Ranking of Literary Journals

Ranking of Literary Journals

I. Ridiculously Competitive
Atlantic Monthly
Esquire
Harper’s
The New Yorker
Playboy

II. Extremely Competitive
Granta
McSweeney’s Quarterly
Paris Review
Ploughshares
Tin House
Virginia Quarterly Review
Zoetrope

III. Highly Competitive
A Public Space
Agni
Antioch Review
Conjunctions
Epoch
Georgia Review
Gettysburg Review
Glimmer Train
Harvard Review
Iowa Review
Kenyon Review
Mississippi Review
Missouri Review
New England Review
One Story
Southern Review
The Sun
The Threepenny Review

IV. Strongly Competitive
Alaska Quarterly Review
American Short Fiction
Black Clock
Black Warrior Review
Bomb
Boston Review
Boulevard
Chattahoochee Review
Chicago Review
Cincinnati Review
Cimarron Review
Colorado Review
Columbia
Crab Orchard Review
Crazyhorse
Ecotone
Fence
Fiction
Five Points
Florida Review
Greensboro Review
Gulf Coast
Hayden’s Ferry Review
Hobart
Image
Indiana Review
The Massachusetts Review
Meridian
Michigan Quarterly Review
Mid-American Review
Narrative
New Letters
New Orleans Review
Nimrod International
Ninth Letter
North American Review
Pleiades
Prairie Schooner
Quarterly West
Santa Monica Review
Seattle Review
Sewanee Review
Shenandoah
StoryQuarterly
Subtropics
Third Coast
Zyzzyva

V. Decently Competitive
American Literary Review
Artful Dodge
Arts and Letterse
Bellevue Literary Review
Blue Mesa Review
Carolina Quarterly
Confrontation
Connecticut Review
Crate
Cutbank
Denver Quarterly
Fiction International
Fourteen Hills
Fugue
Green Mountains Review
Harpur’s Palate
Hunger Mountain
Idaho Review
Many Mountains Moving
Natural Bridge
New Letters
New Delta Review
Notre Dame Review
Open City
Opium
Passages North
Pedestal Magazine
Portland Review
Potomac Review
Puerto Del Sol
Salt Hill Journal
Sonora Review
Southeast Review
Southwest Review
Sou'wester
Sycamore Review
Tampa Review
The Journal
The Literary Review
The Los Angeles Review
West Branch
Western Humanities Review
Willow Springs

This list of the top literary journals is not meant to be exhaustive. Actually, the opposite: it's meant to highlight great journals and create a hierarchy of the best journals. It excludes online literary journals because I have ranked them elsewhere.

In ranking these journals, I tried to evaluate their current status, not their outdated reputations. More information about the process can be found in the accompanying post.

If you have suggestions or critiques, I welcome them in the comments section.

UPDATE: For more helpful journal information, consult Cliff Garstang's Perpetual Folly Pushcart Rankings. He ranks literary journals according to the number of Pushcart prizes/Special Mentions that each journal has received since 2000.

Comments

[margosita]

Impressive. I don't have any big arguments. I think you nailed it pretty well, and knowing that this can be a fluid or contested list makes it seem very reasonable.

[Sandee Lyles]

I find it odd that neither Poetry or Rattle are anywhere on your lists.
I also think your system is limiting. But, even so, following your system, both Poetry and Rattle deserve a listing. No matter though. Few don't know they are among the best.
Also, there are some newer zines that are certainly worthy of a spot.
www.oakbendreview.com
But, I agree, to list them all would be exhausting. Thank you for taking the time to make a list.

[Eddie Chuculate]

You are leaving out MANOA and Many Mountains Moving

[John Fox]

Sandee, as I explained in the accompanying post, I'm a fiction writer, not a poet, so this list reflects only short fiction markets, not any poetry ones. But I certainly know Rattle -- the editor Tim Green, graduated a year before me at my graduate writing program at USC.

Also, I tried to avoid zines, since yes, as you point out, the list would be endless. Also, I've listed the top 12 online magazines elsewhere on BookFox.

