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The 5 best magazine essays of the year

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Our annual celebration of the best magazine essays of the year begins with a Sidney Award for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blockbuster, “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic. “America begins in black plunder and white democracy,” Coates writes. He then describes the many ways African Americans have been handicapped, from residential practices to just plain thievery.

The essay has incredible propulsive force. Coates then unleashes his proposal: “Reparations — by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences — is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckon us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is — the work of fallible humans.”

Reparations would help shrink the wealth gap, but, he concludes, “What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices — more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.”

The debate over sexual assault on campus — how much it happens, how to punish it, how to prevent it — is in its early phases. There’s plenty of jumping to conclusions, lots of vitriol, but very little clarity on the numbers or what to do. Emily Yoffe’s controversial blockbuster in Slate, “The College Rape Overcorrection,” is a brave and useful volley in that debate. Yoffe starts with the story of Drew Sterrett, who was an engineering student at the University of Michigan in 2012. One night a woman known as CB invited herself into his bed, the two had sex, while his roommate tried and failed to sleep amid the din of their lovemaking in the bunk bed above.

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Months later Sterrett was asked to make himself available for a Skype interview with university officials, although he was not told why. During the questioning, he realized that CB must have said something disturbing about their night together. His days at school were over.

It’s hard to know what happened that night, but the process by which the evidence was weighed and Sterrett was judged seems plainly unfair. One gets the impression from reading the article and other essays that, nationwide, there are many brutal rapes that go unpunished, there are some innocent men thrown off campus without due process and the whole system is structured badly.

The country suffered a great loss this year with the destruction of The New Republic. Before it was obliterated, it churned out the usual stream of outstanding essays.

Michael Hobbes’ piece, “Stop Trying to Save the World,” is a good example of the old magazine’s ability to look at reality with a warm heart but a clear head. Hobbes describes why improving other people’s lives is so difficult: because behaviors that seem maladjusted to us often have their own logic behind them.

For example, one well-intentioned program tried to get teenage girls to quit street gangs. It worked. They quit. But, within a year, every girl in the program was pregnant. The gang activity gave them a sense of identity. Without that identity and purpose, they needed another one.

Adam Johnson’s essay “Scavengers” in Granta captures the inexpressible bizarreness of North Korea. Part of the essay is about a man named Rikidozan. The North Koreans believe he was a ferocious Korean professional wrestler who so demolished his Japanese opponents that the Japanese murdered him. In fact, he was a pro wrestler who performed in the United States in the 1950s, purchased nightclubs and hotels and was killed by a Japanese mobster in 1963.

For more uplifting reading, consider Diana Schaub’s “Lincoln at Gettysburg” from National Affairs. It is a close reading of the Gettysburg Address. Did you know the address is only 272 words? Moreover, the address exists in its own universal sphere. There is no mention of America, nor North or South, nor even a single proper noun, except the word God.

Schaub parses every phrase, showing where Lincoln got it, and the philosophical depths and strategic thinking contained in each sentence. For example, Lincoln’s use of the word “conceived” evolved over the years, as his worldview deepened. The address was not just a masterpiece, it was the careful summation of a lifetime of reflection.

David Brooks is a regular columnist for The New York Times.

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EveryWriter

A New Community of Writers

Top 50 Literary Magazines -Every Writer

January 12, 2023 by Richard 70 Comments

Welcome to our list of the top 50 literary magazines. Our criteria for this list have changed. We considered a wide range of standards for this list. We looked at close to 20 data points. The most important criteria we used this time were:

• The date of founding.
• The number of national anthologies publications (and we looked at many of them).
• The quality of work and names of past authors published in the magazine.

We have a database listing 1000s of magazines:   Find a complete list of literary magazines here.

We were the first site on the web to develop a list of the top 50 literary magazines. Many news outlets and websites have copied this list. Our methods are systematic in compiling numbers for placement on the list. This list aims to help writers find a place to publish their writing that will get them recognition. When a magazine is published over a long period and is recognized nationally, it gives authors more opportunities for exposure. Also, these magazines have a very good name in literary circles. Many will not agree and feel we’ve left a good or great publication off the list. That’s okay. The best thing to do is leave a comment below.

This list of top 50 literary magazines culminates in 20 years of hard work. I first thought about this list when I got my BFA in Creative Writing. In the early days of the internet, people in the BFA and MFA programs would talk about good and bad literary magazines. It took a lot of work to find online publications. Only some reputable magazines took online submissions. At that time, I started collecting a list of magazines. It was the Big List, and it started this site. Then I put this list together. I started looking for the best literary magazines, and then later, I realized I could turn different indicators into a point system, and so on. Later as EWR grew, others helped to compile this list. These magazines are very special to us; we purposefully constructed this list. It’s one of the reasons it takes so long to update.

We have also included interviews with some of the editors of these magazines. It was an honor to interview them, and we recommend you read those interviews. The editors tell you what they are looking to publish in their magazines. The best practice and best way to get your work published in these Top 50 literary magazines are by reading them. Understand what they want before you submit your manuscript. Having a thriving scholarly community is about supporting each other, not just supporting your work by publishing with them. Now here is our list of the top 50 literary magazines.

Top 50 Literary Magazines – Every Writer

1  new yorker .

Since 1925 this magazine has published some of the best writers in the country. They consistently publish outstanding work. Please support them. They have over a million readers.

2  Ploughshares

Founded in 1971, Ploughshares is our best and highest-ranked university non-commercial literary magazine. It is more honored by national anthologies than any other magazine except the New Yorker. It is an outstanding publication. We had the honor a little while back of  interviewing Editor Ladette Randolph . Ploughshares is excellent and exceptional. Please support them.

3  Paris Review

The Paris Review started in 1953 and is one of the best-known literary magazines in the world. It is constantly publishing great authors and great works.

4  New England Review

It started in 1978 and is one of the country’s best-known and best-loved literary magazines. It is outstanding.

An outstanding literary magazine that has been publishing since 1889. They are honored with awards often.

6  Harper’s Magazine

Founded in 1850 and has always been honored. It is an outstanding commercial literary magazine with a circulation of 220,000 readers.

7  Kenyon Review

Since 1939 the Kenyon Review has been one of the best literary magazines in the country. You can always find great writers on its pages. It started in 1939. We recently interviewed the great  Poet David Baker , one of the editors of the Kenyon Review. The magazine is one of the best out there, always.

8  Georgia Review

It started in 1947 and has won many awards. It is a significant literary magazine that publishes great authors and great works.

9  Southern Review

Originally started in 1935, Southern Review has contributed to great literature for over 50 years. A publication of the Louisiana State University and a great literary magazine.

10  Virginia Quarterly Review

One of the very best journals out there. This journal is often honored and published by The University of Virginia since 1925.

11  Threepenny Review

Founded in 1980 and is one of the best literary magazines out there. It’s always in national anthologies and winning awards. We had the honor of interviewing the Threepenny Review editor Wendy Lesser a little while ago; please  check out the interview .

12  American Short Fiction

Founded in 1991, the magazine is always a leading source of well-honored fiction. The magazine takes online submissions. Buy the magazine, read the magazine, and support it.

13  Yale Review

For 100 years, this literary magazine has published great works by great authors. It’s always worth a read and a submission.

14  Southwest Review

This literary magazine can trace its roots back to 1915. Published by Southern Methodist University, the magazine is consistently publishing great work.

15 Green Mountain Review

Green Mountain Review, or GMR, was founded in 1987; they consistently win awards and publish famous names in the literary world. Northern Vermont University publishes them. 

16  Iowa Review

Founded in 1970, this literary magazine publishes excellent work again and again.

17 Painted Bride Quarterly 

Published in 1973 in Philadelphia, PBQ puts forth amazing authors in poetry and fiction. 

18  American Poetry Review

This literary magazine only published poetry and was founded in 1976. It is one of the top 2 poetry magazines in the country.

Poetry is the best poetry magazine in the country, hands down. They were founded in 1912 and consistently published great poets. 

20  Zoetrope All-Story

Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, the literary magazine consistently publishes outstanding works of fiction.

21  One Story

Launched in 2002 and immediately began getting recognition for its high-quality stories. They publish fiction only.

22  Zyzzyva

First published in 1985 and has published wonderful stories every year it has been in circulation. They are consistently honored.

Boston University has published them since 1972. This literary journal is continuously publishing great work.

24  Antioch Review

Since 1941, The Antioch Review has published great authors and excellent writing. We love the Antioch review. 

25  Michigan Quarterly Review

MQR began publishing in 1962; they are continuously publishing outstanding work. The University of Michigan publishes them.

26  Gettysburg Review

The Gettysburg Review, founded in 1988, publishes fiction, essays, and poetry. They publish quarterly and have won numerous awards and honors. 

27  Prairie Schooner

This literary magazine has been published since 1927 and is among the best. 

28  Cincinnati Review

Starting in 2003, this literary magazine has published many outstanding authors and outstanding works.   

29  Colorado Review

In 1956 Colorado State University established the Colorado Review. They consistently publish good work from authors.

30  Boulevard

The literary magazine has been publishing great work since 1985. It’s one of the best.

31  Harvard Review

The Harvard Review started in 1986, publishes top writers in the country, and has won many awards and honors. 

32  Subtropics

This literary magazine has only been published for six years but has been honored so many times it made our list.

33  Shenandoah 

This literary magazine began publishing in 1949 and is one of the best.

34  Five Points

Five Points is published by Georgia State University and is in our top 10 of these 50 for always being in national anthologies and winning awards. Founded in 1996 still less than 20 years old, but a great literary magazine.

35  Conjunctions

An outstanding literary magazine from Bard College, they do have online content.

Published by Cornell University since 1947 and always publishes great authors and excellent writing.

37  Hudson Review

Founded in 1947, this literary magazine publishes outstanding work and authors.

38  Triquarterly

Founded in 1958, Triquarterly has continuously published great work. The magazine is honored often by national anthologies.

39  Alaska Quarterly Review

Founded in 1980 and published at the University of Alaska of Anchorage. The magazine publishes excellent work.

40  The Missouri Review

Since 1978 this magazine has won many honors and has published great works by great authors. The Missouri Review is one of those old.

41  A Public Space

The site was founded in 2006 but has won many honors in the short time it has been published.

42  Chicago Review

Founded in 1946 this literary magazine is consistently publishing great works.

43  Black Warrior Review

This literary magazine was founded in 1947 and has continuously published great authors. The Black Warrior Review is consistently publishing outstanding works by notable authors. We are big fans of this unique and long-standing magazine.

44  Witness

First published in 1987 the literary magazine has come on strong lately with many honors.

45  Barrow Street

The literary magazine only accepts poetry and was founded in 1998—one of the best.

46  New Ohio Review

Starting in 2006, this Ohio University Magazine has consistently published outstanding work from the day it opened. They have an excellent site on the web and online submissions.

47  Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse was established in 1960. The magazine is consistently publishing excellent writing by fantastic authors. We highly recommend you pick up a copy. 

48 Hanging Loose

Hanging Loose first appeared in 1966. They have won many awards, and their authors appear regularly in national anthologies. 

49  Narrative 

Since 2003 they have published fiction and poetry by great authors. We had them listed as the best online literary magazine, and they do have an excellent website, but they now publish in the real world, so we’ve moved them. This magazine is certainly worth reading and paying attention to.

50  Ecotone

The University of North Carolina-Wilmington established Ecotone in 2005. They consistently publish good work.

How did we come up with this top 50 literary magazines list? It’s challenging! Some other lists on the web tally the most appearance in Best American Short Stories or other anthologies. The literary magazine gets points for the years it has been publishing. Then we tally the appearances of these literary magazines in several national anthologies. We then give points for specific awards like Pushcart. We turn all these into a point system and then rank the magazines. So it would be like this, the top 50 magazines in order are based on age + awards + anthology appearances =best. This list was number one for literary magazines for the last ten years. It’s a detailed process. We hope this list of Top 50 literary magazines is helpful.

Related posts:

• Top 10 Types of Poems, Forms or Formats
• Lit Mag: Five 2 One Magazine
• Lit Mag: Bennington Review
• Lit Mag: Claudius Speaks
• Lit Mag: Below the Fold Magazine

About Richard

Richard Everywriter (pen name) has worked for literary magazines and literary websites for the last 25 years. He holds degrees in Writing, Journalism, Technology and Education. Richard has headed many writing workshops and courses, and he has taught writing and literature for the last 20 years.  

In writing and publishing he has worked with independent, small, medium and large publishers for years connecting publishers to authors. He has also worked as a journalist and editor in both magazine, newspaper and trade publications as well as in the medical publishing industry.   Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page .

Reader Interactions

Real Writer says

March 24, 2017 at 9:13 am

Any idea why The Atlantic fell off the list? The last time I checked (maybe a couple of years ago), it was #3. That seems like a pretty precipitous drop, unless you excluded it for some reason.

Adela Brito says

June 22, 2023 at 9:31 am

I think they stopped publishing fiction, and do more news oriented essay type pieces.

Jersey Pinoy says

April 4, 2017 at 4:49 pm

ZYZZYVA also publishes poetry.

Every Writer says

April 6, 2017 at 8:31 am

Thank you Jersey!

Mike Pulley says

June 10, 2017 at 1:14 pm

Good list! However, I’ve got one correction for you. I clicked on the link above for Ecotone, and it took me to the magazine’s website. I clicked on its “About” page and it says that it was launched in 2005 by the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, not University of South Carolina, as you state above. I’m at Clemson and have connections to University of South Carolina. Its literary publication is called Yemassee. Hope that helps!

August 4, 2017 at 12:15 pm

We are working on updates. Sorry about the errors. Our site is about 10,000 pages, so sometimes it’s hard to make all the changes we want to make. If you see errors point them out. Mike, I’ve made the changes you pointed to. Thank you so much, and yes, it does help.

Rachel says

August 8, 2017 at 2:21 pm

Thank you for all your work! I’m chiming in to say that Michigan Quarterly Review now accepts online submissions via Submittable.

August 8, 2017 at 2:56 pm

Your comment popped up in my board, but it was so difficult to find where you left this. These new reply buttons. I made the changes…thank you for the note.

Cincinnati Review says

August 7, 2017 at 9:10 am

Hello there from Cincinnati Review! We do have online submissions now–in fact, we accept only online submissions. Thanks for the list!

August 7, 2017 at 12:41 pm

This is great to hear. I will make the update soon.

DeWitt Henry says

August 7, 2017 at 12:31 pm

Where are the online magazines? For my own tops list on the net, see my website or my monthly column of “literary booksmarks”

Please don’t just come by to plug your site. We have a large listing of literary magazines, print and online at on our literary magazines pages: https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/ I’ve been listing them on this site since 1999.

April 5, 2022 at 10:23 am

With the exception of Granta, this list is so … Ameircan.

August 7, 2017 at 5:12 pm

Disappointing to see a list like this base so heavily on biased anthology presence. The next article should be about how basing a list of “best” on metrics that are skewed towards cis-hetero white men is flawed. Also, as someone else said, where are the online literary journals that are doing the work right now? Meh, won’t be bookmarking this.

Teny C. Williams says

June 23, 2018 at 2:33 pm

I’m not sure what journals you are referring to as skewed to cis-hetero white men. The three I subscribe to (university journals), and others I grab off the stands, are heavily weighted to feminist and LGBT points of view, with a fair bit of Social Justice War-making.

William Humphrey says

August 7, 2017 at 11:44 pm

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t the 6th to the last word of the introductory paragraph be “past”? Or are you referring to necrotic authors?

August 8, 2017 at 12:18 am

You are of course correct, what really needs to be done is the entire thing needs to be rewritten. I’m sorry for all the mistakes. It was botched long ago. The rewrites coming.

August 8, 2017 at 12:20 am

You should think about writing for our contest. https://www.everywritersresource.com/every-writer-halloween-50-word-scary-story-contest/ It’ll make you feel better about all the things that have gone wrong in the world.

Stephanie G'Schwind says

August 8, 2017 at 11:13 am

Just to clarify: Colorado Review does in fact take online submissions.

August 8, 2017 at 11:52 am

I’ve made the changes. Thanks for the note.

August 8, 2017 at 11:53 am

A note to editors, the best way to update the information above, and to get a listing on our site for free, is to go here: https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/submit-your-site/ and fill out the form and submit it. We will update your listing, and this page….

Former Narrative Staff says

August 8, 2017 at 12:44 pm

Not only does Narrative charge an outrageous fee, but they have options for readers (internally, of course) to flag submissions either by “Noteworthy Authors” or those who have contributed $X to the journal. Narrative is an outright racket.

G. D. McFetridge says

May 8, 2022 at 8:58 am

And furthermore, Tom Jenks is a hustling little weasel who lurks in the back pages of writers magazines advertising his marginal editing skills, for which he charges substantial fees under innuendoes of how good he thought the work was, after his initial review and before receiving his fee, of course, and then he essentially razes the very work he previously praised; although because he is a hustler, he chooses his words carefully during the setup phase.

August 8, 2017 at 1:39 pm

How do you expect a literary magazine to continue in existence charging $1 to $3 for a submission? Assuming a magazine gets 2,000 submissions at even $3 per, that’s $6,000. Printing costs alone can exceed that total. An independent magazine with no university backing would find it difficult to survive.

August 8, 2017 at 2:33 pm

There is a lot of debate about literary magazines charging to read….but it is so difficult to make money publishing that it should certainly be understood why. Think of it this way, when you submitted your work did you also subscribe to the magazine? Have you ever bought a copy of the magazine you are submitting to? It cannot be one sided.

Sydney Lea says

November 20, 2021 at 1:43 pm

I started NEW ENGLAND REVIEW in 1978. At that time, we had no college/university backing, and I was spending as much time chasing funding as I was editing. Even back then, the volume of submissions was nigh overwhelming, as I was often essentially the sole reader in all genres. I decided it might be helpful to charge a buck to submit, and you would have thought I’d asked potential contributors (who FAR outnumbered subscribers) for their firstborn children. The hue and cry was so calamitous I had to change the policy. It therefore astounds me –though it does not in the least chagrin me; I pay willingly– that magazines WITHOUT reading fees are the very rare exception.

August 8, 2017 at 2:50 pm

Well, we looked at the quality of writing in these magazines, not at their practices. Narrative doesn’t make anyone submit work to them. Writers find a value in it, or they wouldn’t do it. I too worked for a university magazine, and I never made a dime. We have to ask ourselves at some point what is the value of the work we do? Is the end goal only publishing a novel with a big publisher and riding off into the sunset? That prospect is sinking quickly. Making money on ads has become increasingly difficult. So how do you pay your fiction editor? Should literary magazines always be a profitless venture where no one sees value, and it’s just a few selfless souls who produce them? I’m just asking, what is your model to profit from these? Should these editors always work for free? Should it always be a university venture for the sake of art? Do you have a suggestion on how a magazine can make profit? Even major magazines and newspapers are disappearing.

August 9, 2017 at 7:57 am

I don’t know, but if they give their fiction editor $20 per submissions, wouldn’t that be nice? On EWR we get 100s of submissions, and many are outright spammed. I get submissions that are just forwarded from other magazines. No cover letters, nothing. You have to think of the value, and submitting your work has a value. If they made it a rule to subscribe to their magazine before you submit, would that be ok? I don’t know, but the model for literary magazines has been around for a very long time. One of my first rejection letters was from the late great Lois Rosenthal of Story magazine. It was hand written and worth much more to me than $20.

August 9, 2017 at 8:04 am

I’ve removed a couple nasty comments here. One was from a website owner who has 14,000 backlinks and 53 organic traffic. It kinda tells you what he does with his time. It’s bad form to spam the site while insulting me.

