Spreading Love: Community Favorite Lit Mags of 2023!
And Pushcart nominations from Write or Die!
The nominations for our Best Lit Mag of 2023 are in!
No news from us this week, we only want to use this week’s newsletter to highlight the amazing work these folks are doing. We had 1500 nominations for 600 literary magazines out of our database of over 3000. All of these nominated magazines will be presented with sentiment-based community tags in our next update. These 25 winners will get “Best Lit Mag 2023” tags to highlight their work and a special page on Chill Subs. All were recognized by writers for their dedicated editors, inclusive communities, innovate styles, and bomb-as-hell vibes. The rankings are based solely on how many times they were nominated. Please check them out and show your love if you’ve got any left to give after family members suck you dry this holiday season.
If you haven’t had the chance to try out our new premium tools like our prose formatter, submitter’s passport, and smart browse search, you can sign up here. Our membership comes with loads of extra content, educational materials, and discounts. It is only because of your support that we’re able to do what we do. So thank you!
Chill Subs Community Favorites: 25 Best Lit Mags of 2023
25th - Fiction on the Web
“Has been publishing great stories for decades.”
Visit them: Fiction on the Web
24th - Mom Egg Review
“Very responsive editors. Great quality work.”
Visit them: Mom Egg Review
23rd - Split Lip
“Beautiful presentation of work, transparent editors.”
Visit them: Split Lip Magazine
22nd - Variant Lit
“Careful, beautiful editing.”
Visit them: Variant Lit
21st - BRUISER
“Very supportive, unpretentious, indie/punk vibes.”
Visit them: BRUISER
20th - fifth wheel press
“Inclusive of queer & otherwise marginalized writers. Kickass team of editors.”
Visit them: fifth wheel press
19th - Fractured Lit
“Best stories out there.”
Visit them: Fractured Lit
18th - RockPaperPoem
“They are consistently great.”
Visit them: RockPaperPoem
17th - trampset
“Fearless and amazing.”
Visit them: trampset
16th - Reckon Review
“Diversifying grit lit!”
Visit them: Reckon Review
15th - SWWIM
“Love the energy of this journal.”
Visit them: SWWIM
14th - Voidspace
“Such innovative issues and submission calls.”
Visit them: Voidspace
13th - Rattle
“Best poems.”
Visit them: Rattle
12th - Flash Frog
“Spotlights amazing writing, their selections never disappoint!”
Visit them: Flash Frog
11th - Milk Candy Review
“Lightning fast response times, interviews with every author.”
Visit them: Milk Candy Review
10th - Bullshit Lit
“great writing, deeply cool”
Visit them: BULLSHIT LIT MAG
9th - HAD
“HAD continues to change the game.”
Visit them: HAD
8th - Cosmic Daffodil
“Wonderful editors, diverse authors, and beautiful presentation.”
Visit them: Cosmic Daffodil
7th - After Dinner Conversation
“There’s nothing else like it.”
Visit them: After Dinner Conversation
6th - ONE ART
“Transparency, quick response, easy vibe.”
Visit them: ONE ART
5th - Stanchion
“They pay their writers and it’s just like this one guy doing it.”
Visit them: Stanchion
4th - Roi Fainéant Press
“Best vibes - friendly family feel.”
Visit them: Roi Faineaint Press
3rd - The Hooghly Review
“International reach, beautiful layout and art.”
Visit them: The Hooghly Review
2nd - SmokeLong Quarterly
“Friendly, quick, generous, paid.”
Visit them: SmokeLong Quarterly
1st - Taco Bell Quarterly
“IT'S THE TACO BELL FUCKING QUARTERLY, WHAT OTHER REASON DO YOU NEED?”
Visit them: Taco Bell Quarterly
If you want to learn more, we did a full breakdown of the feedback and submission details for each one of these magazines last week in our Sub Club Newsletter. Check it all out over there:
You can also explore more about these magazines on our brand new Best Lit Mags of 2023 page on Chill Subs!
Published this week:
An interview with Jenn from Journal of the Month along with her "most likely" lit mag superlatives (her spin on our usual lists).
