Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 20

I’ve Got Questions for Jay Hardwig

Editor’s Note: This exchange is part of a series of brief interviews with emerging writers of recent or forthcoming books. If you enjoyed it, please visit other interviews in the I’ve Got Questions feature.

Just Maria by Jay HardwigWhat’s the title of your book? Fiction? Nonfiction? Poetry? Who is the publisher and what’s the publication date?

Just Maria is a middle-grade novel that will be published by the Fitzroy Books imprint of Regal House Publishing on January 7, 2022.

In a couple of sentences, what’s the book about?

Just Maria is the story of Maria Romero, a blind sixth grader who is trying her hardest to be normal. Not amazing. Not inspiring. Not helpless. Not weird. Just normal. Her task is complicated by glass eyes, rutabagas, rubber chickens, and a child gone missing on the streets of Marble City.

What’s the book’s genre (for fiction and nonfiction) or primary style (for poetry)?

Middle-grade fiction.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has said about the book so far?

Most gratifying for me has been the feedback from former students of mine – I’m a teacher for the blind and visually impaired, and Just Maria was inspired by conversations with the kids I’ve taught.  Some of those students (and their parents) have read drafts of Just Maria, and without their blessing I would not have published it. 

My favorite review so far has come from Layla, who was ten years old when she listened to an early audio draft of Just Maria: “As a blind child, I really enjoyed this book because it spreads information about blind people and what they do. I also loved the characters and the plot. I thought it was very suspenseful. A great read for the sighted or blind. I would highly recommend it.”

What book or books is yours comparable to or a cross between? [Is your book like Moby Dick or maybe it’s more like Frankenstein meets Peter Pan?]

This is a tough one for me.  When I decided to write a Middle Grades novel featuring a protagonist with a disability, I intentionally stopped reading books with similar themes for fear of unwittingly plagiarizing their work. But one of my first inspirations was Rodman Philbrick’s Freak the Mighty, and an early reader compared Maria’s spunk and spirit to Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby. I’d be comfortable with Freak the Mighty meets Ramona the Pest.

Why this book? Why now?

I wrote Just Maria because I thought it needed to be written.  I went looking for books that featured kids with disabilities as protagonists, and didn’t find many.  Most of the ones I did find tended toward the sentimental or mawkish.  I wanted to write a book that had a character who was blind but also flawed – one who makes mistakes at times, and gives in to her baser impulses. 

To put it another way, so often in books featuring characters with disabilities, the narrative purpose of those characters is to motivate others to change and grow.  I wanted to explore what would happen if it was the kid with the disability who needed to do some changing and growing herself. Like all kids do.

Other than writing this book, what’s the best job you’ve ever had?

That one’s easy:  I still have it.  As a Program Manager for IFB Solutions, I run summer camps for children who are blind and visually impaired, including a weeklong residential Adventure Camp where we hike, raft, climb, and zip in the Nantahala Gorge of the Great Smoky Mountains. I never thought I could get paid to take blind kids ziplining, but I do.

What do you want readers to take away from the book?

I certainly hope the reader comes away with a more subtle and nuanced understanding of what it’s like to live with blindness, but more than that, I hope the reader sees something of themself in Maria.  Hopefully they will identify with her competing motivations and conflicting feelings, her struggle to do the right thing, and understand once again that what makes us the same is greater than what makes us different. 

Plus, the world needs more weird.

What food and/or music do you associate with the book?

For food, I’ll have to say mashed potatoes, and if you read the book, you’ll know why. For music, I’ll go with the instrumental groove “Soul to Go” by the Civil Tones:  it’s the theme song for one of the day camps I run, and whenever I hear that song I think about all the crazy and irrepressible kids I’ve had the good fortune to teach in my career – the same kind who inspired me to write this book.

What book(s) are you reading currently?

I’m currently reading the southern gothic fiction of William Gay; specifically, his posthumous novel The Lost Country. The last book for younger readers I read was Allan Wolf’s The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep, a powerful YA novel in verse about the Donner Party.

Jay Hardwig

Learn more about Jay at his website

Follow Jay on Facebook.

Buy the book from the publisher (Fitzroy Books, and Imprint of Regal House Publishing), Bookshop.org, or Malaprops Books

Register to attend Jay’s hybrid (online and in-person) reading at Malaprops on January 12.

Writing Goals for 2022

Happy New Year!