Ken W Simpson says

November 2, 2020 at 9:35 pm

R. T. Smith says

August 10, 2017 at 9:58 am

ALthough I appreciate your ranking of SHENANDOAH, I think you should know that the journal has been on line (shenandoahliterary.org) for about 7 years. To assess it’s current quality, someone needs to look at recent issues. In fact, we now ONLY consider mss. sent through our Submittable portal. Thanks R T Smith Editor, SHENANDOAH

August 10, 2017 at 2:29 pm

Yes, we’ve had you on the list for over 10 years, back when your url was http://shenandoah.wlu.edu/ . I am a fan of the magazine. As a side note I’ve read your work since Brightwood. We’d be honored to do an interview….see some other interviews here: https://www.everywritersresource.com/interviews/

February 19, 2018 at 5:02 pm

Ecotone was of time.

bart plantenga says

June 26, 2018 at 3:05 am

nice standard list – the only detail missing is that many of these magazines charge submission fees. This is like a regressive tax. Writers already earn nothing but are now forced to go negative. The main culprit is their use of submittable I guess. it is being addressed above. it reminds me of the 1990s nyc bar/cafe scene of pay to play for bands and writers.

Rob Klein says

July 24, 2018 at 12:17 pm

Alaska Quarterly Review but not Salmagundi? Are you sure?

Melanie L Griffin says

October 24, 2018 at 2:40 pm

Thanks for this list. Two thoughts: first, the repeated use of “great work” or “outstanding work” or “one of the best” isn’t useful because we assume that’s your opinion since these mags are on the list! Instead maybe you could add a few words about the type of work they publish (not just genre), even simply taken from their websites. Secondly, it would be super helpful if you could note whether or not they are a paying market. Don’t have to research how much, just something beyond contributor copies. More and more, publications don’t even bother to say that on their websites! They just assume you will be honored to write for them for free. Thanks again for the work you put into this!

Valentine says

October 30, 2018 at 7:54 am

Well, I would actually say, that it’s a great job anyway. Subjective opinion doesn’t make it to be less impressive. I find this list very helpful.

Satya Pattanaik says

January 16, 2019 at 6:55 am

Anyone can help me giving a list of the magazines who accept translation work from other languages from around the world? Thanks

Tiny Tanaka says

February 13, 2019 at 5:59 pm

Hello! I’m also a small and young poetry writer and I’ve found some success on Instagram with tagging relevant common words that seem to have lots of search results. I also submit to different online small-time literary magazines. There are numerous out there that have small followings, which can easily get your work published on multiple sites, your name out in more public searches, and can get you that first step into the business of writing. I know that your comment was posted a while ago, but if you’ve learned anything new, or see anything that you can now start doing yourself, then best of luck to you! I hope that maybe one day we can connect and I can see how far you’ve come! If you ever need anything, my user name on insta is tinytanaka.poetry and my e-mail is [email protected] . I hope you’re doing okay!

Krishnamurthy N says

February 18, 2019 at 9:52 am

The literary magazines, ilike have not made the grade! Litrery Review (LR), New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books (LRB), Times Literary Supplement (TLS)

February 18, 2019 at 9:57 am

We are looking at rewriting this list. It is based on numbers, many factors. The first time we did this list, it was over 10 years go. If you want a complete list of literary magazines, you can go to our literary magazines site (searchable) https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/

Cynthia says

March 17, 2019 at 12:41 am

It’s absolutely bananas of you not to include The Sun Magazine in your list. By your own stated criteria, it’s top of the heap. It was founded in 1974, recommends the most Pushcart prize winners of any literary magazine, and publishes consistently high-quality stuff.

Why did you overlook this gem???

March 21, 2019 at 4:32 pm

I’m looking to see why The Sun was removed from the list. I believe, at the time of writing the list that The Sun was ONLY taking solicited submissions, but I honestly cannot remember. We will be redoing this list soon.

July 17, 2019 at 12:55 pm

Why isn’t Rattle listed? They boast a circulation of nearly 10,000, and close to half a million page views per month. https://www.rattle.com/info/about-us/

Tony B says

November 27, 2020 at 11:25 pm

Thank you. Great, thoughtful work in creating this list and posting it here online. Please continue your work. I look forward to the update as, for example, some publications accept online publications. Thank you for the support of the work of writers everywhere especially at this time. Long live the written word of stories and the supportive readers of such words. Thanks.

March 19, 2021 at 1:40 am

I don’t agree. The list may be okay for non contributors – but for poets such as me – there are virtually no opportunities. There are publishers listed that are supposed to accept submissions – but don’t. The utter arrogance of some publishers is evident here. They don’t give a damn about contributors. Of course this sort of thing happens in other lists – in poets and writers for example.

March 30, 2021 at 12:43 am

I only see things from the point of view of the a poetry and occasional prose submitter. Writers are the backbone of any literary journal – yet all – except for a few at the very top – either don’t get paid or get paid very little for the years spent honing their skills – for little or no purpose other than as a vocation. It’s a part time occupation at best – and for most a humiliating experience. Perhaps if publishers published more and better books – rather than the rubbish they publish that sells – such as horror – science fiction – craft – gardening and cooking books – the industry would be better off. Sex sells and so does stupidity. All you need to do is drop by any of the very few places that sell books – apart from Amazon – and you will see lots of books – but very little literature.

Sinclaire says

October 23, 2021 at 10:19 pm

Started in 1998 but quickly became one of the best and best known literary magazines in the country. It has been honored by national anthologies more times than many literary magazine that have been publishing for over 100 years.

December 4, 2021 at 3:32 pm

No mention of The Sun on your list? Clifford Garstang ranks it as the #1lit mag for non-fiction.

ROSY DIXON says

September 2, 2022 at 9:33 am

How could you not include TLS – the Times (UK) Literary Supplement? Founded in 1902, it’s long been considered the world’s best literary magazine!

fnf mods says

November 1, 2022 at 6:53 pm

Many thanks for the work you’ve done in the past and continue to do on this essential list. I am excited to put this into use.

backrooms says

April 2, 2023 at 8:21 pm

No longer accepting submissions for tales

May 31, 2023 at 4:21 pm

As of 7:20 ET on Wednesday, 5/31/23, each item on your list has a blank space next to the numeral for the ranking. The blurbs are visible, but the names of the lit mags are not. This is true on both Chrome and Edge.

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December 26, 2023 at 9:21 pm

Thanks for sharing different magazines and It’s really useful for me.

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Each author has organized a literary feast with these magazines. An essential bookmark for writers looking for recognition.

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The 9 best literary magazines in the world right now

This post was published in May 2019. To stay up to date with the latest independent magazine news and reviews, sign up for our monthly email newsletter

Much as we love magazines, a pitfall of many is that the writing inside doesn’t *quite* live up to the art. To redress the balance, we decided to round up our favourite independent literary publications — magazines where the writing is beautiful, and compulsive, and where sometimes, there are no pictures at all.

We are being deliberately vague about the term “literary” here: there are traditional fiction and lit. crit magazines listed, but we’ve also included a sci-fi publication, and a psychogeography title. The only thing that really unites the magazines on this list is that every one is an exceptionally good read.

The White Review

Published in the month the UK was meant to leave the EU, the 24th issue of The White Review invokes the power of black magic. The spell-infused opening essay takes seriously the idea of the sacred, and the supernatural, defining a witch as “one who uses language to cause change in the material world”. You can read that as a statement of editorial intent, as the interviews, poetry and stories in the issue return to this idea of finding language powerful enough to save us, or to somehow cut through. One of the nicest things about The White Review is that it’s academic, and earnest, but at the same time it’s playful. There’s a wicked, witchy element to the art in this issue, too: one of our favourite spreads features a series of latex teats.

The Stinging Fly

An Irish literary magazine of new writing, the latest edition of The Stinging Fly (their 40th) received 982 submissions of short stories alone. The 14 that made the cut are tight and unusually spare. Sally Rooney is a contributing editor, and on these pages there’s an echo of her attention to the minute detail of how we see ourselves and are seen by others. In the very first story in the collection, Harpies, our narrator describes herself: “I am small, brunette, and round. I crouch next to beauties like a full stop. I accentuate.” Usually you can smell the weakness in a story — its bagginess or self-indulgence. Reading The Stinging Fly you get that delicious feeling of surrender; of being in safe hands.

Flaneur presents one street per issue, spending months living in their chosen location — most recently they moved to Taipei – before heading back to Berlin to piece the whole magazine together. They define their approach as “literary” in the sense that it is self-consciously subjective. The picture they build of a street is woven together out of scraps of private correspondence, polaroids, and half-memories. One of our favourite pieces in the last issue, which zeroes in on a street in São Paulo, tells the story of racial segregation in Brazil via a conversation overheard in a lift.

Freeman’s looks like a book but it self-defines as a magazine. “I think a magazine is tracking and engaging with culture,” explains editor John Freeman, who used to head up Granta. “It has an ongoingness, whereas an anthology freezes a moment, perhaps, and puts it in two covers.” The fifth issue is about power: it’s topical, but in a pleasurably sideways way. One of the most beautiful things here is a poem by Julia Alvarez that reimagines Penelope, happy alone, disappointed when Odysseus finally comes home: “He’s back, disguised as an old man/ to test my virtue … I would be rid of him.”

Oxford American

Self-described as ‘a magazine of the South’, the rich, difficult essays in Oxford American come as a surprise. One painful piece in the Spring ‘19 issue is about the propagandic power of plantation houses, and the architecture of white supremacy: “beauty is often a con — a lure … Think of Stalin’s symmetrical Seven Sisters. Think of Vivien Leigh’s face, that dress made of drapes.”

A science fiction magazine funded by the sale of its own delightfully 80s type-face, the first issue of Visions is all about ‘Home’. Interspersed with bright yellow pages of flash-fiction written in collaboration with a computer bot, stories are bizarre, but they also have a quiet, poetic quality. One of our favourite pieces in the issue imagines a future where the whole human race will be homeless, because we will have induced ourselves into “ultra-high frequency radiation, and shone ourselves into the depths of interstellar space”. Another highlight is a dinner-date with a hologram of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Somesuch Stories

The fourth issue of this UK literary journal is themed ‘redemption’, a word editor Suze Olbrich defines as borderline archaic. But the idea of absolution still sticks its pins into us. In a largely secular world, we share what Olbrich calls a “gnarly yearning for liberation from guilt; for forgiveness — for salvation”. It’s a great theme, and while the stories on these pages are uneven, when they’re good, they’re very very good. Like Luke Turner’s beautiful, ambivalent essay on cruising, looking back on encounters he is now old enough to recognise as abusive. And Kieran Yates’ fan fiction about women of colour in popular culture; from Padma Patil, to Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

American Chordata

One of the defining characteristics of New York-based American Chordata is that it looks really good. Mixing short stories and poetry with photography, the pictures aren’t specially commissioned. Instead, art director Bobby Doherty mines the internet for art all year long, and then sets his favourites next to the text in a strange, non-illustrative way, almost like collage. In the most recent issue — AC’s eighth — a short story about a murderess with a twig growing out of her stomach is bookended, sensuously, by a black-and-white image of two teenagers snogging.

Zoetrope: All-Story

Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, Zoetrope was originally conceived as a way to inspire independent movie-making, by providing a space for writers to publish their short fiction and plays. The magazine’s role-call of contributors is ludicrously star-spangled — the rotating guest-designer spot has been filled by Bowie and Lynch, to name only Davids. But what makes this magazine remarkable is how lightly it wears its famous names. Virtually unknown outside literary circles, and boasting just around a thousand Instagram followers, you get the feeling the only thing its editors really care about is the quality of the fiction. Which, of course, is consistently excellent: the latest issue opens with a horrible, wonderful short story about a woman who can only get to sleep when pinned down by the weight of somebody else’s flesh.

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10 of the best independent magazines right now

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Independents on the climate crisis

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Best Literary Magazines in 2024

Showing 133 magazines that match your search.

The Shallot: Journal of Mental Health, Art, and Literature

Print magazine for Fiction , Poetry , Short Fiction ,

The Layered Onion is looking for submissions for their publication, The Shallot: Journal of Mental Health, Art, and Literature. The Shallot’s goal is to amplify the voices of artists with lived mental and emotional health experience and accepts poetry and short stories/fiction under 1,001 words. The Shallot is part of The Layered Onion, a social benefit organization dedicated to uplifting the voices of artists with mental and emotional health struggles.

Submission guidelines →

🌍 Territory: USA

🧑‍💻 Online submissions: Yes

Curlew Quarterly

Print & Online magazine for Art , Fiction , Non-Fiction , Poetry , Scripts , Short Fiction ,

Curlew Quarterly, New York’s literary and photo journal, publishes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, which includes nearly all forms of reporting and journalism. Launched in August of 2017, our printed journal and online Daily celebrate the lives, homes, and work of poets, writers, and distinct professionals living in New York, NY.

🌍 Territory: United States

💰 Submission fee: $0

⏱️ Frequency: 4 times a year

New England Review

Print magazine for Poetry , Non-Fiction , Short Fiction ,

NER was founded by poets Sydney Lea and Jay Parini in New Hampshire in 1978. By publishing new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that is both challenging and inviting, New England Review encourages artistic exchange and thought-provoking innovation, providing publishing opportunities for writers at all stages in their careers.

💰 Submission fee: $2

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Impostor: A Poetry Journal

Online magazine for Poetry ,

Impostor: A Poetry Journal was created for writers who may feel intimidated by the established literary world or who feel as if their credentials—or lack thereof—don't fall in line with what's expected. Impostor desires diverse voices to fill its pages regardless of history; age, academic background, or the length of curriculum vitae.

Print magazine for Fiction , Poetry , Non-Fiction ,

Granta magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, badinage and literary enterprise, named after the river that runs through the town. In this original incarnation it published the work of writers like A.A. Milne, Michael Frayn, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

👀 Average visits: 223,800 /month

🌍 Territory: UK/USA

💰 Submission fee: $4

Southwest Review

Print & Online magazine for Fiction , Non-Fiction , Poetry ,

Our mission is to publish a magazine of the highest quality for general readers worldwide. As we reflect on our past and look ahead to the future, the goal is to inspire new ways of connecting with the world. Simply put, we think writing should be as comprehensive and far-reaching as twenty-first–century life itself.

💰 Submission fee: $3

⏱️ Frequency: 1 times a year

New Ohio Review

Print magazine for Fiction , Poetry ,

The New Ohio Review publishes work that addresses the purpose and mystery of being, in any shape or form. We appreciate humor, if it's got depth. We appreciate experimental work, if it's not gimmicky. What we look for is a voice that is genuine, speaking with some degree of lucidity and intelligence about something that feels urgently felt.

👀 Average visits: 2,500,000 /month

💰 Submission fee: $15

⏱️ Frequency: 2 times a year

Story Unlikely

Online magazine for Fiction , Non-Fiction , Short Fiction ,

An award-winning monthly literary magazine that focuses on strong writing and captivating stories (fiction and narrative nonfiction), regardless of genre or author pedigree.

⏱️ Frequency: 12 times a year

Harper's Magazine

Print magazine for Fiction ,

Harper's Magazine, the oldest general-interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation, through long-form narrative journalism and essays. With its emphasis on fine writing and original thought Harper's provides readers with a unique perspective on politics, society, the environment, and culture. Non-fiction authors must query the magazine before submission.

👀 Average visits: 545,300 /month

🧑‍💻 Online submissions: No

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Print magazine for Art , Fiction , Short Fiction ,

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949, is the award-winning SF magazine which is the original publisher of SF classics like Stephen King's "Dark Tower", Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon", and Walter M. Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz."

⏱️ Frequency: 6 times a year

American Poetry Review

Print & Online magazine for Poetry , Non-Fiction ,

The American Poetry Review is dedicated to reaching a worldwide audience with a diverse array of the best contemporary poetry and literary prose. APR also aims to expand the audience interested in poetry and literature, and to provide authors, especially poets, with a far-reaching forum in which to present their work.

👀 Average visits: 11,700 /month

The Pinch was founded in 1980 as the Memphis State Review by William Page. In its first few years, the journal published such well-known writers as Robert Bly, Phillip Levine, Mary Oliver, Robert Penn Warren, and Margaret Atwood.

Founded by the poet Tom McGrath in Los Angeles in 1960, Crazyhorse continues to be one of the finest, most influential literary journals published today. We look forward to another 50 years of the publication of McGrath's visionary foray into the world of letters, and hope you'll join us in encountering the best new writing we can publish.

Michigan Quarterly Review

The Michigan Quarterly Review is an eclectic interdisciplinary journal of arts and culture that seeks to combine the best of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction with outstanding critical essays on literary, cultural, social, and political matters.

Zoetrope All-Story

Print magazine for Fiction , Scripts ,

In 1997, Francis Ford Coppola launched Zoetrope: All-Story, a quarterly magazine devoted to the best new short fiction and one-act plays.

👀 Average visits: 27,700 /month

Run a literary magazine? Submit it to our directory!

The halls of literary success are paved with authors who got their start appearing in literary magazines — such as Zora Neale Hurston, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Edith Wharton, Ursula Le Guin, J.D. Salinger, George Saunders, Alice Munro, Flannery O’Connor, and many more. 

For centuries, literary magazines have highlighted works that would otherwise struggle to reach readers. Poetry, short stories, essays are all forms of writing that own very tiny shares in the publishing landscape — except in the world of literary magazines, where they reign supreme.

If you’re an aspiring author, submitting to literary magazines is a great way to get your foot into the door of the publishing industry, as it allows you to build up your credentials and reach readers. That being said, having your work appear in a literary magazine isn’t as easy as hitting “submit.” While they can act as a stepping stone for writers who wish to go on to have a career in publishing, you shouldn’t view literary magazines as simply a means to an end — if only because doing so will very likely reduce your chances of ever actually being featured in one of them.

And on that note, let’s get started with our first tip for getting your work featured in some of the best literary magazines out there.

Tips for submitting to literary magazines 

Ensure you’re submitting to the right places.

When you think of literary magazines, your mind might automatically go to The New Yorker . Or it might go to independent webzines that specialize in very niche genres. Maybe you think of university-funded quarterlies like The New England Review . All this is to say that the range of lit mags out there is broad and the kinds of things they publish also ranges — from short lit fic to flash space operas, and everything in between. 

So before you decide to submit your short stories or poetry to a magazine, make sure you do your due diligence and research what kinds of things they publish, and where your work is really a match.

Don’t submit to tons of publications all at one

“Cast a wide net” shouldn’t be your mantra when it comes to submitting to lit mags. As mentioned, all magazines have their own styles. So spending your time ensuring your submissions are targeted at the right places is much more valuable than sending your writing to as many different publications as possible. Editors can usually scout fairly quickly the pieces that have been submitted en masse, without any regard for their specific publication.

Instead, make a list of the magazines you want to submit to and group them into tiers. Tier One can be your top five magazines, Tier Two your next five favorite, and so on. This is not only a good way to make sure you’re giving each submission care and attention, it’s also a good way to make sure you don’t get the same piece of writing accepted by two different magazines, forcing you to pull your submission from one of them.

When it comes to making your list, don’t only consider what magazines have prestige, huge audiences, or hefty cash payouts. The best magazines to submit to are the ones that you actually enjoy reading. Because chances are those are the magazines that are going to be most interested in the kind of things you’re writing.

Keep your cover letter short and to-the-point

Editors are not won over by cover letters. If you’ve written a great story and have publishing credentials to boot, sure, your cover letter might help win them over. But if your submission isn’t strong, your cover letter is going to mean nil. So let your cover letter mention the important bits, make sure it provides any specific information that’s requested in the submission guidelines, and let your entry do the heavy lifting. 

Typically, a cover letter will mention a couple of the previous places you’ve been published as well as any other relevant experience you might have. You can also add a personal touch by mentioning a previous story or issue you particularly enjoyed.

What your letter shouldn’t mention is every place you’ve been published (up to 5 will suffice). It shouldn’t summarize your entry, your life story, or your “writing journey,” and any previous experience you mention should be related in some way to writing, publishing, or your entry.

Thoroughly edit your story — and follow submission guidelines!

An editor is probably not going to banish an otherwise very strong entry to the slush pile because of a misplaced typo. That being said, they have lots of reading to do, and while most editors won’t consciously read an entry looking for reasons not to like it, at the end of the day they can only accept so many pieces. So if you make their jobs easier by giving them a reason to pass on your piece, they’re going to take it. If it’s not adequately proofread, there’s only so long someone can continue reading even the strongest writing before the spelling errors convince them to stop.

Another quick way to convince an editor to pass on your entry is to not follow the submission guidelines. If the guidelines ask you to include specific information or to format your story in a certain way, follow those instructions to a tee. If the guide doesn’t tell you how to format your story, go classic: Arial or Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced. To ensure your submissions look professional, you can always copy and paste them into our free formatting tool, the Reedsy Book Editor !

