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.
All of these journals respond to submissions within a month. The response time data is based on information from Duotrope and The (Submission) Grinder.
Most, but not all, of them are open for submissions now.
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. They also pay.
Radar Poetry is a wonderful electronic poetry journal that responds within three weeks to submissions.
They publish flash fiction online and respond within a week.
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.
The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues. Because of the nature of what they publish, they have fast response times and then generally publish work within a few days of accepting it.
Thrush is a highly respected poetry journal that responds to most submissions within 10 days.
Radon welcomes short story and poetry submissions containing elements of anarchism, transhumanism, dystopia, and/or science fiction. They pay all contributors and try to respond to all submissions within two to four weeks.
A weekly journal of writing publishing the best in fiction, poetry, flash, essays, and interviews (or a close approximation). They try to respond to all submissions within a month. Sometimes they are much quicker, and sometimes they are slower.
A flash fiction and nonfiction publication that tries to respond to all submissions within a week. They pay.
They publish fiction and nonfiction as well as erasures. They respond within a week.
They publish top notch nonfiction about writing and reading. They respond to most submissions within a week.
Bending Genres
They publish fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and microreviews. They send responses to most submissions within a week.
The Daily Drunka accepts film, TV, music, video games, and all pop culture-related submissions of previously unpublished fiction, nonfiction, poetry, lists, reviews, quizzes, and comics. We accept submissions year-round and publish daily. General submissions are only open on Thursdays. They respond to submissions in less than a week.
A litmag for readers who prefer Bashō to Lonely Planet, responds to most submissions within two weeks.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.
She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