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions, although I have some that I mostly keep to myself (lose weight, declutter the house, etc.). I do, however, like setting goals, and mostly my goals are about writing since that’s my current line of work. In years past, I’ve gone into specifics about various writing projects I intend to work on—book reviews, essays, stories, and so on—but this year I’ve only got one goal:

Finish the damn novel. I mean it this time. I’ve been working on this book for so many years and I know it keeps getting better, but I’d really like to be done with it so I can move on. I had hoped, even a few months ago, to be done by now and ready to send out queries in the new year, but I think it will be spring or fall before it’s ready for that. However long it takes will be how long it takes, but I really want to be done with it this year.

That’s it. If I don’t finish this novel this year, everything else was just a distraction. I’m already committed to writing at least one book review, and there’s a short story I could be working on, and I’d love to start working on some personal essays, but the novel is the thing.

I’ll let you know how I did at the end of the year.

2021–My Year in Books

If you follow this blog, you may know that every month I make a few comments about the books I read that month. You can browse the monthly book posts here.

For several years I have set a goal for the number of books I’ll read in the year. This year it was 70, and I only just made it. The image at the left is the book covers from all the books I completed this year, from my Goodreads page. Not easy to make out the titles, I realize, but it makes a nice graphic!

So, what were my favorites for the year? A few do stand out.

In nonfiction, I thought Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe was excellent. I also really liked The Premonition by Michael Lewis. (My book club also read Lewis’s The Fifth Risk, which I also thought was excellent.)

In fiction, I liked Red Island House by Andrea Lee and Matrix by Lauren Groff. Elizabeth Strout’s latest, Oh William! is also a terrific read. I can also recommend Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar and Life after Life by Kate Atkinson.

I’ve already started a few books that I’ll finish reading in early 2022, and I plan to continue my monthly commentary, so stay tuned!

2021: Year in Review

At the end of each year, I like to look back at what I’ve accomplished in my writing world, measuring that against the goals I set for the year. Given how screwy life has been for the past two years, I’m not sure how valuable an exercise this is, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Last January, I set out my Writing Goals for 2021. So, how did I do?

Finish my new novel. I had hoped to finish a draft, polish it, and begin querying agents with it by early fall. That did not happen. Thanks to a late-year residency, I did complete another draft (to be honest, I’m still inputting to the computer copy changes I made on a hard copy during the residency), but it’s not ready yet. I need another draft or two before I will consider it done.Write a personal essay. Nope. Didn’t even start one. Damn.Write a short story. Well, I did this, although I’m not happy with it. I was briefly a member of a critique group and needed to write a story for the group, so a hurriedly wrote one. Later, I was asked by a magazine editor to submit a story for consideration, so I did one revision of the story and sent it in, but I knew it wasn’t good enough yet and it wasn’t accepted. More work to be done on that story.Write poetry. Hmm. Nope, didn’t do that either.Write book reviews and interviews. I published quite a few book reviews in 2021 and one interview. Also in this category, though, I submitted myself to interviews in support of the novel that was published in May. That counts, too, I think.Update the Literary Magazine Rankings. Did that in December, and here they are.

I wouldn’t say the year has been an unmitigated success, then, although “progress was made.” For some reason these goals don’t include the fact that my latest novel was being published in May, and there was a fair amount of work surrounding that event, including online events, a few in person happenings, and doing interviews.

So much for 2021. On to 2022!

2021 Reading–December

I spent the first three weeks of December at a residency, diligently working on my novel, so I didn’t get a whole lot of reading done. Still, these four titles bring my total for the year to 70.

Everything is Personal: Notes on Now by Laurie Stone

Everything is Personal: Notes on Now by Laurie Stone is a unique book, a collection mini-essays (and some longer ones) that began as Facebook Posts. Stone is an ardent feminist, and I can’t say I agreed with everything she’s saying here, but I love the way she says it. These are strongly held views couched in brilliant language drawing on a wide variety of sources. As a writer for the Village Voice, she observed the cultural landscape of New York for a long time, and so she often had personal interactions with leading artists, writers, and performers, and those relationships also enhance the book.

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

The Sellout by Paul Beatty is a satire of . . . something. Black apologists? White allies? Gang members? It’s an impressive display of pyrotechnics, but I found it silly at times and offensive (way too much of the N-word) most of the time. To the extent there’s a plot, it is that the main character, a farmer in a small LA neighborhood, seeks to resurrect the town/neighborhood and instill some sense of achievement by re-segregating the school and bus system (well, one bus, anyway). Although his methods work, it attracts the attention of those who are appalled by segregation (wait a sec, is he really trying to say segregation is a good thing?) and he is charged with various civil rights violations (implausible, as he doesn’t actually have the authority to do the things he does, and, besides, what he does is create an illusion of segregation) in a case that finds its way to the Supreme Court. Um, okay. The man can write some awesome sentences, though, I’ll give him that.