Editors do want to like your submission

The publishing world is competitive, so it’s natural for authors to stress about all the little details of submitting to a literary magazine — whether to add page numbers to their document, who to address in their cover letter, whether they’ll stand a chance as a brand new author, etc. And while we did just mention that editors generally won’t put up a fight if you give them a reason to pass on your entry, they also won’t toss aside a submission they love just because the full package isn’t 100% perfect.

Remember, editors are looking for quality art they feel is going to resonate with their readers. If you can provide them with that, they’re going to be on your side.

Don’t just do it for the money or prestige

If you’re submitting to lit mags with the hopes of raking in the cash, you are more than likely going to be disappointed. Sure, there are some big-time magazines out there that offer larger paycheques to their writers and widespread readership, but many of them don’t accept unsolicited submissions — or come with extremely steep competition.

Most literary magazines are run on very tiny budgets that can’t afford to pay the writers they feature. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t submit to them. The exposure and credibility an emerging writer can gain from having their work featured across a number of smaller, indie publications are still very valuable and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Have fun — and be proud of what you publish!

Yes, having your work appear in literary magazines can help build up your publishing resume. But if you’re not writing and publishing work you feel really proud of, what’s the point? Readers don’t need more stories that make it into magazines because they follow the right trends or say the right things, we want literature that the author clearly loved writing. 

So, as we mentioned earlier, don’t just submit a piece because you think it’s going to get you somewhere. Submit something because you think it’s strong, unique, and worthwhile. Write and submit work you can proudly stand by! 

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Written by S. Kalekar January 16th, 2023

30 Magazines Accepting Creative Nonfiction and Essays

These literary magazines and other outlets publish a variety of nonfiction/essays. A few are looking for themed submissions. Some of them pay writers. Most, but not all, of them are open for submissions now. They’re in no particular order.

TOLKA Journal Their website says, “Tolka is a biannual literary journal of non-fiction: publishing essays, reportage, travel writing, auto-fiction, individual stories and the writing that flows in between. We are a journal for writers to express themselves beyond the limits of fixed genres, forms or subjects. … We encourage writers to test the creative boundaries of non-fiction.” They publish work by Irish and international writers, of 2,000-4,000 words. Pay is €500. The deadline is 22 January 2023. Details here .

Vast Chasm They publish “bold work that explores the expansive human experience, including flash and short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other nonconforming work.” Pay is $50 for prose up to 5,000 words. They read submissions on an ongoing basis. Details here .

Porkbelly Press They read for their chapbook series in January – these can be creative nonfiction such as lyric essays & flash, poetry or prose poems, collections of flash or micro fiction, graphic narratives, sequential artwork, or combinations of the above (tightly linked by theme, image, voice, etc.). Please submit 12 – 26 pages for chapbooks. They are queer friendly and feminist. “Our catalog favors lit & poetry leaning heavily toward fabulism, folklore, & magic—often confessional or intimate poems or personal lyric essay. All work should be tightly linked.” For nonfiction chapbooks, “We particularly enjoy multiple short essays, but will consider a one-essay chap if the essay is just that good. We lean toward braided forms (narratives with 3 or more threads tied together), and also consider things like character sketches, travel narratives, and collections of vignettes.” See guidelines and Submittable pages for further details. Pay is author copies. The deadline for chapbook submissions is 31 January 2023. Also see their reading periods for works in other genres. Details here and here .

The Christian Science Monitor: The Home Forum This news organization accepts pitches from freelancers and writers, and submissions for The Home Forum , where they want “upbeat personal essays of from 600 to 800 words. … For time-sensitive material (seasonal, news-related, holiday- or event-themed), you must submit at least SIX WEEKS in advance.” Also, “These are first-person, nonfiction explorations of how you responded to a place, a person, a situation, an event, or happenings in everyday life. Tell a story with a point; share a funny true tale. Describe a self-discovery. The humor should be gentle. We accept essays on a wide variety of subjects and encourage timely, newsy topics. However, we don’t deal with the topics of death, aging, medicine, or disease. We do not publish work that presents people in helpless or hopeless states.” They pay $250 for these essays. Details here .

The Every Animal Project This is an anthology about courageous animals, and they also will publish work on their website. “Stories must be true (non-fiction). They must relate to non-human animals (of any species) and can be about your personal experiences/growth because of an animal, an issue threatening animals today, or other aspects of the human/non-human animal relationship. For the upcoming anthology, please weave the theme of courage/bravery into your story. We are particularly interested in spotlighting species less familiar to people, like insects, marine animals, and reptiles.” One writer will get an award of $300, another will be awarded $200, and other writers whose work is chosen for the print anthology get $50; writers whose work features online get $20. The deadline is 31 March 2023. Details here .

The Lumiere Review Their website says, “We are intrigued by the inextinguishable sparks of truth and connection, the effervescent meddling of narrative, and the luminous creations that expand on perceptions of genre, language, and form.” They have a call for BIPOC creatives on the Justice theme (deadline – 15 February 2023). For general submissions, they publish creative nonfiction (up to 3,000 words), fiction, and poetry. They publish quarterly, pay $10, and read submissions on an ongoing basis. Details here .

The Four Faced Liar This is a new print journal; they published their first issue in January 2023. They publish creative nonfiction (up to 4,000 words), fiction, poetry, and art. Pay is €200 for short creative nonfiction and fiction, €100 for a poem or piece of flash, and €100 for art. Watch for their next submission period on Twitter . Details here .

Gray’s Sporting Journal This is a magazine about hunting and fishing, and they publish articles on those topics. They also have a feature called Yarns, which is campfire tales – fact or fiction, of 750-1,500 words. They also publish some poetry. Pay is an average of $600 for Yarns, and poems pay $100. Features for the magazine pay more. Details here .

Narrative This magazine publishes work in various genres – nonfiction (including written, audio, and video), fiction, poetry, and drama. They charge a submission fee through the year but during the first two weeks of April, they offer fee-free submissions made specifically in the Open Reading category. They pay $100-500. Details here .

MudRoom Magazine Their website says, “our mission is to provide every writer, emerging and established, the opportunity to both see their work published, and engage with a larger literary community.” They publish essays, essays in translation, fiction, and poetry. Send prose of up to 6,000 words. Pay is $15, and the deadline is 25 January 2023 for their Winter issue. Details here .

The Fieldstone Review This is the literary journal of the University of Saskatchewan. They accept submissions of creative nonfiction (up to 2,500 words), literature & book reviews (of Canadian literature), fiction and poetry, for its 2023 issue. They are reading submissions on the Reversals theme. “Turning points. Twists. Changing fortunes and shifting gears. We want your clever, surprising and dizzying reversals––be it through character, plot or formal elements!” One contributor will get awarded CAD100. The deadline is 1 March 2023. Details here .

The Meadowlark Review This journal is associated with the University of Wyoming. “Based in Laramie, Wyoming, we’re inspired by the American West, but we love work that pushes against the traditional Western narrative, as well as new perspectives, unexpected twists, and pieces that have absolutely nothing to do with the West. We are especially interested in hybrid works and works that break the mold and push the boundaries of today’s literature.” They publish nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Send work of 10-5,000 words. The deadline is 31 January 2023. Details here .

The Forge Literary Magazine They accept creative nonfiction (up to 3,000 words, but can accept up to 5,000) and fiction. They open on the 1 st of most months for fee-free submissions, and close when the cap is reached. They pay $75. Details here .

fron//tera This is a bilingual print magazine, in Spanish and English. They publish nonfiction (up to 5,000 words), fiction, poetry, art, and submissions can be in Spanish or English; they’ll also publish a couple of short dual-language English and Spanish pieces side by side (see guidelines). They pay $25-50. They’re reading work on the Phantoms theme till 1 February 2023. Details here .

The Healing Muse This is the annual journal of literary and visual art published by SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Center for Bioethics & Humanities. They publish narratives, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and art, particularly but not exclusively focusing on themes of medicine, illness, disability and healing. They accept prose up to 2,500 words. The deadline is 15 April 2023. They also have a poetry prize for medical students and physicians , of $250. Details here .

The Lascaux Review They publish creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry of literary quality, as well as essays on the craft and business of writing. “Creative nonfiction may include memoirs, chronicles, personal essays, humorous perspectives, literary journalism—anything the author has witnessed, experienced, learned, or discovered. Creative nonfiction should be written in a nonacademic style. For the Bistro (our blog), we’re looking for posts about writing, literature, agents, publishing, hangover recipes—anything to do with the craft and business of writing. Topics must be relevant to our audience, which consists of sophisticated journeyman writers and poets.” Submissions are open year-round. Details here .

The Paris Review They will reopen for prose submissions in March 2023. Currently, they are accepting poetry submissions; the Submittable cap is reached but they will read postal submissions, postmarked till 31 January 2023. They pay. Details here .

Nashville Review This magazine is associated with Vanderbilt University. They publish creative nonfiction (across the spectrum, including memoir excerpts, essays, imaginative meditations, of up to 8,000 words), fiction (including flash and novel excerpts), poetry, translations, and art. They accept submissions of art and comics year-round, and other genres are accepted in January, May, and September. Submissions may close earlier than scheduled if the cap is reached. Pay is $25 for poetry, and $100 for prose. The deadline is 31 January 2023, or until filled. Details here .

Porridge They publish a variety of genres, and are open for online and print issues occasionally. They are always open for their Comfort Food section – “The COMFORT FOODS series publishes creative responses to the relationship between food and culture, identity and cuisine, from people in diaspora or those from various marginalised identities. From eating away exile to 2,000 word philosophical treatises on biryani, we’re here for it. … We’ll accept creative non-fiction, food writing, poetry, and artwork on this theme.” Details here .

Electric Lit They are always open for detailed essay pitches. “Electric Literature’s essays examine books and culture through a personal and critical lens. … Pitches should describe the subject matter of the essay (which must be about books, writing, or narrative media like movies, games, and TV) and give a sense of the argument you plan to make or the story you plan to tell. We welcome thoughtful considerations of new releases, overlooked classics, childhood favorites—anything that can illuminate or be illuminated by the human experience.” They will open for other genres in February ( Recommended Reading – longer fiction, pays $300, open 1-12 February; and The Commuter – poetry, flash, graphic, and experimental narratives, pays $100, open 13-19 February 2023). Details here . Sojournal This is a travel journal, and their tagline is ‘One Image One Story’. “At present we only publish non-fiction travel stories that tell us about the black and white image you have supplied. We have a bias toward clear, concise, understandable work that communicates, surprises or disturbs – writing that bears witness to the world we live in.” Send work of up to 800 words. Details here .

Chicken Soup for the Soul They publish uplifting, true stories and poems. They regularly post themes they are accepting submissions on (currently, these are: Angels ; How stepping outside my comfort zone changed me ; Miracles ; and The power of positive thinking ). They pay $250 for work up to 1,200 words, as well as 10 contributor copies. Details here (also see tabs on the page – Possible book topics, Submissions FAQ, and Submit your story).

Unfortunately, Literary Magazine For nonfiction, “We’re interested in memoir/personal essays, feature articles, and any mix thereof. Shameless navel-gazing is fine by us.” Also, “Send us your work that’s too quirky, too dark, too queer, not the right kind of queer, too female-driven, too literary, not literary enough. Too much, too little, we want to see it all. Our only requirement is that you get your piece rejected elsewhere at least once before submitting to us.” They also publish fiction, art, and poetry. They read submissions in January, April, July, and October. See this Twitter thread to see the kind of work they’d like to see more of. Details here and here .

Miracle Monocle This magazine is associated with the University of Louisville. “For creative nonfiction, please submit one piece of 500-10,000 words. We’re looking for essays with aspects of personal narrative, reporting, and the lyric; we’re also interested in flash. Please do not send excerpts of longer works unless the piece can stand alone.” They also publish fiction, hybrid, poetry, art, and have an award for young Black writers , which pays $200 – for this award, writers must be 25 years old or younger and identify as Black. The deadline is 31 January 2023, or until a submission cap is reached. Details here .

Round Table Literary Journal Their website says, this is “an award-winning, historic print literary journal now in our fifty-sixth year of existence. We publish literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art once a year.” They are associated with Hopkinsville Community College. The deadline is 15 February 2023. Payment is contributor copies. Details here and here .

The Sunlight Press They publish personal essays (750-1,000 words), artists on craft series (up to 1,000 words), fiction, poetry, reviews, and photos. They pay $15-40. Details here .

Terrain.org This is a magazine that focuses on place, climate, and justice. They publish nonfiction (up to 5,000 words), fiction, poetry, and pay a minimum of $50. Submissions by marginalized creators are considered for an annual prize of $500. The deadline is 30 April 2023. Details here .

Motherwell This is a parenting magazine, and they take personal essays on parenting, as well as work on other themes and genres. For personal essays, “We are looking for evocative first-person narratives that have a unique focus, or take a novel angle, on a slice of the parenting experience. We are open to a range of styles and tones: the only requirement is that the essay works on its own terms—be it lyrical, humorous, research-oriented, etc—and conveys something fundamental about its writer. Up to 1,200 words.“ Some of the work they publish is paid, and some is unpaid (see guidelines). Details here . Masque & Spectacle They publish nonfiction essays, literary analysis pieces, and personal essay/memoirs of up to 7,500 words. They also accept fiction, poetry, drama, reviews, art, audio, and video submissions. The deadline is 31 January 2023. Details here .

The Sun This venerable magazine charges for online submissions via Submittable, but not for submissions by post, of essays, fiction, and poetry. Online submission of photos is not charged. Payment for regular essays starts at $300. And online submissions for themed short nonfiction pieces for the Readers Write section are fee-free – their upcoming themes are Idols , due 1 February, and Privacy , due 1 March 2023; payment for Readers Write is magazine subscription. Details here and here .

Bio:  S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached  here .

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March 15, 2024

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38 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for April 2024

These are themed calls and contests for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Some of the themes are: solidarity forever; sun rising; moon falling; status anxiety; Grimm retold; funny stories; food horror; fire season; impermanence; and tenacity. Some deadlines are approaching quickly. THEMED CALLS Cursed Morsels Press: Solidarity ForeverCursed Morsels Press has issued a call for fiction,…

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Thinkers and theories

Our tools shape our selves

For Bernard Stiegler, a visionary philosopher of our digital age, technics is the defining feature of human experience

Bryan Norton

Family life

A patchwork family

After my marriage failed, I strove to create a new family – one made beautiful by the loving way it’s stitched together

The cell is not a factory

Scientific narratives project social hierarchies onto nature. That’s why we need better metaphors to describe cellular life

Charudatta Navare

Stories and literature

Terrifying vistas of reality

H P Lovecraft, the master of cosmic horror stories, was a philosopher who believed in the total insignificance of humanity

Sam Woodward

The dangers of AI farming

AI could lead to new ways for people to abuse animals for financial gain. That’s why we need strong ethical guidelines

Virginie Simoneau-Gilbert & Jonathan Birch

A man beyond categories

Paul Tillich was a religious socialist and a profoundly subtle theologian who placed doubt at the centre of his thought

War and peace

Legacy of the Scythians

How the ancient warrior people of the steppes have found themselves on the cultural frontlines of Russia’s war against Ukraine

Peter Mumford

Public health

It’s dirty work

In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way?

Susanna Crossman

Social psychology

The magic of the mundane

Pioneering sociologist Erving Goffman realised that every action is deeply revealing of the social norms by which we live

Lucy McDonald

The real Miss Julie

Victoria Benedictsson assumed a male identity, achieved literary stardom, and took her own life. Then Strindberg stole it

Elisabeth Åsbrink

Prehistory in the atomic age

To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past

Maria Stavrinaki

Who bears the risk?

Under the guise of empowerment and freedom, politicians and business are offloading lifethreatening risk to individuals

Suzanne Schneider

• Online Course

40 Best Essays of All Time (Including Links & Writing Tips)

I wanted to improve my writing skills. I thought that reading the forty best essays of all time would bring me closer to my goal.

I had little money (buying forty collections of essays was out of the question) so I’ve found them online instead. I’ve hacked through piles of them, and finally, I’ve found the great ones. Now I want to share the whole list with you (with the addition of my notes about writing). Each item on the list has a direct link to the essay, so please click away and indulge yourself. Also, next to each essay, there’s an image of the book that contains the original work.

About this essay list:

Reading essays is like indulging in candy; once you start, it’s hard to stop. I sought out essays that were not only well-crafted but also impactful. These pieces genuinely shifted my perspective. Whether you’re diving in for enjoyment or to hone your writing, these essays promise to leave an imprint. It’s fascinating how an essay can resonate with you, and even if details fade, its essence remains. I haven’t ranked them in any way; they’re all stellar. Skim through, explore the summaries, and pick up some writing tips along the way. For more essay gems, consider “Best American Essays” by Joyce Carol Oates or “101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think” curated by Brianna Wiest.

40 Best Essays of All Time (With Links And Writing Tips)

1. david sedaris – laugh, kookaburra.

A great family drama takes place against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness. And the Kookaburra laughs… This is one of the top essays of the lot. It’s a great mixture of family reminiscences, travel writing, and advice on what’s most important in life. You’ll also learn an awful lot about the curious culture of the Aussies.

Writing tips from the essay:

• Use analogies (you can make it funny or dramatic to achieve a better effect): “Don’t be afraid,” the waiter said, and he talked to the kookaburra in a soothing, respectful voice, the way you might to a child with a switchblade in his hand”.
• You can touch a few cognate stories in one piece of writing . Reveal the layers gradually. Intertwine them and arrange for a grand finale where everything is finally clear.
• Be on the side of the reader. Become their friend and tell the story naturally, like around the dinner table.
• Use short, punchy sentences. Tell only as much as is required to make your point vivid.
• Conjure sentences that create actual feelings: “I had on a sweater and a jacket, but they weren’t quite enough, and I shivered as we walked toward the body, and saw that it was a . . . what, exactly?”
• You may ask a few tough questions in a row to provoke interest and let the reader think.

2. Charles D’Ambrosio – Documents

Do you think your life punches you in the face all too often? After reading this essay, you will change your mind. Reading about loss and hardships often makes us sad at first, but then enables us to feel grateful for our lives . D’Ambrosio shares his documents (poems, letters) that had a major impact on his life, and brilliantly shows how not to let go of the past.

• The most powerful stories are about your family and the childhood moments that shaped your life.
• You don’t need to build up tension and pussyfoot around the crux of the matter. Instead, surprise the reader by telling it like it is: “The poem was an allegory about his desire to leave our family.” Or: “My father had three sons. I’m the eldest; Danny, the youngest, killed himself sixteen years ago”.
• You can use real documents and quotes from your family and friends. It makes it so much more personal and relatable.
• Don’t cringe before the long sentence if you know it’s a strong one.
• At the end of the essay, you may come back to the first theme to close the circuit.
• Using slightly poetic language is acceptable, as long as it improves the story.

3. E. B. White – Once more to the lake

What does it mean to be a father? Can you see your younger self, reflected in your child? This beautiful essay tells the story of the author, his son, and their traditional stay at a placid lake hidden within the forests of Maine. This place of nature is filled with sunshine and childhood memories. It also provides for one of the greatest meditations on nature and the passing of time.

• Use sophisticated language, but not at the expense of readability.
• Use vivid language to trigger the mirror neurons in the reader’s brain: “I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows”.
• It’s important to mention universal feelings that are rarely talked about (it helps to create a bond between two minds): “You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings when the lake was cool and motionless”.
• Animate the inanimate: “this constant and trustworthy body of water”.
• Mentioning tales of yore is a good way to add some mystery and timelessness to your piece.
• Using double, or even triple “and” in one sentence is fine. It can make the sentence sing.

4. Zadie Smith – Fail Better

Aspiring writers feel tremendous pressure to perform. The daily quota of words often turns out to be nothing more than gibberish. What then? Also, should the writer please the reader or should she be fully independent? What does it mean to be a writer, anyway? This essay is an attempt to answer these questions, but its contents are not only meant for scribblers. Within it, you’ll find some great notes about literary criticism, how we treat art , and the responsibility of the reader.