Eddie, I know both MANOA and MMM, as they call it. I used to have a prejudice against MMM because of an abstruse submission process, but now I've seen they've gone electronic, so kudos to them. MANOA feels limited because of its subject matter, which narrows its scope, and thus didn't make the cut. But thanks for mentioning them -- two more decent markets to submit to.

[Sandee Lyles]

Sorry about that. I just happened upon your list and posted hastily. Some of the fiction journals also publish poetry so I assumed. Thanks for clarifying.

[fjfjdvdv]

Sandee:

Anyone interested in the rankings for poetry journals would do well to consult Jeffrey Bahr's excellent list at this address:

http://www.jefferybahr.com/Publications/PubRankings.asp

[Native Ink]

I'm curious where West Branch would fit on your list, only because some of my writer friends seem to think it's at least a "decently competitive" market.

Also StoryQuarterly. I know it's not as prestigious as it once was, but isn't it still decently competitive?

[John Fox]

Thanks for the suggestions, Native Ink. I've added those two. When I made the list, StoryQuarterly was in that awkward might-be-dying stage once the editors flew the coop to Narrative, but now that it's been picked up by Rutgers, it deserves a spot.

And you're right about West Branch, too -- just an oversight on my part.

[Eliza]

This is great - even for a nonfiction writer! I happened upon this useful site, too: http://www.duotrope.com/index.aspx

[Sue]

Thanks for this list. Any thoughts on where Salmagundi fits?

[BookFox]

Salmagundi is an odd case. It's one of those journals that used to be quite prominent and has of late faded. This is natural with literary journals. Too many writers think of journals' reputations remaining steady over time, but most often, journals are soaring or plunging in five or ten or fifteen year arcs.

But the main reason I haven't included Salmagundi is because they no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts.

I believe they moved to this policy after taking 2+ years to respond to submissions.

[brian]

What? No Boulevard?

[BookFox]

Good catch, Brian. Boulevard's now added.

[Jackson Bliss]

I like these rankings a lot, the only thing I'd suggest is that Harper's is even more competitive than the New Yorker. The last time I checked, Harper's published ONE, count it, ONE unsolicited short story a YEAR. Even the Paris Review, The Atlantic's Fiction Issue + The New Yorker had marginally higher publication rates for unsolicited fiction manuscripts than that.

[James Newby]

What do you think of Berkeley Fiction Review? Would that be somewhere in Tier 5?

[Bookfox]

Jackson, you may be right. Of course, at the top tier, I think most of the unsolicited manuscripts are still submitted by agents. Which means unagented, unsolicited manuscripts have enormous odds to overcome.

James, what I dislike about Berkeley Fiction Review is that it's staffed by undergraduates. Overall, I prefer literary journals based in an MFA program or some other type of graduate-level writing program. That might be a shallow preference, but there it is. But BFR is not unknown -- I hear them come up semi-frequently in Lit J rooms online.

[Bored of America and Its Stupidly navel-gazing literary culture]

these journals are all so boring and predictable. Can you please make a list of new and alternative ones? How about international journals that are really truely international? Suburban America... yawn, yawn, yawn.

[bookfox]

As far as international, why don't you try Barcelona Review?

But these are a ton of journals -- I rather doubt you've read a significant portion of them. It sounds like you're repeating an often-heard but seldom defended idea.

I can assure you that while sometimes I share your sentiment that journals prefer safe realism over risk-taking fiction, there are a lot of journals doing very exciting things. Paris Review never ceases to astonish me.

[Anonymous]

I think Santa Monica review should be on this list; they had two stories in BASS this year. Same for Columbia. Thoughts?

And no Southeast Review? They seem to be making quite a push of late: nice website, good writers, etc.

[bookfox]

I added those three, anonymous. Thanks for the suggestions.

[BlueTide]

What about the Oxford American? Perpetual Folly's Pushcart Prize-based ranking system has them at 29th and they seem to have a fairly wide presence (you can pick them up at the bookstore here in rural Alabama).

[Anonymous]

And Hobart?

[Matthew]

The link to Epoch is to a publication The Epoch not Cornell's Epoch

[greenman]

what about commentary? they are regularly in BASS and have published greats over the years.

[Anonymous]

Where's Mississippi Review? Shouldn't it be in tier III?