10 Unique and Funky Literary Magazines To Check Out in 2015

Share:

In 2014, I started helping my MFA program pals with Atlas and Alice, a new literary magazine they started the previous year. Since then, I have been gaining an understanding of the submission economy and how arduous it is to sort through stories and essays and poems from the receiving end. This is just one part of the intense effort it takes to keep a literary magazine — with its flow of submissions in and final products out — going on a regular basis.

Almost always, literary magazines are run by their editors as a side hustle. Creating consistent content in a unique format is tremendously difficult, so it’s good literary citizenry to applaud boundary-pushing work. In that vein, and to connect readers and submitters with outlets, here’s a short list of particularly funky literary magazines which are doing something unique and cool with their platform. Check them out in 2015.

Five Chapters

This respected online magazine publishes a story in five parts, over the course of the week. With this pace, it’s like watching an internet scandal unfold, swell, and fade except much more emotionally satsifying.

Storychord

A guest curator each issue chooses music, art and fiction to create a total package of artistic immersion and enjoyment.

Spartan Lit

Prefer your prose a little spare and less flowery? This magazine focuses on minimalist prose, with a refreshingly clean design.

The Cupboard

Each issue of this Nebraska-based “pamphlet” is its own chapbook, devoted to a single author.

The Intentional

A print magazine for the emerging writer set that champions the ‘”weekend poet, the freelance photographer, the journalist-cum-waitress, the side hustlers, the part-time painters, and the DJ/designer/yoga teacher.”

Two Serious Ladies

Women’s writing finds a home in this quiet, quirky and lovely online magazine named after the cult classic Jane Bowles novel.

HOOT review

A mini-literary magazine that publishes in all genres, and takes the form of postcards.

Rose Red Review

An online magazine that “loves magical realism and the fairy tale element.”

Duende

Goddard College’s lit mag has a special love for under-rerpresented writers, hybrid works, and collaboration.

Palaver

A hybrid academic-literary journal from UNCW that publishes interdisciplinary work.