• A perfect novel ? There’s no such thing.
• The novel always reflects the inner world of the writer. That’s why we’re fascinated with writers.
• Writing is not simply about craftsmanship, but about taking your reader to the unknown lands. In the words of Christopher Hitchens: “Your ideal authors ought to pull you from the foundering of your previous existence, not smilingly guide you into a friendly and peaceable harbor.”
• Style comes from your unique personality and the perception of the world. It takes time to develop it.
• Never try to tell it all. “All” can never be put into language. Take a part of it and tell it the best you can.
• Avoid being cliché. Try to infuse new life into your writing .
• Writing is about your way of being. It’s your game. Paradoxically, if you try to please everyone, your writing will become less appealing. You’ll lose the interest of the readers. This rule doesn’t apply in the business world where you have to write for a specific person (a target audience).
• As a reader, you have responsibilities too. According to the critics, every thirty years, there’s just a handful of great novels. Maybe it’s true. But there’s also an element of personal connection between the reader and the writer. That’s why for one person a novel is a marvel, while for the other, nothing special at all. That’s why you have to search and find the author who will touch you.

5. Virginia Woolf – Death of the Moth

Amid an ordinary day, sitting in a room of her own, Virginia Woolf tells about the epic struggle for survival and the evanescence of life. This short essay is truly powerful. In the beginning, the atmosphere is happy. Life is in full force. And then, suddenly, it fades away. This sense of melancholy would mark the last years of Woolf’s life.

• The melody of language… A good sentence is like music: “Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom which the commonest yellow- underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us”.
• You can show the grandest in the mundane (for example, the moth at your window and the drama of life and death).
• Using simple comparisons makes the style more lucid: “Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure”.

6. Meghan Daum – My Misspent Youth

Many of us, at some point or another, dream about living in New York. Meghan Daum’s take on the subject differs slightly from what you might expect. There’s no glamour, no Broadway shows, and no fancy restaurants. Instead, there’s the sullen reality of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. You’ll get all the juicy details about credit cards, overdue payments, and scrambling for survival. It’s a word of warning. But it’s also a great story about shattered fantasies of living in a big city. Word on the street is: “You ain’t promised mañana in the rotten manzana.”

• You can paint a picture of your former self. What did that person believe in? What kind of world did he or she live in?
• “The day that turned your life around” is a good theme you may use in a story. Memories of a special day are filled with emotions. Strong emotions often breed strong writing.
• Use cultural references and relevant slang to create a context for your story.
• You can tell all the details of the story, even if in some people’s eyes you’ll look like the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived. It adds to the originality.
• Say it in a new way: “In this mindset, the dollars spent, like the mechanics of a machine no one bothers to understand, become an abstraction, an intangible avenue toward self-expression, a mere vehicle of style”.
• You can mix your personal story with the zeitgeist or the ethos of the time.

7. Roger Ebert – Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Probably the greatest film critic of all time, Roger Ebert, tells us not to rage against the dying of the light. This essay is full of courage, erudition, and humanism. From it, we learn about what it means to be dying (Hitchens’ “Mortality” is another great work on that theme). But there’s so much more. It’s a great celebration of life too. It’s about not giving up, and sticking to your principles until the very end. It brings to mind the famous scene from Dead Poets Society where John Keating (Robin Williams) tells his students: “Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary”.

• Start with a powerful sentence: “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.”
• Use quotes to prove your point -”‘Ask someone how they feel about death’, he said, ‘and they’ll tell you everyone’s gonna die’. Ask them, ‘In the next 30 seconds?’ No, no, no, that’s not gonna happen”.
• Admit the basic truths about reality in a childlike way (especially after pondering quantum physics) – “I believe my wristwatch exists, and even when I am unconscious, it is ticking all the same. You have to start somewhere”.
• Let other thinkers prove your point. Use quotes and ideas from your favorite authors and friends.

8. George Orwell – Shooting an Elephant

Even after one reading, you’ll remember this one for years. The story, set in British Burma, is about shooting an elephant (it’s not for the squeamish). It’s also the most powerful denunciation of colonialism ever put into writing. Orwell, apparently a free representative of British rule, feels to be nothing more than a puppet succumbing to the whim of the mob.

• The first sentence is the most important one: “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people — the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me”.
• You can use just the first paragraph to set the stage for the whole piece of prose.
• Use beautiful language that stirs the imagination: “I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains.” Or: “I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have.”
• If you’ve ever been to war, you will have a story to tell: “(Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.)”
• Use simple words, and admit the sad truth only you can perceive: “They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching”.
• Share words of wisdom to add texture to the writing: “I perceived at this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his freedom that he destroys.”
• I highly recommend reading everything written by Orwell, especially if you’re looking for the best essay collections on Amazon or Goodreads.

9. George Orwell – A Hanging

It’s just another day in Burma – time to hang a man. Without much ado, Orwell recounts the grim reality of taking another person’s life. A man is taken from his cage and in a few minutes, he’s going to be hanged. The most horrible thing is the normality of it. It’s a powerful story about human nature. Also, there’s an extraordinary incident with the dog, but I won’t get ahead of myself.

• Create brilliant, yet short descriptions of characters: “He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting mustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the mustache of a comic man on the films”.
• Understand and share the felt presence of a unique experience: “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man”.
• Make your readers hear the sound that will stay with them forever: “And then when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”
• Make the ending original by refusing the tendency to seek closure or summing it up.

10. Christopher Hitchens – Assassins of The Mind

In one of the greatest essays written in defense of free speech, Christopher Hitchens shares many examples of how modern media kneel to the explicit threats of violence posed by Islamic extremists. He recounts the story of his friend, Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses who, for many years, had to watch over his shoulder because of the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini. With his usual wit, Hitchens shares various examples of people who died because of their opinions and of editors who refuse to publish anything related to Islam because of fear (and it was written long before the Charlie Hebdo massacre). After reading the essay, you realize that freedom of expression is one of the most precious things we have and that we have to fight for it. I highly recommend all essay collections penned by Hitchens, especially the ones written for Vanity Fair.

• Assume that the readers will know the cultural references. When they do, their self-esteem goes up – they are a part of an insider group.
• When proving your point, give a variety of real-life examples from eclectic sources. Leave no room for ambiguity or vagueness. Research and overall knowledge are essential here.
• Use italics to emphasize a specific word or phrase (here I use the underlining): “We live now in a climate where every publisher and editor and politician has to weigh in advance the possibility of violent Muslim reprisal. In consequence, several things have not happened.”
• Think about how to make it sound more original: “So there is now a hidden partner in our cultural and academic and publishing and the broadcasting world: a shadowy figure that has, uninvited, drawn up a chair to the table.”

11. Christopher Hitchens – The New Commandments

It’s high time to shatter the tablets and amend the biblical rules of conduct. Watch, as Christopher Hitchens slays one commandment after the other on moral, as well as historical grounds. For example, did you know that there are many versions of the divine law dictated by God to Moses which you can find in the Bible? Aren’t we thus empowered to write our version of a proper moral code? If you approach it with an open mind, this essay may change the way you think about the Bible and religion.

• Take the iconoclastic approach. Have a party on the hallowed soil.
• Use humor to undermine orthodox ideas (it seems to be the best way to deal with an established authority).
• Use sarcasm and irony when appropriate (or not): “Nobody is opposed to a day of rest. The international Communist movement got its start by proclaiming a strike for an eight-hour day on May 1, 1886, against Christian employers who used child labor seven days a week”.
• Defeat God on legal grounds: “Wise lawmakers know that it is a mistake to promulgate legislation that is impossible to obey”.
• Be ruthless in the logic of your argument. Provide evidence.

12. Phillip Lopate – Against Joie de Vivre

While reading this fantastic essay, this quote from Slavoj Žižek kept coming back to me: “I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves”. I can bear the onus of happiness or joie de vivre for some time. But this force enables me to get free and wallow in the sweet feelings of melancholy and nostalgia. By reading this work of Lopate, you’ll enter into the world of an intelligent man who finds most social rituals a drag. It’s worth exploring.

• Go against the grain. Be flamboyant and controversial (if you can handle it).
• Treat the paragraph like a group of thoughts on one theme. Next paragraph, next theme.
• Use references to other artists to set the context and enrich the prose: “These sunny little canvases with their talented innocence, the third-generation spirit of Montmartre, bore testimony to a love of life so unbending as to leave an impression of rigid narrow-mindedness as extreme as any Savonarola. Their rejection of sorrow was total”.
• Capture the emotions in life that are universal, yet remain unspoken.
• Don’t be afraid to share your intimate experiences.

13. Philip Larkin – The Pleasure Principle

This piece comes from the Required Writing collection of personal essays. Larkin argues that reading in verse should be a source of intimate pleasure – not a medley of unintelligible thoughts that only the author can (or can’t?) decipher. It’s a sobering take on modern poetry and a great call to action for all those involved in it. Well worth a read.

• Write about complicated ideas (such as poetry) simply. You can change how people look at things if you express yourself enough.
• Go boldly. The reader wants a bold writer: “We seem to be producing a new kind of bad poetry, not the old kind that tries to move the reader and fails, but one that does not even try”.
• Play with words and sentence length. Create music: “It is time some of you playboys realized, says the judge, that reading a poem is hard work. Fourteen days in stir. Next case”.
• Persuade the reader to take action. Here, direct language is the most effective.

14. Sigmund Freud – Thoughts for the Times on War and Death

This essay reveals Freud’s disillusionment with the whole project of Western civilization. How the peaceful European countries could engage in a war that would eventually cost over 17 million lives? What stirs people to kill each other? Is it their nature, or are they puppets of imperial forces with agendas of their own? From the perspective of time, this work by Freud doesn’t seem to be fully accurate. Even so, it’s well worth your time.

• Commence with long words derived from Latin. Get grandiloquent, make your argument incontrovertible, and leave your audience discombobulated.
• Use unending sentences, so that the reader feels confused, yet impressed.
• Say it well: “In this way, he enjoyed the blue sea and the grey; the beauty of snow-covered mountains and green meadowlands; the magic of northern forests and the splendor of southern vegetation; the mood evoked by landscapes that recall great historical events, and the silence of untouched nature”.
• Human nature is a subject that never gets dry.

15. Zadie Smith – Some Notes on Attunement

“You are privy to a great becoming, but you recognize nothing” – Francis Dolarhyde. This one is about the elusiveness of change occurring within you. For Zadie, it was hard to attune to the vibes of Joni Mitchell – especially her Blue album. But eventually, she grew up to appreciate her genius, and all the other things changed as well. This top essay is all about the relationship between humans, and art. We shouldn’t like art because we’re supposed to. We should like it because it has an instantaneous, emotional effect on us. Although, according to Stansfield (Gary Oldman) in Léon, liking Beethoven is rather mandatory.

• Build an expectation of what’s coming: “The first time I heard her I didn’t hear her at all”.
• Don’t be afraid of repetition if it feels good.
• Psychedelic drugs let you appreciate things you never appreciated.
• Intertwine a personal journey with philosophical musings.
• Show rather than tell: “My friends pitied their eyes. The same look the faithful give you as you hand them back their “literature” and close the door in their faces”.
• Let the poets speak for you: “That time is past, / And all its aching joys are now no
• more, / And all its dizzy raptures”.
• By voicing your anxieties, you can heal the anxieties of the reader. In that way, you say: “I’m just like you. I’m your friend in this struggle”.
• Admit your flaws to make your persona more relatable.

16. Annie Dillard – Total Eclipse

My imagination was always stirred by the scene of the solar eclipse in Pharaoh, by Boleslaw Prus. I wondered about the shock of the disoriented crowd when they saw how their ruler could switch off the light. Getting immersed in this essay by Annie Dillard has a similar effect. It produces amazement and some kind of primeval fear. It’s not only the environment that changes; it’s your mind and the perception of the world. After the eclipse, nothing is going to be the same again.

• Yet again, the power of the first sentence draws you in: “It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass”.
• Don’t miss the extraordinary scene. Then describe it: “Up in the sky, like a crater from some distant cataclysm, was a hollow ring”.
• Use colloquial language. Write as you talk. Short sentences often win.
• Contrast the numinous with the mundane to enthrall the reader.

17. Édouard Levé – When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue

This suicidally beautiful essay will teach you a lot about the appreciation of life and the struggle with mental illness. It’s a collection of personal, apparently unrelated thoughts that show us the rich interior of the author. You look at the real-time thoughts of another person, and then recognize the same patterns within yourself… It sounds like a confession of a person who’s about to take their life, and it’s striking in its originality.

• Use the stream-of-consciousness technique and put random thoughts on paper. Then, polish them: “I have attempted suicide once, I’ve been tempted four times to attempt it”.
• Place the treasure deep within the story: “When I look at a strawberry, I think of a tongue, when I lick one, of a kiss”.
• Don’t worry about what people might think. The more you expose, the more powerful the writing. Readers also take part in the great drama. They experience universal emotions that mostly stay inside.  You can translate them into writing.

18. Gloria E. Anzaldúa – How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Anzaldúa, who was born in south Texas, had to struggle to find her true identity. She was American, but her culture was grounded in Mexico. In this way, she and her people were not fully respected in either of the countries. This essay is an account of her journey of becoming the ambassador of the Chicano (Mexican-American) culture. It’s full of anecdotes, interesting references, and different shades of Spanish. It’s a window into a new cultural dimension that you’ve never experienced before.

• If your mother tongue is not English, but you write in English, use some of your unique homeland vocabulary.
• You come from a rich cultural heritage. You can share it with people who never heard about it, and are not even looking for it, but it is of immense value to them when they discover it.
• Never forget about your identity. It is precious. It is a part of who you are. Even if you migrate, try to preserve it. Use it to your best advantage and become the voice of other people in the same situation.
• Tell them what’s really on your mind: “So if you want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language”.

19. Kurt Vonnegut – Dispatch From A Man Without a Country

In terms of style, this essay is flawless. It’s simple, conversational, humorous, and yet, full of wisdom. And when Vonnegut becomes a teacher and draws an axis of “beginning – end”, and, “good fortune – bad fortune” to explain literature, it becomes outright hilarious. It’s hard to find an author with such a down-to-earth approach. He doesn’t need to get intellectual to prove a point. And the point could be summed up by the quote from Great Expectations – “On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip – such is Life!”

• Start with a curious question: “Do you know what a twerp is?”
• Surprise your readers with uncanny analogies: “I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. It’s as though I had taken over the family Esso station.”
• Use your natural language without too many special effects. In time, the style will crystalize.
• An amusing lesson in writing from Mr. Vonnegut: “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college”.
• You can put actual images or vignettes between the paragraphs to illustrate something.

20. Mary Ruefle – On Fear

Most psychologists and gurus agree that fear is the greatest enemy of success or any creative activity. It’s programmed into our minds to keep us away from imaginary harm. Mary Ruefle takes on this basic human emotion with flair. She explores fear from so many angles (especially in the world of poetry-writing) that at the end of this personal essay, you will look at it, dissect it, untangle it, and hopefully be able to say “f**k you” the next time your brain is trying to stop you.

• Research your subject thoroughly. Ask people, have interviews, get expert opinions, and gather as much information as possible. Then scavenge through the fields of data, and pull out the golden bits that will let your prose shine.
• Use powerful quotes to add color to your story: “The poet who embarks on the creation of the poem (as I know by experience), begins with the aimless sensation of a hunter about to embark on a night hunt through the remotest of forests. Unaccountable dread stirs in his heart”. – Lorca.
• Writing advice from the essay: “One of the fears a young writer has is not being able to write as well as he or she wants to, the fear of not being able to sound like X or Y, a favorite author. But out of fear, hopefully, is born a young writer’s voice”.

21. Susan Sontag – Against Interpretation

In this highly intellectual essay, Sontag fights for art and its interpretation. It’s a great lesson, especially for critics and interpreters who endlessly chew on works that simply defy interpretation. Why don’t we just leave the art alone? I always hated it when at school they asked me: “What did the author have in mind when he did X or Y?” Iēsous Pantocrator! Hell if I know! I will judge it through my subjective experience!

• Leave the art alone: “Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities”.
• When you have something really important to say, style matters less.
• There’s no use in creating a second meaning or inviting interpretation of our art. Just leave it be and let it speak for itself.

22. Nora Ephron – A Few Words About Breasts

This is a heartwarming, coming-of-age story about a young girl who waits in vain for her breasts to grow. It’s simply a humorous and pleasurable read. The size of breasts is a big deal for women. If you’re a man, you may peek into the mind of a woman and learn many interesting things. If you’re a woman, maybe you’ll be able to relate and at last, be at peace with your bosom.

• Touch an interesting subject and establish a strong connection with the readers (in that case, women with small breasts). Let your personality shine through the written piece. If you are lighthearted, show it.
• Use hyphens to create an impression of real talk: “My house was full of apples and peaches and milk and homemade chocolate chip cookies – which were nice, and good for you, but-not-right-before-dinner-or-you’ll-spoil-your-appetite.”
• Use present tense when you tell a story to add more life to it.
• Share the pronounced, memorable traits of characters: “A previous girlfriend named Solange, who was famous throughout Beverly Hills High School for having no pigment in her right eyebrow, had knitted them for him (angora dice)”.

23. Carl Sagan – Does Truth Matter – Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization

Carl Sagan was one of the greatest proponents of skepticism, and an author of numerous books, including one of my all-time favorites – The Demon-Haunted World . He was also a renowned physicist and the host of the fantastic Cosmos: A Personal Voyage series, which inspired a whole generation to uncover the mysteries of the cosmos. He was also a dedicated weed smoker – clearly ahead of his time. The essay that you’re about to read is a crystallization of his views about true science, and why you should check the evidence before believing in UFOs or similar sorts of crap.

• Tell people the brutal truth they need to hear. Be the one who spells it out for them.
• Give a multitude of examples to prove your point. Giving hard facts helps to establish trust with the readers and show the veracity of your arguments.
• Recommend a good book that will change your reader’s minds – How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

24. Paul Graham – How To Do What You Love

How To Do What You Love should be read by every college student and young adult. The Internet is flooded with a large number of articles and videos that are supposed to tell you what to do with your life. Most of them are worthless, but this one is different. It’s sincere, and there’s no hidden agenda behind it. There’s so much we take for granted – what we study, where we work, what we do in our free time… Surely we have another two hundred years to figure it out, right? Life’s too short to be so naïve. Please, read the essay and let it help you gain fulfillment from your work.

• Ask simple, yet thought-provoking questions (especially at the beginning of the paragraph) to engage the reader: “How much are you supposed to like what you do?”
• Let the readers question their basic assumptions: “Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like”.
• If you’re writing for a younger audience, you can act as a mentor. It’s beneficial for younger people to read a few words of advice from a person with experience.

25. John Jeremiah Sullivan – Mister Lytle

A young, aspiring writer is about to become a nurse of a fading writer – Mister Lytle (Andrew Nelson Lytle), and there will be trouble. This essay by Sullivan is probably my favorite one from the whole list. The amount of beautiful sentences it contains is just overwhelming. But that’s just a part of its charm. It also takes you to the Old South which has an incredible atmosphere. It’s grim and tawny but you want to stay there for a while.

• Short, distinct sentences are often the most powerful ones: “He had a deathbed, in other words. He didn’t go suddenly”.
• Stay consistent with the mood of the story. When reading Mister Lytle you are immersed in that southern, forsaken, gloomy world, and it’s a pleasure.
• The spectacular language that captures it all: “His French was superb, but his accent in English was best—that extinct mid-Southern, land-grant pioneer speech, with its tinges of the abandoned Celtic urban Northeast (“boned” for burned) and its raw gentility”.
• This essay is just too good. You have to read it.

26. Joan Didion – On Self Respect

Normally, with that title, you would expect some straightforward advice about how to improve your character and get on with your goddamn life – but not from Joan Didion. From the very beginning, you can feel the depth of her thinking, and the unmistakable style of a true woman who’s been hurt. You can learn more from this essay than from whole books about self-improvement . It reminds me of the scene from True Detective, where Frank Semyon tells Ray Velcoro to “own it” after he realizes he killed the wrong man all these years ago. I guess we all have to “own it”, recognize our mistakes, and move forward sometimes.

