Written by Emily Harstone June 15th, 2020

17 Literary Journals that Respond Within a Month

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.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

This fictional humor website, which leans towards all things literary, responds to submissions within a week.

Moon Park Review

They publish flash fiction, prose poems, and hybrid forms and respond within a week.

SOFTBLOW

SOFTBLOW, an online poetry journal, responds to most submissions in less than three days.

Metaphorosis

This literary journal publishes science fiction and fantasy short stories and responds to most submissions within a week.

The Penn Review

The Penn Review publishes original poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual artwork, and responds to most submissions within a week.

Radar Poetry

Radar Poetry is a wonderful electronic poetry journal that responds within three weeks to submissions.

ISOCOUSTIC*

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.

The Dark

An electronic magazine that publishes fantasy and horror short stories. They respond within four days.

The Jellyfish Review

They publish flash fiction online and respond within a week. They are based out of Indonesia.

Turtle Island Poetry

A electronic journal of poetry and nonfiction. They respond to submissions within two weeks.

Eunoia Review

The Eunoia Review describes themselves as a publisher of “beautiful thinking”. They respond in three days or less.

Ghost Parachute

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

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.

Dream of Shadows

A London-based website for horror and fantasy short stories. They generally respond within three days. They publish new stories monthly.

Thrush

Thrush is a highly respected poetry journal that responds to most submissions within 10 days.

The Threepenny Review

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 SubmissionsThe 2019 Guide to Manuscript PublishersSubmit, 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.

 

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