Chesapeake Requiem by Earl Swift

Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island by Earl Swift was my book club’s selection for December. The book is the author’s very close look at the shrinking community of Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay and the crabbing industry that supports it. I found the book fascinating but repetitive. The people of the island seem to live in a different century and, as portrayed by Swift, don’t seem too bright. The problems Tangier faces isn’t about climate change or rising sea levels, they say, it’s about erosion. Um, rising sea levels are a fact and climate change is no longer seriously disputed by people who study these things. They want government to rescue them (since Jesus so far has not come to their aid) even though by a wide margin they supported Trump for President and the party that basically wants to dismantle government. One of the most gripping parts of the book is when a father and son are out crabbing and their boat begins to take on water. The book is a fine piece of long-form journalism, but I have to say it’s hard for me to feel a lot of sympathy.

Dreams of an Imaginary New Yorker Named Rizzoli by Mark Ciabattari

Dreams of an Imaginary New Yorker Named Rizzoli by Mark Ciabattari is a collection of very short stories that was originally published in 1990 and republished last year. I didn’t realize until I saw a review of it on Goodreads that it was a reprint, but I was interested in the book because I met Mark and his wife Jane years ago at VCCA (Virginia Center for the Creative Arts)—2 or 3 times there, in fact. In any event, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Rizzoli is an odd character who works a corporate job in Manhattan, and we see him through what are usually called his dreams, but it’s easy to forget that his adventures are dreams, even though they do test the limits of reality. Several characters appear in a number of the stories/dreams, including his landlady, Mrs. Lundy, his friend, Cheswick, and his boss, Mr. Whittaker. The book reminded me somewhat of the story “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever, which also has a surreal twist to it, and the works of Grace Paley’s husband, Robert Nichols.

I’ve Got Questions for Dan Kopcow

Editor’s Note: This exchange is part of a series of brief interviews with emerging writers of recent or forthcoming books. If you enjoyed it, please visit other interviews in the I’ve Got Questions feature.

Prior Futures by Dan KopcowWhat’s the title of your book? Fiction? Nonfiction? Poetry? Who is the publisher and what’s the publication date?

My novel is titled Prior Futures and is being published by Black Rose Writing. The publication date is December 16, 2021.

In a couple of sentences, what’s the book about?

It’s 2090 and NanoGov has exploited nanotechnology to overtake the planet. The super-rich have converted to Mod, the two-dimensional ruling class. Jeremiah Prior, a three-dimensional disgraced Fringe detective hiding in Antigua for the murder of his partner, is forced back to Manhattan to prevent his estranged daughter from converting to Mod.

But when the ultra-rich target his daughter and start to devour all citizens, Prior has to decide whether to remain safely hidden or trust his daughter, join the underground rebellion, and help overthrow NanoGov.

What’s the book’s genre (for fiction and nonfiction) or primary style (for poetry)?

Cyberpunk Noir (or science-fiction noir, if you prefer)

What’s the nicest thing anyone has said about the book so far?

I’ve been fortunate to get some lovely advance reviews.  One of my favorites is “Sam Spade meets Blade Runner in this mind-bending story of a dystopian world where two-dimensional beings rule. Dan Kopcow has created a cynical detective, worthy of Raymond Chandler, who shuffles, floats, and warps among a cast of eccentric characters in search of his own Maltese Falcon—a blood-borne art treasure that may hold the clue to survival for both the powerless and the powerful. Fast-paced and provocative, Prior Futures does not disappoint.”

– Steven Mayfield, award-winning author of Treasure of the Blue Whale and the forthcoming Delphic Oracle U.S.A.

What book or books is yours comparable to or a cross between? [Is your book like Moby Dick or maybe it’s more like Frankenstein meets Peter Pan?]

It’s very much in the spirit of the writings of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler.

Why this book? Why now?

When I started writing “Prior Futures,” it was intended as a social satire about wealth inequality and technology perpetuated and accepted as the new religion. But as time went on, it felt less satirical and more like journalism and documentary about people’s need for expedience and obsession with wanting to live like the rich.