• Share your moral advice: “Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs”.
• It’s worth exploring the subject further from a different angle. It doesn’t matter how many people have already written on self-respect or self-reliance – you can still write passionately about it.
• Whatever happens, you must take responsibility for it. Brave the storms of discontent.

27. Susan Sontag – Notes on Camp

I’ve never read anything so thorough and lucid about an artistic current. After reading this essay, you will know what camp is. But not only that – you will learn about so many artists you’ve never heard of. You will follow their traces and go to places where you’ve never been before. You will vastly increase your appreciation of art. It’s interesting how something written as a list could be so amazing. All the listicles we usually see on the web simply cannot compare with it.

• Talking about artistic sensibilities is a tough job. When you read the essay, you will see how much research, thought and raw intellect came into it. But that’s one of the reasons why people still read it today, even though it was written in 1964.
• You can choose an unorthodox way of expression in the medium for which you produce. For example, Notes on Camp is a listicle – one of the most popular content formats on the web. But in the olden days, it was uncommon to see it in print form.
• Just think about what is camp: “And third among the great creative sensibilities is Camp: the sensibility of failed seriousness, of the theatricalization of experience. Camp refuses both the harmonies of traditional seriousness and the risks of fully identifying with extreme states of feeling”.

28. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance

That’s the oldest one from the lot. Written in 1841, it still inspires generations of people. It will let you understand what it means to be self-made. It contains some of the most memorable quotes of all time. I don’t know why, but this one especially touched me: “Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design, and posterity seems to follow his steps as a train of clients”. Now isn’t it purely individualistic, American thought? Emerson told me (and he will tell you) to do something amazing with my life. The language it contains is a bit archaic, but that just adds to the weight of the argument. You can consider it to be a meeting with a great philosopher who shaped the ethos of the modern United States.

• You can start with a powerful poem that will set the stage for your work.
• Be free in your creative flow. Do not wait for the approval of others: “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness”.
• Use rhetorical questions to strengthen your argument: “I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly say a new and spontaneous word?”

29. David Foster Wallace – Consider The Lobster

When you want simple field notes about a food festival, you needn’t send there the formidable David Foster Wallace. He sees right through the hypocrisy and cruelty behind killing hundreds of thousands of innocent lobsters – by boiling them alive. This essay uncovers some of the worst traits of modern American people. There are no apologies or hedging one’s bets. There’s just plain truth that stabs you in the eye like a lobster claw. After reading this essay, you may reconsider the whole animal-eating business.

• When it’s important, say it plainly and stagger the reader: “[Lobsters] survive right up until they’re boiled. Most of us have been in supermarkets or restaurants that feature tanks of live lobster, from which you can pick out your supper while it watches you point”.
• In your writing, put exact quotes of the people you’ve been interviewing (including slang and grammatical errors). It makes it more vivid, and interesting.
• You can use humor in serious situations to make your story grotesque.
• Use captions to expound on interesting points of your essay.

30. David Foster Wallace – The Nature of the Fun

The famous novelist and author of the most powerful commencement speech ever done is going to tell you about the joys and sorrows of writing a work of fiction. It’s like taking care of a mutant child that constantly oozes smelly liquids. But you love that child and you want others to love it too. It’s a very humorous account of what it means to be an author. If you ever plan to write a novel, you should read that one. And the story about the Chinese farmer is just priceless.

• Base your point on a chimerical analogy. Here, the writer’s unfinished work is a “hideously damaged infant”.
• Even in expository writing, you may share an interesting story to keep things lively.
• Share your true emotions (even when you think they won’t interest anyone). Often, that’s exactly what will interest the reader.
• Read the whole essay for marvelous advice on writing fiction.

31. Margaret Atwood – Attitude

This is not an essay per se, but I included it on the list for the sake of variety. It was delivered as a commencement speech at The University of Toronto, and it’s about keeping the right attitude. Soon after leaving university, most graduates have to forget about safety, parties, and travel and start a new life – one filled with a painful routine that will last until they drop. Atwood says that you don’t have to accept that. You can choose how you react to everything that happens to you (and you don’t have to stay in that dead-end job for the rest of your days).

• At times, we are all too eager to persuade, but the strongest persuasion is not forceful. It’s subtle. It speaks to the heart. It affects you gradually.
• You may be tempted to talk about a subject by first stating what it is not, rather than what it is. Try to avoid that.
• Simple advice for writers (and life in general): “When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice. You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it”.

32. Jo Ann Beard – The Fourth State of Matter

Read that one as soon as possible. It’s one of the most masterful and impactful essays you’ll ever read. It’s like a good horror – a slow build-up, and then your jaw drops to the ground. To summarize the story would be to spoil it, so I recommend that you just dig in and devour this essay in one sitting. It’s a perfect example of “show, don’t tell” writing, where the actions of characters are enough to create the right effect. No need for flowery adjectives here.

• The best story you will tell is going to come from your personal experience.
• Use mysteries that will nag the reader. For example, at the beginning of the essay, we learn about the “vanished husband” but there’s no explanation. We have to keep reading to get the answer.
• Explain it in simple terms: “You’ve got your solid, your liquid, your gas, and then your plasma”. Why complicate?

33. Terence McKenna – Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness

To me, Terence McKenna was one of the most interesting thinkers of the twentieth century. His many lectures (now available on YouTube) attracted millions of people who suspect that consciousness holds secrets yet to be unveiled. McKenna consumed psychedelic drugs for most of his life and it shows (in a positive way). Many people consider him a looney, and a hippie, but he was so much more than that. He dared to go into the abyss of his psyche and come back to tell the tale. He also wrote many books (the most famous being Food Of The Gods ), built a huge botanical garden in Hawaii , lived with shamans, and was a connoisseur of all things enigmatic and obscure. Take a look at this essay, and learn more about the explorations of the subconscious mind.

• Become the original thinker, but remember that it may require extraordinary measures: “I call myself an explorer rather than a scientist because the area that I’m looking at contains insufficient data to support even the dream of being a science”.
• Learn new words every day to make your thoughts lucid.
• Come up with the most outlandish ideas to push the envelope of what’s possible. Don’t take things for granted or become intellectually lazy. Question everything.

34. Eudora Welty – The Little Store

By reading this little-known essay, you will be transported into the world of the old American South. It’s a remembrance of trips to the little store in a little town. It’s warm and straightforward, and when you read it, you feel like a child once more. All these beautiful memories live inside of us. They lay somewhere deep in our minds, hidden from sight. The work by Eudora Welty is an attempt to uncover some of them and let you get reacquainted with some smells and tastes of the past.

• When you’re from the South, flaunt it. It’s still good old English but sometimes it sounds so foreign. I can hear the Southern accent too: “There were almost tangible smells – licorice recently sucked in a child’s cheek, dill-pickle brine that had leaked through a paper sack in a fresh trail across the wooden floor, ammonia-loaded ice that had been hoisted from wet Croker sacks and slammed into the icebox with its sweet butter at the door, and perhaps the smell of still-untrapped mice”.
• Yet again, never forget your roots.
• Childhood stories can be the most powerful ones. You can write about how they shaped you.

35. John McPhee – The Search for Marvin Gardens

The Search for Marvin Gardens contains many layers of meaning. It’s a story about a Monopoly championship, but also, it’s the author’s search for the lost streets visible on the board of the famous board game. It also presents a historical perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations, and on Atlantic City, which once was a lively place, and then, slowly declined, the streets filled with dirt and broken windows.

• There’s nothing like irony: “A sign- ‘Slow, Children at Play’- has been bent backward by an automobile”.
• Telling the story in apparently unrelated fragments is sometimes better than telling the whole thing in a logical order.
• Creativity is everything. The best writing may come just from connecting two ideas and mixing them to achieve a great effect. Shush! The muse is whispering.

36. Maxine Hong Kingston – No Name Woman

A dead body at the bottom of the well makes for a beautiful literary device. The first line of Orhan Pamuk’s novel My Name Is Red delivers it perfectly: “I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well”. There’s something creepy about the idea of the well. Just think about the “It puts the lotion in the basket” scene from The Silence of the Lambs. In the first paragraph of Kingston’s essay, we learn about a suicide committed by uncommon means of jumping into the well. But this time it’s a real story. Who was this woman? Why did she do it? Read the essay.

• Mysterious death always gets attention. The macabre details are like daiquiris on a hot day – you savor them – you don’t let them spill.
• One sentence can speak volumes: “But the rare urge west had fixed upon our family, and so my aunt crossed boundaries not delineated in space”.
• It’s interesting to write about cultural differences – especially if you have the relevant experience. Something normal for us is unthinkable for others. Show this different world.
• The subject of sex is never boring.

37. Joan Didion – On Keeping A Notebook

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is one of the most famous collections of essays of all time. In it, you will find a curious piece called On Keeping A Notebook. It’s not only a meditation about keeping a journal. It’s also Didion’s reconciliation with her past self. After reading it, you will seriously reconsider your life’s choices and look at your life from a wider perspective.

• When you write things down in your journal, be more specific – unless you want to write a deep essay about it years later.
• Use the beauty of the language to relate to the past: “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing ‘How High the Moon’ on the car radio”.
• Drop some brand names if you want to feel posh.

38. Joan Didion – Goodbye To All That

This one touched me because I also lived in New York City for a while. I don’t know why, but stories about life in NYC are so often full of charm and this eerie-melancholy-jazz feeling. They are powerful. They go like this: “There was a hard blizzard in NYC. As the sound of sirens faded, Tony descended into the dark world of hustlers and pimps.” That’s pulp literature but in the context of NYC, it always sounds cool. Anyway, this essay is amazing in too many ways. You just have to read it.

• Talk about New York City. They will read it.
• Talk about the human experience: “It did occur to me to call the desk and ask that the air conditioner be turned off, I never called, because I did not know how much to tip whoever might come—was anyone ever so young?”
• Look back at your life and reexamine it. Draw lessons from it.

39. George Orwell – Reflections on Gandhi

George Orwell could see things as they were. No exaggeration, no romanticism – just facts. He recognized totalitarianism and communism for what they were and shared his worries through books like 1984 and Animal Farm . He took the same sober approach when dealing with saints and sages. Today, we regard Gandhi as one of the greatest political leaders of the twentieth century – and rightfully so. But did you know that when asked about the Jews during World War II, Gandhi said that they should commit collective suicide and that it: “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” He also recommended utter pacifism in 1942, during the Japanese invasion, even though he knew it would cost millions of lives. But overall he was a good guy. Read the essay and broaden your perspective on the Bapu of the Indian Nation.

• Share a philosophical thought that stops the reader for a moment: “No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid”.
• Be straightforward in your writing – no mannerisms, no attempts to create ‘style’, and no invocations of the numinous – unless you feel the mystical vibe.

40. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language

Let Mr. Orwell give you some writing tips. Written in 1946, this essay is still one of the most helpful documents on writing in English. Orwell was probably the first person who exposed the deliberate vagueness of political language. He was very serious about it and I admire his efforts to slay all unclear sentences (including ones written by distinguished professors). But it’s good to make it humorous too from time to time. My favorite examples of that would be the immortal Soft Language sketch by George Carlin or the “Romans Go Home” scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Overall, it’s a great essay filled with examples from many written materials. It’s a must-read for any writer.

• Listen to the master: “This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose.” Do something about it.
• This essay is all about writing better, so go to the source if you want the goodies.

Other Essays You May Find Interesting

The list that I’ve prepared is by no means complete. The literary world is full of exciting essays and you’ll never know which one is going to change your life. I’ve found reading essays very rewarding because sometimes, a single one means more than reading a whole book. It’s almost like wandering around and peeking into the minds of the greatest writers and thinkers that ever lived. To make this list more comprehensive, below I included more essays you may find interesting.

Oliver Sacks – On Libraries

One of the greatest contributors to the knowledge about the human mind, Oliver Sacks meditates on the value of libraries and his love of books.

Noam Chomsky – The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Chomsky did probably more than anyone else to define the role of the intelligentsia in the modern world . There is a war of ideas over there – good and bad – intellectuals are going to be those who ought to be fighting for the former.

Sam Harris – The Riddle of The Gun

Sam Harris, now a famous philosopher and neuroscientist, takes on the problem of gun control in the United States. His thoughts are clear of prejudice. After reading this, you’ll appreciate the value of logical discourse overheated, irrational debate that more often than not has real implications on policy.

Tim Ferriss – Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide

This piece was written as a blog post , but it’s worth your time. The author of the NYT bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek shares an emotional story about how he almost killed himself, and what can you do to save yourself or your friends from suicide.

Edward Said – Reflections on Exile

The life of Edward Said was a truly fascinating one. Born in Jerusalem, he lived between Palestine and Egypt and finally settled down in the United States, where he completed his most famous work – Orientalism. In this essay, he shares his thoughts about what it means to be in exile.

Richard Feynman – It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three…

Richard Feynman is one of the most interesting minds of the twentieth century. He was a brilliant physicist, but also an undeniably great communicator of science, an artist, and a traveler. By reading this essay, you can observe his thought process when he tries to figure out what affects our perception of time. It’s a truly fascinating read.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Religion of The Forest

I like to think about Tagore as my spiritual Friend. His poems are just marvelous. They are like some of the Persian verses that praise love, nature, and the unity of all things. By reading this short essay, you will learn a lot about Indian philosophy and its relation to its Western counterpart.

Richard Dawkins – Letter To His 10-Year-Old Daughter

Every father should be able to articulate his philosophy of life to his children. With this letter that’s similar to what you find in the Paris Review essays , the famed atheist and defender of reason, Richard Dawkins, does exactly that. It’s beautifully written and stresses the importance of looking at evidence when we’re trying to make sense of the world.

Albert Camus – The Minotaur (or, The Stop In Oran)

Each person requires a period of solitude – a period when one’s able to gather thoughts and make sense of life. There are many places where you may attempt to find quietude. Albert Camus tells about his favorite one.

Koty Neelis – 21 Incredible Life Lessons From Anthony Bourdain

I included it as the last one because it’s not really an essay, but I just had to put it somewhere. In this listicle, you’ll find the 21 most original thoughts of the high-profile cook, writer, and TV host, Anthony Bourdain. Some of them are shocking, others are funny, but they’re all worth checking out.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca – On the Shortness of Life

It’s similar to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam because it praises life. Seneca shares some of his stoic philosophy and tells you not to waste your time on stupidities. Drink! – for once dead you shall never return.

Bertrand Russell – In Praise of Idleness

This old essay is a must-read for modern humans. We are so preoccupied with our work, our phones, and all the media input we drown in our business. Bertrand Russell tells you to chill out a bit – maybe it will do you some good.

James Baldwin – Stranger in the Village

It’s an essay on the author’s experiences as an African-American in a Swiss village, exploring race, identity, and alienation while highlighting the complexities of racial dynamics and the quest for belonging.

Bonus – More writing tips from two great books

The mission to improve my writing skills took me further than just going through the essays. I’ve come across some great books on writing too. I highly recommend you read them in their entirety. They’re written beautifully and contain lots of useful knowledge. Below you’ll find random (but useful) notes that I took from The Sense of Style and On Writing.

The Sense of Style – By Steven Pinker

• Style manuals are full of inconsistencies. Following their advice might not be the best idea. They might make your prose boring.
• Grammarians from all eras condemn students for not knowing grammar. But it just evolves. It cannot be rigid.
• “Nothing worth learning can be taught” – Oscar Wilde. It’s hard to learn to write from a manual – you have to read, write, and analyze.
• Good writing makes you imagine things and feel them for yourself – use word pictures.
• Don’t fear using voluptuous words.
• Phonesthetics – or how the words sound.
• Use parallel language (consistency of tense).
• Good writing finishes strong.
• Write to someone. Never write for no one in mind. Try to show people your view of the world.
• Don’t tell everything you are going to say in summary (signposting) – be logical, but be conversational.
• Don’t be pompous.
• Don’t use quotation marks where they don’t “belong”. Be confident about your style.
• Don’t hedge your claims (research first, and then tell it like it is).
• Avoid clichés and meta-concepts (concepts about concepts). Be more straightforward!
• Not prevention – but prevents or prevented – don’t use dead nouns.
• Be more vivid while using your mother tongue – don’t use passive where it’s not needed. Direct the reader’s gaze to something in the world.
• The curse of knowledge – the reader doesn’t know what you know – beware of that.
• Explain technical terms.
• Use examples when you explain a difficult term.
• If you ever say “I think I understand this” it probably means you don’t.
• It’s better to underestimate the lingo of your readers than to overestimate it.
• Functional fixedness – if we know some object (or idea) well, we tend to see it in terms of usage, not just as an object.
• Use concrete language instead of an abstraction.
• Show your work to people before you publish (get feedback!).
• Wait for a few days and then revise, revise, revise. Think about clarity and the sound of sentences. Then show it to someone. Then revise one more time. Then publish (if it’s to be serious work).
• Look at it from the perspective of other people.
• Omit needless words.
• Put the heaviest words at the end of the sentence.
• It’s good to use the passive, but only when appropriate.
• Check all text for cohesion. Make sure that the sentences flow gently.
• In expository work, go from general to more specific. But in journalism start from the big news and then give more details.
• Use the paragraph break to give the reader a moment to take a breath.
• Use the verb instead of a noun (make it more active) – not “cancellation”, but “canceled”. But after you introduce the action, you can refer to it with a noun.
• Avoid too many negations.
• If you write about why something is so, don’t spend too much time writing about why it is not.

On Writing Well – By William Zinsser

• Writing is a craft. You need to sit down every day and practice your craft.
• You should re-write and polish your prose a lot.
• Throw out all the clutter. Don’t keep it because you like it. Aim for readability.
• Look at the best examples of English literature . There’s hardly any needless garbage there.
• Use shorter expressions. Don’t add extra words that don’t bring any value to your work.
• Don’t use pompous language. Use simple language and say plainly what’s going on (“because” equals “because”).
• The media and politics are full of cluttered prose (because it helps them to cover up for their mistakes).
• You can’t add style to your work (and especially, don’t add fancy words to create an illusion of style). That will look fake. You need to develop a style.
• Write in the “I” mode. Write to a friend or just for yourself. Show your personality. There is a person behind the writing.
• Choose your words carefully. Use the dictionary to learn different shades of meaning.
• Remember about phonology. Make music with words .
• The lead is essential. Pull the reader in. Otherwise, your article is dead.
• You don’t have to make the final judgment on any topic. Just pick the right angle.
• Do your research. Not just obvious research, but a deep one.
• When it’s time to stop, stop. And finish strong. Think about the last sentence. Surprise them.
• Use quotations. Ask people. Get them talking.
• If you write about travel, it must be significant to the reader. Don’t bother with the obvious. Choose your words with special care. Avoid travel clichés at all costs. Don’t tell that the sand was white and there were rocks on the beach. Look for the right detail.
• If you want to learn how to write about art, travel, science, etc. – read the best examples available. Learn from the masters.
• Concentrate on one big idea (“Let’s not go peeing down both legs”).
• “The reader has to feel that the writer is feeling good.”
• One very helpful question: “What is the piece really about?” (Not just “What the piece is about?”)

Now immerse yourself in the world of essays

By reading the essays from the list above, you’ll become a better writer , a better reader, but also a better person. An essay is a special form of writing. It is the only literary form that I know of that is an absolute requirement for career or educational advancement. Nowadays, you can use an AI essay writer or an AI essay generator that will get the writing done for you, but if you have personal integrity and strong moral principles, avoid doing this at all costs. For me as a writer, the effect of these authors’ masterpieces is often deeply personal. You won’t be able to find the beautiful thoughts they contain in any other literary form. I hope you enjoy the read and that it will inspire you to do your writing. This list is only an attempt to share some of the best essays available online. Next up, you may want to check the list of magazines and websites that accept personal essays .

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11 Indie Literary Magazines You Should Be Reading

Reading Lists

Steven watson, founder of stack, recommends print lit mags.

Independent magazines are notorious outsiders. Generally made with lots of passion and not much cash, they’re gloriously uncommercial artefacts of our current age of creative independence, in which virtually anyone with an internet connection and an Adobe Creative Cloud license can publish their own professional quality print magazine. Of course the fact that pretty much anyone can now be their own editor-in-chief and creative director means that lots of the work committed to print isn’t all that good, but there are some extraordinary gems out there waiting to be found, and that’s what we spend our days doing.