Best Lit Mags of 2023: Chill Subs Community Favorites # 11-25
Best Lit Mags of 2023: Chill Subs Community Favorites # 6-10
Shelby, associate editor: I just finished reading Sean Enfield's essay collection Holy American Burnout! (Split/Lip Press, 2023) and I was blown away by his skill at weaving together memoir, literary theory, popular culture, and race theory throughout each of his essays. "Song of the South, Reprise" was my favorite essay in the collection and it was originally published by Tahoma Literary Review. I recommend reading the whole book, but if you are short on time, start here!
Brittany, assistant interviews editor: I'm finally reading Pure Colour (I know, so late to the party)...and what a party it is. It's like a big, heady philosophy party that I only somewhat feel like I understand. I'm impressed with how conversational it is and how it really invites the reader to think deeply about big ideas like faith and family and society and death. I gave a short synopsis to my husband that was something like, "An art critique's father dies and she transcends to a leaf (like, a literal leaf) in order to process the grief, but she's also faced with her own morality and her own purpose and existence while inside the leaf..." I've underlined SO much. It's a book that's teaching me things along the way, and I love that. Extremely experimental; grief in a leaf.
Kailey, editor-in-chief: This week, I asked a question on Notes on Substack: How do you know if it is creative burnout or resistance? It prompted a great conversation, so I figured I’d share it with you here! Feel free to add your own thoughts.
Column: Just My Type #17: Which Writing Substack to Read Based on your MBTI Type by Megan Moody
To help you find the perfect Substack newsletter to inspire you as a writer, I’ve tailored the recommendations below to an MBTI group with similar characteristics and tendencies.
Interview: Ghassan Zeineddine: On Representation Without Appropriation, Finding Community in Arab America, the Pressure to Pursue “Safe” Careers, and His Debut Story Collection ‘Dearborn’ by Emma Burger
Like other immigrant communities, there’s a resistance from many older generations in the Arab American community against their children pursuing the arts, because there’s this fear that it’s unstable. I don’t mean to generalize, but there’s this idea that “we didn’t struggle for you to also have to struggle.”
We nominated for the Pushcart Prize!
Here are Write or Die Magazine’s 2023 selections:
Nonfiction
“The Things I Knew Before Me: On Holding Identities Through Writing” by Swati Sudarsan
“In Defense of Badness” by Jenna Klorfein
“Making Love Like A Writer and Writing Like A Lover: Desire, Sex, and Annie Ernaux” by Arcadia Molinas
Fiction
“Like Saline and Sugar” by Suzanne Grove
“The Current” by Nicholas Claro
January 10 & January 17 from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (EST)
Editing for Style: A Hands-On Lesson in Copyediting with Jordan Koluch
In this two session class, you’ll learn the basics of good copyediting and implement those basics over a number of sample texts. We’ll start with becoming familiar with The Chicago Manual Style and Merriam Webster, then move on to the different things copy editors should always be looking for when approaching a text.
Saturdays, January 13 - February 10, from 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (EST)
Screenplays By Badass Women (Including You!): Study The Greats, Become The Greatest with Lauren Veloski
In this 5 week class, we will deep-dive several of the most groundbreaking screenplays by women, engage in conversation about what exactly these cinematic worlds offer that’s brilliantly off-kilter and essential, as well as WRITE diligently into our own screenplays.
Saturday, January 20 from 1:00 - 4:00 PM EST
The Magic and Mining Of Metaphor: A Poetry Workshop with Kelly Grace Thomas
Learn from award-winning poet, author, and educator Kelly Grace Thomas how to mine and create metaphors full of surprise, punch, and power!
None of the content in this newsletter will ever be paywalled, but if you’d like to support the work we do, you can upgrade to a paid subscription as a form of donation.
Thanks for the amazing list. Thanks to Chill Subs, the New Year started with a bang for me! A prose short story acceptance from The Hooghly Review! So thanks Ben, Karina and everyone!
Thank you for all you do, Chill Sub stalwarts. You rock!! We love you!!
And I'm not going to spoil this post by pointing my finger -- they knew who they are -- but long-running literary journals who charge $ fees but DO NOT PAY writers are NOT the ones who deserve applause.
Since I don't submit to those zines, I can say what other writers only wish they could.
Award noms?
Naaaahhh.
Think about at least one category where a select few get paid out of your sub fees, why don't you?