The novel asks questions regarding current issues like: Can we really trust others to have our best interests at heart? Or does there come a point where we must rely on ourselves?

Other than writing this book, what’s the best job you’ve ever had?

If we’re talking paid gigs, writing my published short stories, including my fiction short story collection about romantic dates gone horribly awry, Worst. Date. Ever. and my upcoming rom-com novel, Madcap Serenade.  Shameless, I know.

What do you want readers to take away from the book?

I hope readers enjoy the fun, crazy world the novel offers. And ultimately, I hope they take away some hope.

What food and/or music do you associate with the book?

The first part of Prior Futures takes place on the island of Antigua. Food-wise, grilled branzino (there’s a line in the novel that underlines one of the story’s themes: “Think fat fish, not flat fish.”) and Red Stripe beer.

I listened to a lot of calypso, reggae, and soca as I was writing, especially King Short Shirt. The novel takes place in 2090 and I wanted to have some nostalgic music trend happening in that world so I invented a genre called Retro-Punkflapper which combines music from the 1920s and 2020s. Lastly, I thought of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” during the writing: it shares some of the same themes.

What book(s) are you reading currently?

When I’m writing a novel (as I’m doing now), I tend to read a lot of non-fiction. I’m currently reading: A Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway by Michael Riedel (I’m a big theater fan), Argentine Jewish Theater by Nora Glickman and Gloria Waldman (again, theater), and Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell by David Yaffe (research for my current novel).

Dan Kopcow

Learn more about Dan on this website.

Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Buy the book from the publisher (Black Rose Writing), Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop.org.

2022 Literary Magazine Rankings

It’s that time of year again. Here are links to the Literary Magazine Rankings for Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction. As explained in more detail below, these rankings are based solely on the number of Pushcart Prizes and Pushcart Special Mentions the magazines have received over the past ten-year period. They are intended as a guide for determining where writers might submit their work for publication.

If you find these rankings useful, please consider supporting this website by making a or by purchasing one or more of my books.

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Fiction

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Poetry

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Nonfiction

Rationale. When I first started submitting my short stories to literary magazines, I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew that some magazines were more prestigious than others, but I didn’t have a way of evaluating prestige. I subscribed to several (and still do) but choosing where to submit my work was still hit-or-miss. I didn’t invent the method of tiering submissions, but when I learned of it, I thought it made great sense for me.

Tiering is an aid to simultaneous submissions that groups the best magazines together in the top tier, somewhat less prestigious magazines in the next tier, and so on. It is advisable to submit work to the top tier first, or at any rate within the same tier, so that an acceptance by one, which requires withdrawal from the others, won’t be painful. (If you get an acceptance from a bottom-tier magazine while you’re still waiting to hear from a top-tier magazine, that could lead to a difficult withdrawal. Withdrawal is ethically required, but what if the top-tier magazine was about to accept the piece?) So, I decided to rank literary magazines—first in fiction, because that’s what I was writing, but I later added poetry and nonfiction rankings because many people requested that—to help me decide where to submit. In theory, I would aim toward the top of the list and work my way down until someone finally accepted my work.

Methodology. To create the rankings, I considered looking at the various annual anthologies (Best American Short Stories, O. Henry, and Pushcart) to see what the editors of those volumes considered the best magazines to be. Ultimately, for several reasons, I settled on using only the annual Pushcart Prize anthology. For one thing, it excluded the “slicks”—magazines like The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Harpers—whose prestige is well-known. Those markets are really in a category by themselves, and writers should definitely submit to them if they deem their work suitable for publication in these elite magazines. For another, consideration for inclusion in the Pushcart Prize anthology seemed somewhat more democratic, or at least transparent, than the other options. Although there are Editors-at-Large who nominate for the anthology, every magazine has the opportunity to do so as well, so the Pushcart editors see thousands of entries and can pick from work that has appeared in hundreds of different journals, both in print and online. Finally, when I began ranking poetry and nonfiction magazines, too, it was fortuitous that the Pushcart Prize anthology includes those genres. Otherwise, I’d have had to look at separate volumes for each genre and I still preferred the relative fairness of the Pushcart approach.