Stack searches out the best independent magazines and delivers them to thousands of readers around the world every month—you never know what you’re going to get next, but you do know it will be a beautiful, intelligent print magazine you probably wouldn’t otherwise have come across. We pride ourselves on delivering a wide range of magazines covering all sorts of subjects, but for the following list we’ve focused on the literary magazines we’re currently enjoying the most.

The White Review

One of London’s most revered independent literary magazines, The White Review mixes outstanding fiction, essays and poetry with beautiful art and photography all wrapped up in a lovely, thick print edition. Launched in 2011, its founding aim was to provide “a space for a new generation to express itself unconstrained by form, subject or genre”, and today it publishes in monthly online editions, but it’s the roughly triannual print version that we love. The current issue looks at first glance like a sort of bookish fashion magazine, with its cover featuring a photograph by artist Elad Lassry, but the content inside ranges far and wide, covering subjects including migration and asylum, LGBTQ+ spaces, race and disability. Essential and important, but with a fantastic lightness of touch, a new issue of The White Review is always eagerly anticipated in the Stack office.  

Freeman’s looks like a book but it self-defines as a magazine. “I think a magazine is tracking and engaging with culture,” explains editor John Freeman, who used to head up Granta . “It has an ongoingness, whereas an anthology freezes a moment, perhaps, and puts it in two covers.” The fifth issue is about power: it’s topical, but in a pleasurably sideways way. One of the most beautiful things here is a poem by Julia Alvarez that reimagines Penelope, happy alone, disappointed when Odysseus finally comes home: “He’s back, disguised as an old man/ to test my virtue… I would be rid of him.”

The plaything of one extraordinary tinkerer, science-fiction magazine Visions is a testament to the power of passion. Creative technologist and sci-fi fan Mathieu Triay began the project by making Marvin Visions, the typeface that he uses for titles throughout the magazine and its website. Licensing the typeface online generated enough money to pay for printing the first issue, and he uses the magazine as a platform for both new and established science-fiction writers. In the latest issue, for example, multi-award winning author Robert Silverberg’s story “Caliban” is set in an alarmingly lithe, glistening future, as seen through the eyes of a man who has become the only relic of our messy, hairy times. Silverberg locates his smooth sexualization a hundred-odd years into the future, but in “Hyperbeauty,” the non-fiction essay that follows it, master’s student Raquel Hollman seems to respond to Silverberg by showing how our world is already uncomfortably sexualized and dominated by ideals of “perfect beauty.”

American Chordata

One of the defining characteristics of New York-based American Chordata is that it looks really good. Mixing short stories and poetry with photography, the pictures aren’t specially commissioned. Instead, art director Bobby Doherty mines the internet for art all year long, and then sets his favorites next to the text in a strange, non-illustrative way, almost like collage. In the most recent issue—AC’s ninth—Tatu Gustafsson’s grainy CCTV images of a lonely figure standing by the sides of roads are dropped throughout Angela Woodward’s disturbing short story “Decoy Animals,” the writing and images each intensifying the other. [Editor’s note: Erin Bartnett, associate editor at Recommended Reading, is also the fiction editor at American Chordata.]

The Stinging Fly

An Irish literary magazine of new writing, The Stinging Fly has excellent pedigree—Sally Rooney is a contributing editor, and on these pages there’s an echo of her attention to the minute detail of how we see ourselves and are seen by others. The current issue is fronted by a brilliantly fleshy artwork by Irish Japanese painter Shane Berkery, which sets the tone for the intimate and personal reflections that run through the fiction and poetry inside.

Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, Zoetrope was originally conceived as a way to inspire independent movie-making, by providing a space for writers to publish their short fiction and plays. The magazine’s role-call of contributors is ludicrously star-spangled—the rotating guest-designer spot has been filled by Bowie and Lynch, to name only Davids. But what makes this magazine remarkable is how lightly it wears its famous names. Virtually unknown here in the U.K., and boasting just a thousand or so Instagram followers, you get the feeling the only thing its editors really care about is the quality of the fiction. 

This London-based journal of sexuality and erotics was started in 2018 by the Feeld dating app, and it’s run today by editor Maria Dimitrova, who works with editorial independence to assemble an inventive series of poems and short stories that explore the frontiers of sexual life. Of course any literary magazine stands or falls on the strength of its writing, and Mal brings together some exceptional talent: the latest issue includes an original piece by cult author Chris Kraus and a short story by Luke Brown that was commended in the Best Original Fiction category at this year’s Stack Awards. 

Worms is a literary magazine about style: writing style, but also sartorial. We are all worms, Clem Macleod explains in her editor’s letter, and “in the end, we’re going to be eaten by them. As a Worm, you will fertilise your mind with glorious words.” Using clothes as a way of worming your way into a writer’s work is a contentious business. Traditionally understood to be something frivolous women like, clothes are depicted here to be so much more interesting. Author Natasha Stagg is interviewed, and the first question she is asked is whether everyday dressing is a sort of curation of self. This idea—that dressing up can be a way of slipping out of your identity and trying on another—is most fully realized in a feature towards the middle, where Clem goes to visit a box of the late punk writer Kathy Acker’s clothes, and tries some on. Acker is the cover star, and the whole issue is a homage to her. The clothes are “unwashed, crumpled” and “musky”; a mass of Vivienne Westwood, Commes Des Garcons and Betsey Johnson. Trying on your dead hero’s outfits is thrillingly intimate. As readers, we feel that we should like to do this intimate thing, too.

The Lifted Brow

“A quarterly attack journal from Australia and the world,” The Lifted Brow is based in Melbourne and sets out to showcase the most inventive and accomplished experimental storytelling. The result includes fiction and non-fiction, poetry and comics, and frequently gives a voice to groups that aren’t commonly heard. Last year’s 40th edition, for example, was re-branded Blak Brow , and was created entirely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, born out of the conviction that “blak” women’s writing can “transcend off the pages and topple the patriarchy.”

Somesuch Stories

The fourth issue of this U.K. literary journal is themed “redemption,” a word editor Suze Olbrich defines as borderline archaic. But the idea of absolution still sticks its pins into us. In a largely secular world, we share what Olbrich calls a “gnarly yearning for liberation from guilt; for forgiveness—for salvation.” It’s a great theme, and while the stories on these pages are uneven, when they’re good, they’re very very good. Like Luke Turner’s beautiful, ambivalent essay on cruising, looking back on encounters he is now old enough to recognize as abusive. And Kieran Yates’ fan fiction about women of color in popular culture; from Padma Patil, to Ursula from The Little Mermaid .

Mekong Review

Launched in 2015 at the Kampot Writers and Readers Festival in Cambodia, the Mekong Review was created as a platform for the literary scene in Southeast Asia. Over the years its influence has spread, and today it publishes essays, interviews, poetry and fiction drawn from across Asia and Australasia. It’s proud to claim no political allegiance, and the current issue includes thoughtful and critical reviews and essays inspired by the protests in Hong Kong, as well as politically-inflected commentary from Thailand, Malaysia, China, Myanmar and beyond.

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The Best Reviewed Essay Collections of 2021

Featuring joan didion, rachel kushner, hanif abdurraqib, ann patchett, jenny diski, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Essay Collections .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett (Harper)

21 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed Read Ann Patchett on creating the work space you need, here

“… excellent … Patchett has a talent for friendship and celebrates many of those friends here. She writes with pure love for her mother, and with humor and some good-natured exasperation at Karl, who is such a great character he warrants a book of his own. Patchett’s account of his feigned offer to buy a woman’s newly adopted baby when she expresses unwarranted doubts is priceless … The days that Patchett refers to are precious indeed, but her writing is anything but. She describes deftly, with a line or a look, and I considered the absence of paragraphs freighted with adjectives to be a mercy. I don’t care about the hue of the sky or the shade of the couch. That’s not writing; it’s decorating. Or hiding. Patchett’s heart, smarts and 40 years of craft create an economy that delivers her perfectly understated stories emotionally whole. Her writing style is most gloriously her own.”

–Alex Witchel ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Knopf)

14 Rave • 12 Positive • 6 Mixed Read an excerpt from Let Me Tell You What I Mean here

“In five decades’ worth of essays, reportage and criticism, Didion has documented the charade implicit in how things are, in a first-person, observational style that is not sacrosanct but common-sensical. Seeing as a way of extrapolating hypocrisy, disingenuousness and doubt, she’ll notice the hydrangeas are plastic and mention it once, in passing, sorting the scene. Her gaze, like a sentry on the page, permanently trained on what is being disguised … The essays in Let Me Tell You What I Mean are at once funny and touching, roving and no-nonsense. They are about humiliation and about notions of rightness … Didion’s pen is like a periscope onto the creative mind—and, as this collection demonstrates, it always has been. These essays offer a direct line to what’s in the offing.”

–Durga Chew-Bose ( The New York Times Book Review )

3. Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (Viking)

12 Rave • 13 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Orwell’s Roses here

“… on its simplest level, a tribute by one fine essayist of the political left to another of an earlier generation. But as with any of Solnit’s books, such a description would be reductive: the great pleasure of reading her is spending time with her mind, its digressions and juxtapositions, its unexpected connections. Only a few contemporary writers have the ability to start almost anywhere and lead the reader on paths that, while apparently meandering, compel unfailingly and feel, by the end, cosmically connected … Somehow, Solnit’s references to Ross Gay, Michael Pollan, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Peter Coyote (to name but a few) feel perfectly at home in the narrative; just as later chapters about an eighteenth-century portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and a visit to the heart of the Colombian rose-growing industry seem inevitable and indispensable … The book provides a captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker … And, movingly, she takes the time to find the traces of Orwell the gardener and lover of beauty in his political novels, and in his insistence on the value and pleasure of things .”

–Claire Messud ( Harper’s )

4. Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury)

16 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Girlhood here

“Every once in a while, a book comes along that feels so definitive, so necessary, that not only do you want to tell everyone to read it now, but you also find yourself wanting to go back in time and tell your younger self that you will one day get to read something that will make your life make sense. Melissa Febos’s fierce nonfiction collection, Girlhood , might just be that book. Febos is one of our most passionate and profound essayists … Girlhood …offers us exquisite, ferocious language for embracing self-pleasure and self-love. It’s a book that women will wish they had when they were younger, and that they’ll rejoice in having now … Febos is a balletic memoirist whose capacious gaze can take in so many seemingly disparate things and unfurl them in a graceful, cohesive way … Intellectual and erotic, engaging and empowering[.]”

–Michelle Hart ( Oprah Daily )

5. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told by Jenny Diski (Bloomsbury)

14 Rave • 7 Positive

“[Diski’s] reputation as an original, witty and cant-free thinker on the way we live now should be given a significant boost. Her prose is elegant and amused, as if to counter her native melancholia and includes frequent dips into memorable images … Like the ideal artist Henry James conjured up, on whom nothing is lost, Diski notices everything that comes her way … She is discerning about serious topics (madness and death) as well as less fraught material, such as fashion … in truth Diski’s first-person voice is like no other, selectively intimate but not overbearingly egotistic, like, say, Norman Mailer’s. It bears some resemblance to Joan Didion’s, if Didion were less skittish and insistently stylish and generated more warmth. What they have in common is their innate skepticism and the way they ask questions that wouldn’t occur to anyone else … Suffice it to say that our culture, enmeshed as it is in carefully arranged snapshots of real life, needs Jenny Diski, who, by her own admission, ‘never owned a camera, never taken one on holiday.’” It is all but impossible not to warm up to a writer who observes herself so keenly … I, in turn, wish there were more people around who thought like Diski. The world would be a more generous, less shallow and infinitely more intriguing place.”

–Daphne Merkin ( The New York Times Book Review )

6. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)

12 Rave • 7 Positive Listen to an interview with Rachel Kushner here

“Whether she’s writing about Jeff Koons, prison abolition or a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem, [Kushner’s] interested in appearances, and in the deeper currents a surface detail might betray … Her writing is magnetised by outlaw sensibility, hard lives lived at a slant, art made in conditions of ferment and unrest, though she rarely serves a platter that isn’t style-mag ready … She makes a pretty convincing case for a political dimension to Jeff Koons’s vacuities and mirrored surfaces, engages repeatedly with the Italian avant garde and writes best of all about an artist friend whose death undoes a spell of nihilism … It’s not just that Kushner is looking back on the distant city of youth; more that she’s the sole survivor of a wild crowd done down by prison, drugs, untimely death … What she remembers is a whole world, but does the act of immortalising it in language also drain it of its power,’neon, in pink, red, and warm white, bleeding into the fog’? She’s mining a rich seam of specificity, her writing charged by the dangers she ran up against. And then there’s the frank pleasure of her sentences, often shorn of definite articles or odd words, so they rev and bucket along … That New Journalism style, live hard and keep your eyes open, has long since given way to the millennial cult of the personal essay, with its performance of pain, its earnest display of wounds received and lessons learned. But Kushner brings it all flooding back. Even if I’m skeptical of its dazzle, I’m glad to taste something this sharp, this smart.”

–Olivia Laing ( The Guardian )

7. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan (FSG)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 5 Mixed • 1 Pan

“[A] quietly dazzling new essay collection … This is, needless to say, fraught terrain, and Srinivasan treads it with determination and skill … These essays are works of both criticism and imagination. Srinivasan refuses to resort to straw men; she will lay out even the most specious argument clearly and carefully, demonstrating its emotional power, even if her ultimate intention is to dismantle it … This, then, is a book that explicitly addresses intersectionality, even if Srinivasan is dissatisfied with the common—and reductive—understanding of the term … Srinivasan has written a compassionate book. She has also written a challenging one … Srinivasan proposes the kind of education enacted in this brilliant, rigorous book. She coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

8. A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)

13 Rave • 4 Positive Listen to an interview with Hanif Abdurraqib here

“[A] wide, deep, and discerning inquest into the Beauty of Blackness as enacted on stages and screens, in unanimity and discord, on public airwaves and in intimate spaces … has brought to pop criticism and cultural history not just a poet’s lyricism and imagery but also a scholar’s rigor, a novelist’s sense of character and place, and a punk-rocker’s impulse to dislodge conventional wisdom from its moorings until something shakes loose and is exposed to audiences too lethargic to think or even react differently … Abdurraqib cherishes this power to enlarge oneself within or beyond real or imagined restrictions … Abdurraqib reminds readers of the massive viewing audience’s shock and awe over seeing one of the world’s biggest pop icons appearing midfield at this least radical of American rituals … Something about the seemingly insatiable hunger Abdurraqib shows for cultural transaction, paradoxical mischief, and Beauty in Blackness tells me he’ll get to such matters soon enough.”

–Gene Seymour ( Bookforum )

9. On Animals by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press)

11 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed Listen to an interview with Susan Orlean here

“I very much enjoyed Orlean’s perspective in these original, perceptive, and clever essays showcasing the sometimes strange, sometimes sick, sometimes tender relationships between people and animals … whether Orlean is writing about one couple’s quest to find their lost dog, the lives of working donkeys of the Fez medina in Morocco, or a man who rescues lions (and happily allows even full grown males to gently chew his head), her pages are crammed with quirky characters, telling details, and flabbergasting facts … Readers will find these pages full of astonishments … Orlean excels as a reporter…Such thorough reporting made me long for updates on some of these stories … But even this criticism only testifies to the delight of each of the urbane and vivid stories in this collection. Even though Orlean claims the animals she writes about remain enigmas, she makes us care about their fates. Readers will continue to think about these dogs and donkeys, tigers and lions, chickens and pigeons long after we close the book’s covers. I hope most of them are still well.”

–Sy Montgomery ( The Boston Globe )

10. Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South  by Margaret Renkl (Milkweed Editions)

9 Rave • 5 Positive Read Margaret Renkl on finding ideas everywhere, here

“Renkl’s sense of joyful belonging to the South, a region too often dismissed on both coasts in crude stereotypes and bad jokes, co-exists with her intense desire for Southerners who face prejudice or poverty finally to be embraced and supported … Renkl at her most tender and most fierce … Renkl’s gift, just as it was in her first book Late Migrations , is to make fascinating for others what is closest to her heart … Any initial sense of emotional whiplash faded as as I proceeded across the six sections and realized that the book is largely organized around one concept, that of fair and loving treatment for all—regardless of race, class, sex, gender or species … What rises in me after reading her essays is Lewis’ famous urging to get in good trouble to make the world fairer and better. Many people in the South are doing just that—and through her beautiful writing, Renkl is among them.”

–Barbara J. King ( NPR )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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Nonfiction Books » Essays

The best essays: the 2021 pen/diamonstein-spielvogel award, recommended by adam gopnik.

WINNER OF the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich

Every year, the judges of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay search out the best book of essays written in the past year and draw attention to the author's entire body of work. Here, Adam Gopnik , writer, journalist and PEN essay prize judge, emphasizes the role of the essay in bearing witness and explains why the five collections that reached the 2021 shortlist are, in their different ways, so important.

Interview by Benedict King

Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick

Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays by Robert Michael Pyle

Terroir: Love, Out of Place by Natasha Sajé

Maybe the People Would be the Times by Luc Sante

1 Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich

2 unfinished business: notes of a chronic re-reader by vivian gornick, 3 nature matrix: new and selected essays by robert michael pyle, 4 terroir: love, out of place by natasha sajé, 5 maybe the people would be the times by luc sante.

W e’re talking about the books shortlisted for the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay . As an essayist yourself, or as a reader of essays, what are you looking for? What’s the key to a good essay ?

I have very specific and, in some ways, old fashioned views on the essay—though I think that the books we chose tend to confirm the ‘relevance’, perhaps even the continuing urgency, of those views. I think that we always ought to distinguish the essay from a political editorial or polemic on the one hand, and from a straight memoir or confession on the other. The essay, for me, is always a form in which it’s significant—more than significant, it’s decisive—that it has some form of first-person address, a particular voice bearing witness at a particular time. An essay isn’t a common claim, it’s not an editorial ‘we’, it’s not a manifesto. It’s one writer, one voice, addressing readers as though face-to-face. At the same time, for me—and I think this sense was shared by the other judges, as an intuition about the essay—it isn’t simply What Happened to Me. It’s not an autobiographical memoir, or a piece taken from an autobiographical memoir, wonderful though those can be (I say, as one who writes those, too).

Let’s turn to the books that made the shortlist of the 2021 PEN Award for the Art of the Essay. The winning book was Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich , whose books have been recommended a number of times on Five Books. Tell me more. 

One of the criteria for this particular prize is that it should be not just for a single book, but for a body of work. One of the things we wanted to honour about Barbara Ehrenreich is that she has produced a remarkable body of work. Although it’s offered in a more specifically political register than some essayists, or that a great many past prize winners have practised, the quiddity of her work is that it remains rooted in personal experience, in the act of bearing witness. She has a passionate political point to make, certainly, a series of them, many seeming all the more relevant now than when she began writing. Nonetheless, her writing still always depends on the intimacy of first-hand knowledge, what people in post-incarceration work call ‘lived experience’ (a term with a distinguished philosophical history). Her book Nickel and Dimed is the classic example of that. She never writes from a distance about working-class life in America. She bears witness to the nature and real texture of working-class life in America.

“One point of giving awards…is to keep passing the small torches of literary tradition”

Next up of the books on the 2021 PEN essay prize shortlist is Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick.

Vivian Gornick is a writer who’s been around for a very long time. Although longevity is not in itself a criterion for excellence—or for this prize, or in the writing life generally—persistence and perseverance are. Writers who keep coming back at us, again and again, with a consistent vision, are surely to be saluted. For her admirers, her appetite to re-read things already read is one of the most attractive parts of her oeuvre , if I can call it that; her appetite not just to read but to read deeply and personally. One of the things that people who love her work love about it is that her readings are never academic, or touched by scholarly hobbyhorsing. They’re readings that involve the fullness of her experience, then applied to literature. Although she reads as a critic, she reads as an essayist reads, rather than as a reviewer reads. And I think that was one of the things that was there to honour in her body of work, as well.

Is she a novelist or journalist, as well?

