magizine that publishes fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. They respond within a week.
The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues. Because of the nature of what they publish, they respond within two weeks.
A London-based website for horror and fantasy short stories. They generally respond within three days. They publish new stories monthly.
Thrush is a highly respected poetry journal that responds to most submissions within 10 days.
A respected publisher of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, they respond to most submissions within five days.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, The 2019 Guide to Manuscript Publishers, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The Authors Publish Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Publishing.
She occasionally teaches a course on manuscript publishing, as well as a course on publishing in literary journals.