Calculations. I decided from the beginning to use a ten-year rolling formula to determine the rankings. It seemed to me that reputations aren’t won or lost in one year, and that the best magazines, the markets where I’d really like to be published, are the ones that have been around awhile and really established themselves. So, I created a formula that used a fixed-point value for each Pushcart Prize won in each of the ten years and a smaller number of points for each special mention (those are the stories listed at the back of the book as also being worthy of note). The formula adds up all the points and ranks the magazines based on the total. (The total number of points is shown in the far-right column of the ranking.) Several years ago, I adjusted the formula so that prizes and special mentions earned in the last five years are weighted more heavily than those from the first five years of the period. The intention of this adjustment was to recognize the fact that in the digital age, magazines may emerge and be deserving of accolades more quickly than was the case in the past. So, a Pushcart Prize won today gets more points than one earned five years ago. Note, too, that the rankings are as objective as I can make them. The editors of the nominating journals and of the Pushcart Press are exercising their judgment, of course, but I’m just going by the numbers. My rankings don’t take into account how much the magazines pay, or whether they charge for submissions, or how long it takes them to respond. Different writers feel differently about those factors, and so I don’t want to impose my judgment in place of theirs.

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking–Nonfiction

Below is the 2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Nonfiction. To understand the Rationale, Methodology, and Calculation for the Rankings, please go here.

Note that every effort has been made to verify the website links, but magazines do sometimes change their web addresses and occasionally you will encounter a broken or incorrect link. If that happens, please let me know by emailing info@cliffordgarstang.com.

If you find these rankings useful, please consider supporting this website by making a or by purchasing one or more of my books.

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Nonfiction

Note the following:

© means that the magazine/press is closed

(H) means that the magazine/press is on hiatus

(?) means that it’s unclear what’s going on with the magazine/press

2022 RankMagazine2021 Rank2022 Score1Sun1532Georgia Review2453Orion3334Granta431.55Ploughshares629.56Creative Nonfiction11267Salmagundi724.57Tin House © 524.59n+1102410Agni1323.511Fourth Genre92211Threepenny Review82213Virginia Quarterly Review2117.514Narrative141715New England Review1216.516Point, The141517Gettysburg Review1614.518River Teeth211319American Scholar191219Antioch Review (H)231219Brevity231219New Letters171223Kenyon Review2611.523Oxford American1911.525Ecotone281125Pinch261127Paris Review1810.528Harvard Advocate411028Sewanee Review291030Iowa Review23931Longreads73731McSweeney’s33733Conjunctions296.533Missouri Review316.533Southampton Review356.536Bennington Review37636Consequence98636Emergence Magazine98636Terrain.org98636True Story37641About Place Journal41541Bat City41541Colorado Review45541World Literature Today40545Boulevard334.546Believer41446Hedgehog Review45446Image35446Southern Review32450Alaska Quarterly Review473.550Blackbird473.550Hudson Review493.550Ninth Letter733.550Ruminate493.550War, Literature and The Arts373.550Yale Review493.557Guernica54357Hunger Mountain54357Normal School54360American Circus © 592.560Big Roundtable (?)492.560Common, The732.560Fourth River592.560Fugue592.560Gigantic (?)592.560Massachusetts Review592.560New Orleans Review592.560News from the Republic of Letters (?) 592.560Radio Silence592.560Raritan542.560TriQuarterly862.560ZYZZYVA592.573Another Chicago Magazine73273Boston Review59273Broad Street73273Crazyhorse73273Electric Literature73273Hopkins Review73273Offing73273Pleiades98273Prairie Schooner59273Witness73283Baffler731.583Bellevue Literary Review731.583Brain, Child © 861.583Brick861.583Catapult731.583Chautauqua1431.583Five Points861.583High Desert Journal861.583Los Angeles Review861.583Mount Hope861.583Southwest Review861.583Willow Springs861.595A Public Space195American Athenaeum (?)98195Arrowsmith98195Baltimore Review98195Barrelhouse98195Black Warrior Review98195Caught by the River98195Chattahoochee Review98195Cimarron Review98195Cincinnati Review98195Columbia Journal195Common Reader195Copper Nickel98195Crab Orchard Review (?)98195Denver Quarterly98195Epiphany98195Gulf Coast98195Harvard Review49195Hong Kong Review98195Kitchen Work98195Manoa195Michigan Quarterly Review98195Milkweed Editions – Press86195New Rivers Press98195Nowhere Magazine98195O-Dark-Thirty86195Pacific Standard98195Passages North98195Pen America98195Pidgeonholes98195Potomac Review98195Prism98195Red Hen Press98195Redivider (?)98195Reed Magazine195Room98195Santa Monica Review98195Slice98195Speak 98195StoryQuarterly98195Tahoma Literary Review98195Third Coast98195Transition98195Turtle Point Press98195War Horse98195Water-Stone Review86195West Branch195Sweet541143American Chordata980.5143Arts Fuse1430.5143Bomb1430.5143Bookforum1430.5143Camera Obscura (?)1430.5143Catamaran1430.5143Chicago Review1430.5143Dart Society1430.5143Delmarva Review1430.5143Diagram1430.5143Epoch1430.5143Fifth Wednesday © 1430.5143Five Chapters © 1430.5143Florida Review1430.5143Free Inquiry1430.5143Heyday Books980.5143Hub City Press1430.5143Lapham’s Quarterly1430.5143Malahat Review980.5143Memoir © 1430.5143Natural Bridge1430.5143New Ohio Review1430.5143North American Review1430.5143North Dakota Quarterly1430.5143Oregon Humanities1430.5143Oregon Quarterly1430.5143Packinghouse Review © 1430.5143Provincetown Arts1430.5143River Styx1430.5143Shenandoah1430.5143Subtropics1430.5143Tavern Books1430.5143Tikkun1430.5143Timberline Review980.5143Tupelo Press1430.5143Under the Sun1430.5143Wilson Quarterly1430.5143Zone 31430.5