Let’s move on to the next book which made the 2021 PEN essay shortlist. This is Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays by Robert Michael Pyle.

I have a special reason for liking this book in particular, and that is that it corresponds to one of the richest and oldest of American genres, now often overlooked, and that’s the naturalist essay. You can track it back to Henry David Thoreau , if not to Ralph Waldo Emerson , this American engagement with nature , the wilderness, not from a narrowly scientific point of view, nor from a purely ecological or environmental point of view—though those things are part of it—but again, from the point of view of lived experience, of personal testimony.

Let’s look at the next book on the shortlist of the 2021 PEN Awards, which is Terroir: Love, Out of Place by Natasha Sajé. Why did these essays appeal?

One of the things that was appealing about this book is that’s it very much about, in every sense, the issues of the day: the idea of place, of where we are, how we are located on any map as individuals by ethnic identity, class, gender—all of those things. But rather than being carried forward in a narrowly argumentative way, again, in the classic manner of the essay, Sajé’s work is ruminative. It walks around these issues from the point of view of someone who’s an expatriate, someone who’s an émigré, someone who’s a world citizen, but who’s also concerned with the idea of ‘terroir’, the one place in the world where we belong. And I think the dialogue in her work between a kind of cosmopolitanism that she has along with her self-critical examination of the problem of localism and where we sit on the world, was inspiring to us.

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Last of the books on the shortlist for the 2021 Pen essay award is Maybe the People Would Be the Times by Luc Sante.

Again, here’s a writer who’s had a distinguished generalised career, writing about lots of places and about lots of subjects. In the past, he’s made his special preoccupation what he calls ‘low life’, but I think more broadly can be called the marginalized or the repressed and abject. He’s also written acute introductions to the literature of ‘low life’, the works of Asbury and David Maurer, for instance.

But I think one of the things that was appealing about what he’s done is the sheer range of his enterprise. He writes about countless subjects. He can write about A-sides and B-sides of popular records—singles—then go on to write about Jacques Rivette’s cinema. He writes from a kind of private inspection of public experience. He has a lovely piece about tabloid headlines and their evolution. And I think that omnivorous range of enthusiasms and passions is a stirring reminder in a time of specialization and compartmentalization of the essayist’s freedom to roam. If Pyle is in the tradition of Thoreau, I suspect Luc Sante would be proud to be put in the tradition of Baudelaire—the flaneur who walks the streets, sees everything, broods on it all and writes about it well.

One point of giving awards, with all their built-in absurdity and inevitable injustice, is to keep alive, or at least to keep passing, the small torches of literary tradition. And just as much as we’re honoring the great tradition of the naturalist essay in the one case, I think we’re honoring the tradition of the Baudelairean flaneur in this one.

April 18, 2021

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• The 19 Best Literary Magazines You Should Be Reading in 2023

In the world of literature, storytelling is king. Whether it’s a gripping novel, a haunting poem, or a thought-provoking essay, what ultimately draws us in and keeps us hooked is the power of a well-told story. And what better way to explore the vast and diverse landscape of storytelling than through the pages of a literary magazine?

Literary magazines provide a platform for both established and emerging writers to share their stories, their experiences, and their unique perspectives on the world. From the experimental to the traditional, the humorous to the thought-provoking, the stories found in these magazines push boundaries and challenge us to see the world in new ways.

But with so many literary magazines out there, how do you know which ones are worth your time? In this article, we’ll explore some of the best literary magazines available today, each one offering its own unique brand of storytelling magic. Whether you’re a seasoned reader or just starting to dip your toes into the world of literature, these magazines are sure to provide a rich and rewarding reading experience. So settle in, grab a cup of tea, and let’s dive into the world of literary storytelling.

The Paris Review

The Paris Review is a leading literary magazine that has been publishing since 1953. It features interviews with prominent writers, as well as stories, poetry, and essays. It is known for publishing the first works of many now-famous writers, including Jack Kerouac, Philip Roth, and V. S. Naipaul.

Granta is a British literary magazine that has been publishing for over 130 years. It features fiction, non-fiction, and poetry from established and emerging writers from around the world. Granta is known for its themed issues, which explore various topics from a literary perspective.

McSweeney’s

McSweeney’s is an independent publishing house that produces a literary magazine, as well as books and other projects. The magazine features humor, fiction, and non-fiction, and is known for its unique design and typography.

The Los Angeles Review

The Los Angeles Review is a quarterly literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and book reviews. It is known for its commitment to publishing diverse voices, with an emphasis on writers from the West Coast.

BOMB Magazine

BOMB Magazine is a quarterly publication that features interviews with artists, writers, and filmmakers, as well as works of fiction and poetry. It is known for its in-depth interviews with prominent writers and artists.

VQR Online is the online version of the Virginia Quarterly Review, a literary magazine that has been publishing since 1925. The online version features original works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as multimedia content, including videos and podcasts.

n+1 is a literary magazine that focuses on contemporary culture and politics. It features fiction, essays, and reviews, as well as translations of works from other languages. n+1 has been praised for its fresh and critical voice.

The White Review

The White Review is a quarterly literary magazine that features fiction, poetry, and essays, as well as interviews with writers and artists. It is known for its commitment to publishing new and experimental works.

Electric Lit

Electric Lit is an online literary magazine that features fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as critical essays and reviews. It is known for its commitment to publishing diverse voices and promoting emerging writers.

Music & Literature

Music & Literature is a biannual literary magazine that features works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as interviews with writers, musicians, and artists. It is known for its innovative approach to publishing, which combines literature with music and other art forms.

The Stinging Fly

The Stinging Fly is an Irish literary magazine that features poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, as well as interviews with writers and artists. It is known for its commitment to promoting emerging Irish writers.

Flaneur Magazine

Flaneur Magazine is a biannual publication that explores different neighborhoods around the world through literature and photography. Each issue focuses on a specific neighborhood, providing a unique perspective on the area.

Freeman’s

Freeman’s is a biannual literary magazine that features works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as interviews with writers and artists. It is known for its themed issues, which explore different topics from a literary perspective.

Guernica Mag

Guernica Mag is an online literary magazine that features fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as interviews with writers and artists. It is known for its commitment to promoting social justice issues through literature.

Visions is an online literary magazine that features original works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as artwork and photography. It is known for its commitment to publishing new and experimental works.

ThreePenny Review

ThreePenny Review is a quarterly literary magazine that features fiction, poetry, and essays, as well as book reviews. It is known for its commitment to publishing works from emerging writers, as well as established ones.

American Chordata

American Chordata is a biannual literary magazine that features works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as artwork and photography. It is known for its commitment to publishing diverse voices and promoting emerging writers.

Zoetrope: All-Story

Zoetrope: All-Story is a quarterly literary magazine that features fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as artwork and photography. It is known for its commitment to publishing works from emerging writers, as well as established ones.

New Criterion

New Criterion is a monthly literary magazine that features literary and cultural criticism, as well as essays and reviews. It is known for its conservative perspective and its commitment to high literary standards.

And that, my dear reader, is the magic of literary magazines. They are portals to other worlds, other stories, other lives. They are the doorways that lead us to new perspectives, and the keys that unlock our imaginations. As a writer and reader, I can attest to the immense value of these magazines in shaping and expanding our literary horizons. So go forth, dear reader, and seek out these literary gems. The world of storytelling is waiting for you, and the possibilities are endless.

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10 Essays To Read Again in 2023

A list of our staff’s favorite essays from the past year.

Hello, New Lines readers,

We hope you’re enjoying a much-needed holiday break. We have a lot in store for 2023, particularly the launch of our print edition. In the meantime, as has become tradition, we wanted to share with you a list of our staff’s favorite essays from the past year. We hope you’ll find something of interest in this eclectic collection of stories.

Wishing you a Happy New Year from the New Lines team!

The Day My Wartime Cat Went Missing, by Rasha Elass

Riada asimovic akyol, strategic initiatives editor.

Many of my close friends tell me that, despite my irrational fear of cats, I’d be a perfect “cat person,” once I dared to confront those fears. I’ve acknowledged the joy and glow in their eyes, when my friends speak of their pets. I’ve observed such bonds curiously and in a more mindful way in the last few years, especially after becoming a mother, responsible for someone else’s life. 

The essay “The Day My Wartime Cat Went Missing” was published early in 2022, and was an instant classic. Our Editorial Director, Rasha Elass, writes masterfully about her adventures with adopted cats Pumpkin and Gremlin, whom she first met in Abu Dhabi. She beautifully depicts how they survived a tough war, and the different challenges they’ve been through in the Middle East and the United States. She shares her genuine love and nurturing care, as well as her dread at the possibility of losing them, whether in peacetime or war. 

The essay is a gorgeous reminder of the bonds that matter. Check it out for yourself.

How I Survived a Syrian Gulag, by Jaber Baker

Rasha al aqeedi, middle east deputy editor.

The terms “dictatorship,” “fascism,” “authoritarianism” and “totalitarianism” are thrown around today to describe various ruling systems in the world to such an extent that they have lost their actual meaning. Inconveniences such as losing access to a social media platform are compared to the conditions that led to the Holocaust, while wearing a pandemic-imposed mask is akin to living in a gulag. 

The Syrian author Jaber Baker takes us on a dark journey through his time in an actual gulag run by Bashar al-Assad’s Baath Party. For me personally, the essay is a masterclass in storytelling and struck more chords and triggered more memories of my childhood and adolescence in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq than I wish it had. The true experiences and traumas of dictatorship face the threat of being drowned out by the noises of victimhood culture. While no one has a monopoly on trauma, Syrians have the right to tell the stories of their torture and suffering. It is a reminder that not all injustices are created equal. 

The Last of the Bougainvillea Years, by Zeina Hashem Beck

Erin clare brown, north africa editor.

When faced with an impending move to Paris from Dubai in search of more stability for her family, poet Zeina Hashem Beck is suddenly filled with the pangs of loss — not for the Emirates, where she’d lived since 2006, but for her home in Lebanon. She explores this abstract sense of displacement and longing in her gorgeously crafted essay, written in a pitch-perfect prose that carries the music of poetry through her attempts to sort her belongings, prepare her children, and reassure herself that the displacement is the right call. Through it all Hashem Beck mourns the impending loss of her bougainvillea vines, whose clouds of pink blossoms and wicked thorns come to symbolize in turns her beloved hometown, her Mediterranean identity and in ways, the author herself. 

It’s a beautiful meditation on loss and longing, displacement and belonging that reminds us that when we are the right amount of thirsty, we blossom.

What Ukraine Means for Lithuanians Haunted by Soviet Past, by Inga Rudzinskaite-Colman

Amie ferris-rotman, global news editor.

When reading this essay, one feels that an entire generation of Eastern Europeans is speaking, in a single, defiant voice, suddenly with renewed urgency. The globe is so focused on Russia’s horrific assault on Ukraine, and the grim atrocities the Russian military commits practically every day, that we often forget, or perhaps do not realize, the impact the war has on Moscow’s previous victims. In this essay, the analyst Inga Rudzinskaite-Colman, who was born and raised in Vilnius, dives into complicated issues like collective trauma and self-identity. She tells us, in poignant detail, how she and her fellow countrymen and women strived for decades to disassociate themselves from Russia and their Soviet past. But belonging to the Western “club” has also meant uncomfortable compromises, like being “Russiasplained” to. Read this beautifully written essay to peer into the new realities facing the Baltics, Poland and other countries once in Russia’s orbit, who are now finding themselves united by survival. 

Rushdie Is India’s Forgotten Child of Midnight, by Pratik Kanjilal

Surbhi gupta, south asia editor.

Earlier this year, when Salman Rushdie was attacked before his talk in western New York, his supposed safe haven, much of the discussion in the media and reports in the news cycle focused on the politics of that infamous fatwa by the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the writer’s death and its repercussions on the Muslim world. Yet, despite the fact Rushdie has roots in India and the subcontinent has been a constant source of inspiration for his writing, I could find no essay that delved into this relationship and work with South Asia — before this one.

While many were focused on the backlash against Rushdie’s novel, “The Satanic Verses,” the South Asian connection in the story was being overlooked. The first protests against the book happened not in Iran but in Pakistan, and this prompted the Indian government to ban its import from the U.K. It was, indeed, in a review in an Indian magazine that the Ayatollah is said to have first learned of the book. That’s why I loved this essay by Pratik Kanjilal, a veteran journalist and books editor in India, who has followed Rushdie’s journey closely through the years and was the best person to write it. He packs a lot into this essay: He writes about Rushdie, critiques his work, discusses what his Booker Prize wins meant for English writing in India, his relationship with India and Pakistan, and the irony of the attack, coinciding as it did with the 75th Independence Day celebrations in India. 

Faith and Vengeance: the Islamic State’s War in Afghanistan, by Fazelminallah Qazizai and Chris Sands

Tam hussein, associate editor.

This piece tells the story of the rise of the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), and its fall and rebirth, told through the character of Abu Omar Khorasani, “the most feared and despised prisoner in Directorate 40.” It takes you on a journey from the Afghan Jihad in the 1980s all the way to the present. I love deep dives and investigations. This particular piece is very original and will no doubt populate the citations of many books on the topic for years to come. To produce an essay of such quality requires a supportive editorial team and journalists willing to follow the story all the way. For me, that is embodied in this investigation. When I read it, I can almost see the legwork and local knowledge put in by Fazelminallah Qazizai. I see the crisp writing style of Qazizai’s co-author Chris Sands, the beautiful artwork of Joanna Andreasson and the background work that the editorial team puts in months before publication. And so it’s not just an enjoyable and interesting read, it’s what our managing editor Ola Salem says the best essays are — a work of art.

When Uganda Expelled Its Asian Population in 1972, Britain Tried to Exclude Them, by Saima Nasar

Kwangu liwewe, africa editor.

When I read this essay, it reminded me of the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story. For five decades, the narrative about the expulsion of Uganda’s Asians has been that they went to Britain, were welcomed there and lived as refugees, then successfully assimilated into society and have contributed to all spheres of British life.

This essay puts the spotlight on how the narrative changed from unwanted Asian immigrants to one of a humanitarian response, when the plight of Asians became international news and Britain feared a backlash. The writer Saima Nasar lifts the lid on this narrative and tells the story of how, in actual fact, the Asians were British passport holders and were initially not welcome in Britain.

Nasar writes, “While Ugandan Asians have no doubt shaped Britain’s economic, political and socio-cultural landscapes, it is important to avoid celebratory narratives that overlook histories of struggle and discrimination.” 

It is an important essay that challenges society to re-examine historical narratives.

A Film Critic Reflects on the Artistic Journeys and Vision of the Late French Director Jean-Luc Godard, by Jonathan Rosenbaum

Danny postel, politics editor.

When I saw the news on Sept. 13 that the legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard had died, I immediately called Jonathan Rosenbaum, the longtime film critic for my local alt-weekly newspaper, the Chicago Reader, and the author of multiple books on world cinema. Rosenbaum had written extensively about Godard’s films over the years and had interviewed the grand poobah of French cinema’s New Wave movement on more than one occasion. I was thrilled that Rosenbaum agreed to write for us, despite being unfamiliar with New Lines (he later informed me that Sight and Sound, the magazine of the British Film Institute, also asked him to write something on Godard but we got to him first). 

In the essay, he discusses several of Godard’s films — “Breathless” (1960), “Alphaville” (1965), “Tout Va Bien” (1972), “Every Man for Himself” (1980), “Passion” (1982), “Nouvelle Vague” (1990) and “Histoire(s) du Cinéma,” an eight-part experimental video series made between 1988 and 1998 — but it’s far from a survey of the late director’s filmography. Instead, it’s a deeply personal meditation on his poetic vision and colossal global influence, and on the relationship between art and commercial success and failure. “Marketplace value has little or nothing to do with the love of art,” Rosenbaum writes, and “there’s no way of gauging the latter via the former, especially insofar as the intensity of the love and the qualities of the audience experiencing and expressing it aren’t even remotely quantifiable.” Godard once said to Rosenbaum: “I like to think of myself as an airplane, not an airport.” Reflecting on that quip, Rosenbaum writes that “vehicles that take us places, and the destinations of those who make them don’t have to be the same as the destinations of those who climb into those vehicles.”

Between Two Rivers, Between Two Myths, by Sophus Helle

Lydia wilson, culture editor.

I wanted to choose a history essay for two reasons: It’s one of the genres that we do particularly well and, second, this type of long-form history is not given much space in other outlets. Our history essays are always deep-dive explorations of stories from the past from experts on the subject, showing us something new about the world, whether a new perspective on a familiar topic or a previously hidden gem. 

“Between Two Rivers,” by the Mesopotamian scholar Sophus Helle, exemplifies what we’re trying to do. It is based on deep expertise, exploring the identities of societies going back millennia in the territory now called Iraq. Helle looks at the labels these cultures gave themselves and were given by later invaders or historians. But it does not only tell the story of the historical material. Crucially, it explains why these facts, controversies and debates about old identities are relevant today, and the obfuscation of the past realities on the ground in Iraq does not serve its present inhabitants. History matters, and this essay brings that home. 

An Exile Returns to Find Syria Changed Forever, by Nizar Kinaan

Faisal al yafai, international editor.

It’s been a year of war — as too many of the past few years have been — this time dominated in Europe by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the magazine, we’ve certainly published a lot about the Ukraine war, but we’ve also kept a close eye on other conflicts.

This essay by Nizar Kinaan, a pseudonym for obvious reasons, is one of those, revisiting the still-simmering Syrian conflict. The author returned to the coastal city of Latakia after years away and found a city, and country, drastically changed by the war. We called the essay “No Country for Young Men” because of the profound changes in gender roles wrought by the war.

“‘Where are the young men?’ I asked my friends in the cafe bar we were drinking in. ‘They are dead, in the army or they left like I should have done.’”

“The taboos against women working in certain specific jobs have definitely been broken,” wrote Kinaan, quoting a Syrian woman who said, “I am not saying all taboos have been completely shattered … but things have definitely shifted. Now women can work in most jobs, stay out late, and be a little bit more independent.”

Many will applaud that change, but the reasons that brought it about have destabilized the entire society. This is what makes Kinaan’s encounter with Latakia so interesting; he doesn’t judge what has happened by any moral standard except that of Syria itself. He doesn’t applaud changes in isolation without understanding what it took to make them change.

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Ranking of the 100 Best Literary Magazines

In some ways it’s ridiculous to rank literary magazines by the number of awards they’ve received, but it still can be useful for writers to figure out where to submit.

(If you’re looking for nonfiction or essay rankings, go to my Ranking of Literary Nonfiction Markets ). 

The list below arranges literary journals in order of how many times they’ve had a short story or special mention in the last eleven years in the Best American Short Stories (BASS). I award a certain number of points for the winners and a lesser number of points for every special mention. Every October I’ll update the page to reflect the new year.

There were seventeen newcomers added to this year’s list, up from twelve newcomers last year. Some of the journals were new, and some have been around quite a well and only now are being recognized by BASS.

If you’d like help with your short story, I offer an editing service that will take your short story to the next level.

From copy-editing to character advice, I give detailed feedback on what’s working and what needs to be improved in your story.

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On statistics : statistics is a epistemic methodology prized by our modernistic, science-obsessed world as the primary way to Know Things. The cold hard facts trumps subjective knowledge, right? But I would argue that statistics gives us only a very limited view of the world, and one which necessarily skews “proper” knowledge.

Let me be less philosophical and more practical: Please don’t overestimate the important of the list below. The list below does not tell you whether a literary journal is good or not, it only tells you whether the Best American Short Story editors happened to like the flavor of stories in a literary journal. That, necessarily, is entirely subjective, and I encourage you to discover for yourself the type of fiction each literary magazine publishes, as well as explore the many  excellent  literary journals that don’t appear on this list.

I dislike some “high” level literary journals and really love “low” level literary journals. So while my tastes are not necessarily reflected by the list below, that’s good, because it will force you all, my lovely, devoted readers, to form your own judgments.

For those of you already deep in the literary magazine world, I hope that this Best American Short Story list is one aid among many to help you figure out where to submit and subscribe.

Southern Review and Zyzzyva had great showings this year. Zyzzyva moved from 15 to 11, continuing their upward momentum, and Southern Review moved from 12 to 7.

