If you want to build your writing career, a great place to start is by submitting to literary journals. Getting published in literary journals will build your reputation as an author, and increase your chances of getting a major book deal.

A literary journal is a periodical devoted to publishing creative writing including short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.  Some literary journals are printed and can be purchased or subscribed to, much like magazines.  Other literary journals are only published online where everyone can access the content for free.  Often online journals have an audio component.

Some literary journals have a specific focus, for example they could only publish horror themed poetry, but most literary journals are open to a wide variety of pieces.

In the competitive publishing market a record of publication in literary journals is taken very seriously. Before you are published in literary journals you are just an amateur with no professional record, but once you have publications to point to, you become an author.

Most literary authors continue to submit and be published by literary journals because it helps publicize their work. It is also nice to receive a copy of a journal containing your writing in the mail, or to be able to share a poem that was published online by an established press.

Submitting to a literary journal is relatively easy. Often you just have to email them your work along with a brief Biography of approximately 50 words.  Sometimes they have an easy to use submission manager, that works much like email.

The hardest part of submitting is finding the literary journal that is right for your work. How do you know if a literary journal is respected? How do you know that they don’t publish every piece of writing they receive? How do you find one that publishes flash fiction?

Some websites including Poets & Writers and Duotrope (which requires a monthly subscription for many of its services) list vast numbers of journals. The problem with these listings are that they are filled with journals that are not currently accepting submissions or disreputable. It can be hard to sort the good from the bad, because there is minimal information available about the journal.

That is why we have sent you thorough reviews of literary journals. We explain many things including: what kind of work they publish, when they accept submissions, what medium they publish in.