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking–Poetry

Below is the 2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Poetry. To understand the Rationale, Methodology, and Calculation for the Rankings, please go here.

Note that every effort has been made to verify the website links, but magazines do sometimes change their web addresses and occasionally you will encounter a broken or incorrect link. If that happens, please let me know by emailing info@cliffordgarstang.com.

If you find these rankings useful, please consider supporting this website by making a or by purchasing one or more of my books.

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Poetry

Note the following:

© means that the magazine/press is closed

(H) means that the magazine/press is on hiatus

(?) means that it’s unclear what’s going on with the magazine/press

2022 RankMagazine2021 Rank2022 Score1Poetry178.52American Poetry Review261.53Kenyon Review349.54Poem-a-Day4465Threepenny Review739.56Southern Review528.57New England Review6278Paris Review8249Smartish Pace302110Gettysburg Review91911Copper Nickel1117.512Ploughshares151612Rattle101614Michigan Quarterly Review171515Sun131416Georgia Review211317Hudson Review1812.518Cincinnati Review121219Beloit Poetry Journal2111.519Copper Canyon Press1411.519Poetry Northwest2011.519Tin House © 1511.523Birmingham Poetry Review211123Foglifter211123Pleiades491123Yale Review681127Blackbird2710.527New Ohio Review3210.527Poetry Review2110.530American Journal of Poetry301030Boston Review181032Adroit Journal519.532Manhattan Review1179.532Southern Indiana Review329.535Spillway27935Willow Springs34937Virginia Quarterly Review368.537ZYZZYVA368.539Ecotone21839Field © 34839Palette Poetry38842Alice James Books1177.542Conduit687.542Massachusetts Review277.542Orion407.542Sugar House Review407.542Vallum: Contemporary Poetry407.548Prairie Schooner47749Arroyo Literary Review476.550Agni40650Four Way Review51650Iowa Review51650Literary Imagination51650Ninth Letter49650Plume51656American Scholar515.556BOA Editions515.556Hobart1935.556Southeast Review625.556The Journal515.561Abstract Magazine TV68561Alaska Quarterly Review40561Arkansas Review68561Ashland Poetry Press68561Bare Life Review68561Bennington Review68561Bettering American Poetry68561BkMk Press561Bloomsday Literary561Boomerlitmag561Boulevard561Clover ©68561Constellations68561Court Green68561Fjords Review68561Foundry68561Four Way Books68561Gordon Square Review68561Grain Magazine561Greensboro Review62561Heart Poems561Hole in the Head Review561Hopkins Review68561I-70 Review68561Iamb561Indianapolis Review68561jubilat ©38561Kweli Journal68561Lake Effect40561Ligeia Magazine68561LitMag68561Love’s Executive Order (?)68561Manoa561Moonpie Press68561Nerve Cowboy68561New Criterion62561New Orleans Review68561Nimrod68561Pirene’s Fountain 68561Reed Magazine561Rhino68561Salmagundi68561Saturnalia Books68561Seneca Review68561Shade Journal68561Sidereal561Slipstream561St. Bridgid Press561Sycamore Review68561Terminus561This Broken Shore (?)68561Tipton Poetry Journal68561Tule Review68561Tupelo Press40561Turtle Point Press561Two Sylvias 68561Twyckenham Notes68561Washington Square Review68561Waxwing Literary Journal68561Wordtemple Press685121River Styx624.5121Tar River1144.5123Indiana Review1154124Denver Quarterly1153.5124Hotel Amerika1173.5124Hunger Mountain1173.5124Image1173.5124Tiger Bark Press1323.5124Volta683.5124White Pine Press513.5131Awl © 1173131Codex (?) 