firstwriter.com's database of magazine publishers includes details of 2,464 english language magazines from around the world. The database is continually updated: there have been 27 listings added or updated in the last month. With over fifteen different ways to narrow your search you can find the right magazine for your writing, fast.
News
University of Vermont students launched the literary magazine Crossroads, but its roots can be traced off-campus to Burlington's Light Club Lamp Shop. There, every Monday evening, poets and other writers meet to share their work open-mic style. That's where the Crossroads founders cemented their love of poetry, met future contributors and collaborators, and, most importantly, found a community they thought could be served by a new publication devoted to verse.
Alexander Ellis and Jack Wheaton started Crossroads in 2017 after one of those readings. Production involved a fair amount of furtive feeding of card stock into printers at the UVM library and late-night stapling sessions. That first issue, Ellis said with a laugh, was "really crappy." But to them, it was exciting just to see their words in print.
The 2020 edition of firstwriter.com’s bestselling directory for writers is the perfect book for anyone searching for literary agents, book publishers, or magazines. It contains over 1,300 listings, including revised and updated listings from the 2019 edition, and over 400 brand new entries.
Graphic novels aimed at younger readers are skipping the superheroes and taking on serious subjects like mental health and body image, setting off a boom that is bolstering the children’s publishing industry.
These graphic novels are resonating with children and young adults and making readers out of some youngsters who had ditched books for their cellphones. Publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, a unit of Wall Street Journal parent News Corp., are launching graphic-novel lines aimed at those ages 13 to 18, as well as the juvenile market of readers 7 to 12 years old.
Representing writers and directors for stage and screen, Emily Hickman also manages the dramatic rights of authors at The Agency. Having most recently worked with Marina Carr on Blood Wedding, she tells Ruth Comerford what it takes to manage clients…
How did you become an agent?
I was always really passionate about theatre; I did a lot of student drama at university. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do specifically so I wrote to lots of theatres and was lucky to get an internship at the Donmar Warehouse, which was amazing and led to a role working in its casting and development department. I started doing a bit of script reading and realised that what I’d really like to do is work with writers in some capacity. I assisted another agent and his clients for several years before I started taking on my own clients alongside his, and built my own list. It took many years.
Articles
Reading the mission statements of Irish literary journals, a common theme emerges: the desire to offer writers the space to develop ideas that may not otherwise find a platform. From the more established titles such as Dublin Review, Crannóg and The Stinging Fly, which published its first issue 20 years ago this month, to more recent outlets like The Bohemyth, Banshee and gorse, fostering talent new and old is the backbone of “the little magazine”.
A vibrant journal scene with a roots-up feel to it has developed in Ireland in the past decade. There are currently in the region of 30 publications across print and online media seeking submissions multiple times a year. This has coincided with a growing enthusiasm for creative writing in general, with all of the major colleges in Ireland and many other cultural organisations offering programmes ranging from evening courses for beginners to two-year MFAs (Master of Fine Arts).
Today, prolific writers can earn six-figure incomes entirely through stories self-published on Amazon. If they'd lived in the mid-twentieth century, those same writers might have instead turned to science fiction magazines, a source of income that has all but dried up today.
"Payment rates haven’t kept up with inflation," says Alec Nevala-Lee, the writer and biographer whose latest book, Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, is out this week and covers the era that saw the rise of our modern conception of science fiction, the years roughly between 1939 and 1950. The book follows John Campbell, one of the genre's most influential figures and, not coincidentally, editor of the magazine that offered the highest rates on acceptance. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction paid writers after accepting their work, rather than paying them only after publishing the story, as many other magazines did. It gave him outsized influence in the field. But that payment rate — and influence — has plummeted in the decades since.
When Anupama Krishnakumar and Vani Viswanathan started the online literary magazine Spark in January 2010, they weren’t sure how many issues they would be able to put out into the world. In January 2018, they celebrated eight years of the magazine and in April, their 100th issue will be released.
Putting out a literary magazine every month for eight years has its challenges, especially when running it alongside professional and personal commitments. Each month, the magazine focuses on a theme, ranging from “Navarasas” to “Life Online” to “Shopping”, features writing across genres and is freely available to read without advertising or a subscription fee. In an interview with Scroll.in, the co-founders spoke about their individual understanding of how the magazine has survived, the practical approach to running a non-commercial venture, how they choose what submissions to feature, the pressures of multiple responsibilities, and the changes in creative writing online.
Little literary magazines come and go. Shi’r was here one decade, gone another. So too Tin House, Souffles, The Partisan Review, and Black Clock. Indeed, author Nick Ripatrazone went so far as to write last year that “Literary Magazines are Born to Die.” He didn’t mean it as a bad thing, but rather that we should recognize they have a life cycle and pay tribute to our literary ancestors.
Submit a listing
If you run, are involved in, or just know of a magazine not included in our magazines database, you can suggest a new listing by clicking here. You can also use this form for suggesting amendments to existing listings.
To view our inclusion policy, click here.