On the other hand, we had an enormous amount of shut-outs this year.  One Story , American Short Fiction , Atlantic Monthly , AGNI ,  Virginia Quarterly Review and Glimmer Train got completely shut out — not a single point for any of them. Which basically means their fiction didn’t resonate with this year’s editor, Roxane Gay. 

Gulf Coast has moved up a great deal over the past few years, up to a respectable spot more commensurate with their reputation, and Passages North got on the map in a big way, going from zero points to 5 points this year.

Another lit mag that’s worth noting is Fifth Wednesday Journal . They’ve been consistently amassing nods from the BASS editors, and they should be on your radar to submit to.

Also, you accomplished short story writers might be planning on writing a novel next. In that case, I’d recommend you read my post on how to pull off a smashbang novel that lights your reader’s brain on fire .

It’s one of my best posts on storytelling and novel advice, so click that link above.

*If there is an asterisk next to the name, it means that journal is no longer publishing new material.*

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14 comments

You say AGNI got shut out this year, but there it is at #16.

The numbers are from the last ten years. Just because one doesn’t get points this year, that doesn’t mean they drop to zero.

OK. I see. Thank you.

Fairly odd. “The New Yorker” is so very mainstream and so well-known that one is not very enlightened by the ranking. Moreover, their “fiction” is hardly in the same league as their non-fiction…..so when you rank them by “literary,” it’s not clear if you are referring to non-fiction OR fiction. Plus you include book REVIEWS further obfuscating matters. Too, no “New York Review of Books” as long as you’re going to include reviews of books as “literary”; in addition, I don’t see “Partisan Review”. Glad to see “McSweeneys” didn’t make the list: near-pure garbage. As I say, an odd list. Nevertheless, I’ll be checking out some of the them.

Yes, if you’re a writer the biggest acceptance of your short story would be New Yorker. I’m certain the NYRB does not apply to John’s list here, nor do any of them do only book reviews.

Also, thanks for the list John! It’s been useful for my submitting process for the last year plus!

NYRB of course also publishes poetry.

To be honest, I really think No Contact Magazine is one of the best lit mags out there in the game. I find their selection to be very current and their overall brand to be one of the best.

Slice, Redivider, Chicago Tribune, and New York Tyrant do not seem to be publishing anymore and probably warrant an asterisk. Would you consider my journal, The Summerset Review? We have been around twenty years.

Redivider is still going, with a Duotrope listing.

Sincere thank you for working this and other literary lists. We writers are a selfish lot, too happy to scavenge any leads down to the metaphorical bone, and run off without so much as a nod to who actually felled and dressed the meat.

And anyone complaining about the quality of the list. Come on, it’s free. And helpful. And you were too lazy to do it yourself (you know who you are).

Some folks in the comments didn’t bother to read how the list was made… SMH

Chicago Quarterly Review has two appearances and six distinguished stories in BASS between 2017 and 2021–surely that totals more than the 5 they’re given here?

Correction to my earlier comment: Chicago Quarterly Review’s two stories and six honorable mentions in BASS range between 2016 and 2021. (PS they also have two honorable mentions in the 2022 issue)

I believe it’s no coincidence. The publications with the most stories selected for Best American Short Stories are also the magazines available to the masses. If I had to pay for them, I would not be able to subscribe to the top 10. However with various Emagazine formats available via the local public library, I can be a regular reader of the top ranked magazines.

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Out of the Darkness , by Frank Trentmann (Knopf) . Germany’s postwar transformation into Europe’s political conscience is often cast as a triumphant story of moral rehabilitation. This book points to the limitations of that narrative, arguing that, in the past eight decades, German society has been “preoccupied with rebuilding the country and coming to terms with the Nazi past” rather than with confronting its obligations to the broader world. Trentmann draws from a wide range of sources, including amateur plays and essays by schoolchildren. These lend intimacy to his portrait of a citizenry engaged in the continuous process of formulating its own views of right and wrong as it debates issues from rearmament to environmentalism.

Whiskey Tender , by Deborah Jackson Taffa (Harper) . This vibrant memoir recalls the author’s childhood on the traditional lands of the Quechan (Yuma) people on a reservation in California, and in a Navajo Nation border town in New Mexico. The move to New Mexico, in 1976, reflected Taffa’s parents’ desire for their children to “be mainstream Americans.” As a young woman, however, Taffa sought to link her identity to figures from her ancestral past, such as a great-grandmother who lectured and performed for white society. In her account, Taffa regards the broad tapestry of history and picks at its smallest threads: individual choices shaped by violent social forces, and by the sometimes erratic powers of love.

The Best Books of 2024

Read our reviews of the year’s notable new fiction and nonfiction.

Ours , by Phillip B. Williams (Viking) . In this ambitious début novel, a Harriet Tubman figure possessed of supernatural abilities founds a town in Missouri, whose first inhabitants she has rescued from slavery. Magically concealed from the outside world, the community is ostensibly a haven, yet the weight of its inhabitants’ pasts and the confines of safety prove to be difficult burdens. In lush, ornamental prose, Williams, who is also a poet, traces many characters’ entwined journeys as they seek to understand the forces that assemble and separate them. The novel is an inventive ode to self-determination and also a surrealistic vision of Black life as forged within the crucible of American history.

Worry , by Alexandra Tanner (Scribner) . This dryly witty novel centers on Jules, a twenty-eight-year-old aspiring novelist turned study-guide editor living in Brooklyn, and her younger sister, who has just moved in with her. Jules swings between irritation and compassion toward her sibling; she notes that “having a sister is looking in a cheap mirror: what’s there is you, but unfamiliar and ugly for it.” Jules is just self-aware enough to admit that chief among her joys in life is feeling superior to others. She spins a fixation on her Instagram feed as research for “a book-length hybrid essay” on feminism, capitalism, antisemitism, and the Internet. As Tanner’s novel explores these topics, its depiction of Jules’s relationships also highlights absurdities of contemporary culture and the consequences of self-absorption.

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By Richard Brody

• Entertainment

Here Are the 12 New Books You Should Read in April

These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

T he best books coming in April include historian Erik Larson ’s latest nonfiction thriller, former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey ’s meditation on writing, and Salman Rushdie ’s agonizing account of the brutal knife attack he suffered two years ago. Other notable releases include a pair of career-spanning anthologies that celebrate the works of cultural critic Maggie Nelson and historian Nell Irvin Painter , as well as Amor Towles ’ first collection of short stories. Alyssa Cole ’s new mystery features a protagonist struggling with dissociative identity disorder, while former therapist Patric Gagne hopes to recontextualize the term “sociopath” with her debut memoir of the same name. 

Here, the 12 best books to read this month.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories , Julia Alvarez (April 2)

In Julia Alvarez ’s seventh adult novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, acclaimed writer Alma Cruz inherits a piece of her homeland, the Dominican Republic. After the death of her close friend and fellow author, Alma decides to retire and turn her plot of land into a graveyard for the unpublished tales she’d like to finally put to rest. But just because Alma is ready to abandon her characters, some of whom are based on real historical figures, it doesn’t mean they are ready to go peacefully. Mystical and moving, The Cemetery of Untold Stories shows why some stories must be told no matter how hard you try to bury them.

Buy Now : The Cemetery of Untold Stories on Bookshop | Amazon

Village Weavers , Myriam J. A. Chancy (April 2)

For fans of Elena Ferrante : Myriam J. A. Chancy’s Village Weavers is a wistful look at a complicated female friendship that spans decades and continents. Growing up in1940s Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Gertie and Sisi are the best of friends until a devastating secret that bonds their families tears them apart. The book follows the two women as they fall in and out of one another’s lives amid a violent dictatorship, and struggle with infertility and terminal illness. When Sisi gets an unexpected call from Gertie in 2002, decades after they last spoke, she must decide whether she is ready to forgive—or forget—all that they have shared.

Buy Now : Village Weavers on Bookshop | Amazon

Sociopath , Patric Gagne (April 2)

Writer and former therapist Patric Gagne first discovered she was a sociopath in college. But, in her provocative debut memoir, Sociopath , she admits that there were signs long before she was diagnosed. With incredible candor, she details the violent outbursts she exhibited as a child that would lead to near run-ins with the law in her teens and 20s. “Most of the time I felt nothing,” she writes, “so I did bad things to make the nothingness go away.” Despite her lifelong lack of empathy, shame, and guilt, she has become a loving wife and mother, something she knows doesn’t fit with pop culture’s portrayal of sociopaths as murderers, villains, and monsters. In her memoir, Gagne looks to destigmatize the often misunderstood mental disorder, now more commonly known as antisocial personality disorder , while offering compassion to those, like her, who are trying to change what it means to be a sociopath.

Buy Now : Sociopath on Bookshop | Amazon

We Loved It All , Lydia Millet (April 2)

Lydia Millet ’s first foray into nonfiction, We Loved It All: A Memory of Life, questions what humans lose when they ignore their connection to the animal kingdom. With great passion and indignation, the acclaimed novelist behind 2022’s Dinosaurs takes aim at corporations whose greed has endangered the world’s wildlife. She looks at how the “ Crying Indian” anti-litter campaign from the 1970s allowed big business to place the onus on consumers to clean up the environmental mess they played the largest role in causing. By sharing personal anecdotes about her own childhood, as well as the experiences of raising her son and daughter, Millet shows how caring about the smallest creatures that live among us is tied to the fight for economic justice around the globe. With her mournful yet often hopeful rumination on our current state of existence, Millet reminds us that we are not alone in this world.

Buy Now : We Loved It All on Bookshop | Amazon

Like Love , Maggie Nelson (April 2)

Like Love draws on two decades of Maggie Nelson’s career as a critic of art in all its forms. The collection of previously published work, arranged in chronological order, includes essays on, tributes to, and conversations with creatives the author deeply admires: musician Björk, poet Eileen Myles, fine artist Kara Walker , the late queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick , novelist Ben Lerner , philosopher Judith Butler , and writer and theater critic Hilton Als, whose words inspired the book’s title. When examining the art she loves, Nelson uses incisive and analytical prose, but her scholarly style doesn’t take away from the joy she feels for the work. “Words aren’t just what’s left,” she writes of why we need criticism. “They’re what we have to offer.”

Buy Now : Like Love on Bookshop | Amazon

Table for Two , Amor Towles (April 2)

Amor Towles ’ Table For Two is an intimate collection of six short stories that take place in early 2000s New York, and a 1930s Hollywood-set novella that picks up where his 2011 debut, Rules of Civility , left off. The book, which was written while he was meant to be working on his fourth novel , focuses on brief but fateful encounters between strangers, would-be business partners, and estranged relatives. Most of these conversations take place at a table set for two, the perfect place to share a tête-à-tête about forgery or bootlegging or even the blackmailing of screen legend Olivia de Havilland . Table For Two is a smorgasbord of deliciously mischievous tales imbued with Towles’ signature wit and worldliness.

Buy Now : Table for Two on Bookshop | Amazon

The House of Being , Natasha Trethewey (April 9)

In The House of Being, which was originally delivered as a 2022 prize lecture at Yale University, Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey takes readers back to her grandmother’s home outside of Gulfport, Miss., where the author learned to read and write. It was there that her neighbors flew Confederate flags with pride, and her late mother—whose death at the hands of her ex-husband was the focus of Trethewey’s best-selling 2020 memoir, Memorial Drive — took to singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” any time she passed one. It was also where, Trethewey would later learn, formerly enslaved men and women were educated after the Civil War, their stories lost to time because they had not been written down. With The House of Being, Trethewey doesn’t just explore the reasons why she writes. She also offers a compassionate argument for why we must all be the authors of our own stories.

Buy Now : The House of Being on Bookshop | Amazon

One of Us Knows , Alyssa Cole (April 16)

Best-selling author Alyssa Cole ’s latest novel, One of Us Knows, is a paranoia-filled murder mystery full of twists and turns. Preservationist Kenetria “Ken” Nash has taken a job as the caretaker of a gothic castle on a remote island on the Hudson River in the hopes of getting back on her feet. For the last six years, Ken has struggled with dissociative identity disorder, which causes her to, without much warning, “switch” between multiple identities. Lately, Ken has found it harder to keep her “headmates”—precocious toddler Keke, judgy perfectionist Della, and the sophisticated Solomon, to name a few—in check. When a man from Ken’s past is found dead in the historic home, she must enlist her headmates’ help in hopes of clearing her name, all the while knowing she could be the killer she is looking for.

Buy Now : One of Us Knows on Bookshop | Amazon

Knife , Salman Rushdie (April 16)

On Aug. 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was stabbed nearly 10 times while at a speaking engagement in western New York. With his new memoir, Knife, Rushdie writes about the violent attack that left him with PTSD , limited mobility in his left hand, and the loss of sight in his right eye, offering an intimate and often harrowing account of what happened that day and what life has been like for him since. (The trial for Rushdie’s alleged attacker , who has been charged with attempted murder, has been postponed due to the release of this book, since it can serve as potential evidence.) Rushdie has said that writing Knife was an important step in the healing process. “This was a necessary book for me to write,” he said in a statement . “A way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art.”

Buy Now : Knife on Bookshop | Amazon

I Just Keep Talking , Nell Irvin Painter (April 23)

For the past five decades, acclaimed writer, artist, historian, and critic Nell Irvin Painter’s work has felt ahead of its time. I Just Keep Talking, a decades-spanning collection of more than 40 of her previously published essays, shows just how prescient her work really was. The anthology includes a 1982 essay on the effect white educators’ reluctance to teach Black resistance would have on how the history of slavery is taught in America . In other pieces, she examines how Spike Lee ’s film Malcolm X reinvented the activist and breaks down the gender and racial stereotypes that hurt Anita Hill ’s case against Clarence Thomas during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing. A more recent essay from 2022 offers a strong warning to Democrats: If you “jettison voting rights in order to court white voters without college degrees,” she writes, you’ll risk repeating the mistakes of Reconstruction . This insightful anthology shows why Painter, now 81 years old, is still one of the most important voices in America.

Buy Now : I Just Keep Talking on Bookshop | Amazon

Lucky , Jane Smiley (April 23)

As the title of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley ’s coming-of-age novel Lucky implies, protagonist Jodie Rattler has always been more fortunate than most. While attending college at Penn State in the 1960s, Jodie decides she’d like to become a folk singer, so she records a song that becomes a surprise hit. She soon finds herself living like a true bohemian, recording an album in New York, touring the country, and earning comparisons to musical luminaries like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell . But as the pressure builds for her to leave school and focus on her music career full time, she finds herself questioning her future. Lucky offers a tender look at one young woman’s journey to understand who she has become and who she’d like to be when she finally grows up.

Buy Now : Lucky on Bookshop | Amazon

The Demon of Unrest , Erik Larson (April 30)

After tackling World War II by focusing on Winston Churchill’s leadership during the Blitz with The Splendid and the Vile , one of TIME’s best books of 2020 , Erik Larson returns with a historical nonfiction thriller set before the start of the U.S. Civil War . The Demon of Unrest looks at the chaotic five-month period between the November 1860 election of President Abraham Lincoln and the April 1861 surrender of Fort Sumter , which marked the official beginning of the war. Using journals, slave ledgers, plantation records, and secret correspondence, Larson offers an intriguing look at a young country on the brink of collapse. He reexamines the lead-up to the four-year conflict by putting the focus not only on the rebellion’s major players, but also on those on the periphery: Maj. Robert Anderson, the Union commander at Fort Sumter, Edmund Ruffin, an agricultural reformer and ardent secessionist, James H. Hammond, a senator and wealthy plantation owner from South Carolina, and Mary Boykin Chesnut, the wealthy wife of a lawyer and senator whose diary became an invaluable resource for the author.

Buy Now : The Demon of Unrest on Bookshop | Amazon

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Letter of Recommendation

I Used to Cringe at Self-Help Books. Until This One Changed My Life.

How a best-selling classic from 1992 helped me rediscover my creativity.

By Jillian Steinhauer

I have written about art my whole career. I find it and its creators endlessly fascinating, but I’ve always seen myself as something of a different kind — a journalist and critic, yes, but never an “artist,” with all the imaginative power that word conveys. Recently, though, I conducted a particularly poignant, intimate interview. The artist and I talked about childhood and the struggle of making oneself heard. There were tears. Afterward I had a thought: What would it be like if I were the one being interviewed? Could I be the artist, possessed of creative vision, like one of my subjects? The prospect was equally thrilling and terrifying.

These questions grew out of a long period in which I had been feeling alternately adrift and stuck. I regularly write about contemporary art for publications like this one, but for a while I’ve been in creative limbo. At first I wasn’t sure why, or even how, to describe it. Sometimes I said I felt disconnected from my voice; other times that my work and life, which was then filled with death and illness, seemed to have grown far apart.

I tried to address this through my usual methods: talking to friends, family, my therapist. When those didn’t work, I turned to a remedy several people had suggested: the 1992 book “The Artist’s Way,” by Julia Cameron. Structured as a 12-week course that leads the reader on a spiritual journey of “creative recovery,” the book began as a class and a collection of typed-up pages that Cameron photocopied and sold in bookstores, until she found a publisher willing to take it on. “We didn’t know where to put it on the shelves,” Joel Fotinos, who published the book at Penguin, said in a 2019 interview. “Eventually there was a category called ‘Creativity,’ and ‘The Artist’s Way’ launched it.” The book has sold more than five million copies since its publication, and Cameron has become a kind of guru.

I knew none of this when I ordered “The Artist’s Way,” only that it was some kind of woo-woo self-help book, and that it had popularized the phrase “morning pages” (which seemed like journaling, in the morning?). When I sat down to read, I almost immediately cringed. On the first page of the introduction, Cameron invokes “The Great Creator,” a.k.a. capital “G” God. That immediately set off my internal alarm; I underlined it wavily and wrote “Mmm” alongside. Turning the page, I realized to my horror that random inspirational quotes set in the margins were going to be a recurring feature. (An example: “I shut my eyes in order to see,” credited to Paul Gauguin.) The following chapters brought a bewildering jumble of metaphors.

I like to think I’m receptive, but I am also a critic — someone who prides herself on her discerning taste, at least in certain realms, including books. This was like a compendium of questionable taste. It took me back to the days of being a preteen, when I pored over the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series and published my bad poetry in school magazines. That version of me was so earnest that in retrospect I found her a bit embarrassing. But I also envied her nerve. She seemed a lot less self-conscious than the person I had become.

As it turned out, the beauty of “The Artist’s Way” was in asking people like me to set aside matters of taste entirely. Instead, Cameron prompted me to turn inward. One of her two core practices is the morning pages, writing three longhand pages upon waking up, which Cameron says “get us to the other side: the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods” by creating space to contend with them. The other is the “artist date,” a weekly solo excursion or activity meant to cultivate inspiration. I didn’t always manage to do these tasks, but I recognized their value. I had arranged to do “The Artist’s Way” with a small group of women, and as one of them put it in a meeting, the exercises offered a way of witnessing ourselves.

There was something refreshing about a text that didn’t need to be perfect, that came from a place of urgency.

Cameron’s writing encouraged that exploration. She spoke plainly and directly, without elaborate flourishes and conspicuous erudition. I came to appreciate the book’s many flaws: There was something refreshing about a text that didn’t need to be perfect, that came from a place of urgency. She said what needed to be said — and when she did, I often felt as if she were seeing and dragging me simultaneously. “Most blocked creatives have an active addiction to anxiety,” she wrote. “We prefer the low-grade pain and occasional heart-stopping panic attack to the drudgery of small and simple daily steps in the right direction.” “My god,” I responded in the margins.

Cameron seemed at home in her voice; her tutelage made me think about mine. I realized that after 17 years as a journalist and critic, the balance was off: I had allowed my professional taste-making — an inherently public concern — to obscure other interests and curiosities. I had honed my professional voice at the expense of my private one. Loving “The Artist’s Way” feels strangely embarrassing — because it’s less rational than it is sincere. But as Cameron knows, authenticity is the best place for an artist to begin.

Jillian Steinhauer is a critic and reporter who covers the politics of art and comics. She won a 2019 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant and was previously a senior editor at Hyperallergic. More about Jillian Steinhauer

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