1243131Five Points513131Lana Turner1243131Little Star1243131Missouri Review623131Nepantla (?)513131Paterson Literary Review1243131Poetry International1243131Prelude1243131Salamander623131Sixth Finch1243131Subtropics1243144Account1322.5144Assaracus (?)1322.5144Briar Cliff Review1322.5144Brick1322.5144Butcher’s Dog1322.5144Café Review1322.5144Cave Wall1322.5144Crab Orchard Review (?)1322.5144Dunes Review1322.5144Fifth Wednesday © 1322.5144Forklift Ohio (?)1322.5144Granta1322.5144Graywolf Press1322.5144Gulf Coast1322.5144Harbour Publishing1322.5144Harvard Review1322.5144Hawaii Pacific Review682.5144Ibbetson Street1322.5144LSU Press1322.5144Malahat Review1322.5144Muzzle Magazine1322.5144Nebraska Poets Calendar © 1322.5144New Verse News1322.5144Pilot Light1322.5144Prism1322.5144Purple Passion Press682.5144Quarterly West1322.5144River Teeth682.5144Rupture, The (fka The Collagist)1322.5144Southern Poetry Review1322.5144Spork1322.5144Storm Cellar682.5144Summerset Review1322.5144TAB-Journal1322.5144Thrush1322.5144Treelight Books1322.5144Water-Stone Review1322.5144YesYes Books1322.5182Colorado Review1782182Common, The1782182Crazyhorse1322182Grub Street1782182MIZNA1782182Narrative1782182New South1782189A Public Space1861.5189Airlie Press2431.5189New Letters1861.5189Persea Books1861.5189Poet Lore1861.5189Upstreet1781.5189Verse Daily1781.5189World Literature Today1861.5197Adirondack Review1931197Bamboo Ridge1197Bauhan Publshing1931197Believer1861197Birdfeast1931197Broadsided Press1197Cherry Tree Magazine1197Columbia Review1931197Consequence1931197Cutbank1931197Delta Poetry Review1931197Florida Review1197Gertrude1197Glass, A Journal of Poetry1931197Good Life Review1197Great Weather for Media1931197Gulf Stream1931197Halcyone1931197Heart © 1931197Hong Kong Review1197Iron Horse Literary Review1861197Lake, The1931197Leon Literary Review1197Little Patuxent Review1171197Los Angeles Jewish Journal1931197Matter1931197Mercer Univ. Press1931197New Poetry in Translation1197North American Review1931197OmniVerse1931197Pangyrus1197Pembroke Magazine1931197Pinch1931197Pitt Poetry Series1197Poetry South1931197Portland Review1931197Quarry, The1931197Radar Poetry1197Raleigh Review1931197Roadrunner Review1197Scablands Books1931197Sheila-Na-Gig1197Shenandoah1931197Sixteen Rivers1197Split Lip1197Tahoma Literary Review1931197Terrain1197Third Coast1197Trio House Press1197Valley Voices1931197Vox Populi1197Wordfarm1931197Zone 31931250Able Muse2430.5250Academy of American Poets1930.5250Autumn House2430.5250Black Warrior Review2430.5250Bloom2430.5250Calyx2430.5250Cardinal Points2430.5250Chautauqua2430.5250Chinquapin Literary Magazine1930.5250Chiron Review2430.5250Cimarron Review2430.5250Cleveland State Univ. Poetry Ctr.1930.5250Clockhouse2430.5250Construction (?)2430.5250Cossack Review (?)1930.5250Enizagam2430.5250Epoch2430.5250Evansville Review (H)2430.5250Examined Life2430.5250Exit 72430.5250Gun Powder Press1930.5250Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review2430.5250Jai-Alai (?)2430.5250Louisiana Literature1930.5250Make2430.5250McNeese Review1930.5250Meadow1930.5250New Madrid (H)2430.5250Normal School2430.5250Offing1930.5250One Throne (?) 1930.5250Paris American2430.5250Pluck2430.5250Porkbelly Press1930.5250QWERTY1930.5250Radius2430.5250Raritan1930.5250Rove1930.5250Rumpus1930.5250Saranac Review2430.5250Silk Road2430.5250Sink Review 2430.5250Solstice2430.5250Springhouse1930.5250Tupelo Quarterly2430.5250University of Pittsburgh Press1930.5250Upstairs at Duroc2430.5250Verse Magazine ©2430.5250Wave Books2430.5250Yarn © 1930.5250Zephyr Press2430.5

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking–Fiction

Below is the 2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Fiction. To understand the Rationale, Methodology, and Calculation for the Rankings, please go here.

Note that every effort has been made to verify the website links, but magazines do sometimes change their web addresses and occasionally you will encounter a broken or incorrect link. If that happens, please let me know by emailing info@cliffordgarstang.com.

If you find these rankings useful, please consider supporting this website by making a or by purchasing one or more of my books.

2022 Literary Magazine Ranking for Fiction

Note the following:

© means that the magazine/press is closed

(H) means that the magazine/press is on hiatus

(?) means that it’s unclear what’s going on with the magazine/press

2022 RankMagazine2021 Rank2022 Score1Paris Review1622Ploughshares2493Conjunctions448.54One Story2465Southern Review842.56Zoetrope: All Story741.57Gettysburg Review5408Noon10379Threepenny Review631.510Missouri Review143110Narrative133112New England Review183013Tin House © 929.514McSweeney’s272615Kenyon Review122415Sun212417American Short Fiction1423.518Granta212218Virginia Quarterly Review192220Ecotone Magazine112121Agni252022Glimmer Train ©1719.522ZYZZYVA2119.524A Public Space201925Iowa Review2518.526Cincinnati Review441827Bellevue Literary Review241727Georgia Review141729Wigleaf3116.530Sewanee Review301631Hudson Review3215.532Santa Monica Review711432Yale Review441434Image2913.535Copper Nickel4412.535Idaho Review3412.537Oxford American271238Epoch3411.539Boulevard3810.539Colorado Review3610.539Pleiades3210.542New Letters389.542Southampton Review449.544Bennington Review44944Crazyhorse40946Common, The498.546Electric Literature418.546New Orleans Review378.546Pinch418.550Harvard Review49851n+1497.551Witness497.553Story58754Mississippi Review56654Catapult53654Chicago Quarterly43657Michigan Quarterly Review685.557Raritan535.559Egress ©58559Five Points56559Hysterical Rag © 58559Ninth Letter78559Paper Darts58559Prime Number Magazine58559Sarabande Books58559Southern Indiana Review58559Stillhouse Press58559West Branch58569Alaska Quarterly Review71469Epiphany68469J Journal71469Notre Dame Review58469Southwest Review71474Antioch Review (H)713.574Bomb763.574New Madrid (H)763.574Prairie Schooner533.578Arts & Letters78378Juked116378New Ohio Review78381Consequence822.581Florida Review822.581One Teen Story782.581River Styx972.581Ruminate822.581Salmagundi822.581Third Coast822.588American Scholar88288Black Warrior Review88288Blackbird88288Grist88288Gulf Coast88288Healing Muse88288Hopkins Review82288Little Star68288Shenandoah171288Zone 388298BkMk Press1711.598Brick1711.598Brooklyn Rail971.598Catamaran1711.598Chattahoochee Review971.598Chicago Review971.598Cimarron Review971.598Cleaver1711.598Fiction International971.598Green Mountains Review971.598Indiana Review971.598Kweli971.598Minnesota Review971.598Pembroke Magazine1161.598Per Contra971.598Rupture, The (fka The Collagist)971.598StoryQuarterly881.598Upstreet971.598Willow Springs881.5117About Place Journal1161117African American Review1161117Akashic Books971117Another Chicago Magazine1161117Autumn House Press1117Baffler, The1161117Bat City1161117Berkeley Fiction Review971117Black Clock © 1161117Black Lawrence Press1161117Blue Fountain (?)1161117Broadkill Review1117Broadkill River Press1161117Chautauqua1161117Confrontation971117Crab Orchard Review (?)1161117December1161117East (?)1161117Exile1161117failbetter.com1161117Fifth Wednesday ©1161117Gascony Writers Anthology (?)1161117Glossolalia1161117Grand Journal1117Graywolf Press971117Hunger Mountain1161117Jewish Fiction1161117Lake Effect1117Leaf Litter1161117Literal Latte (?)1161117Literary Review1161117Litmag1161117Meridian1161117Moon City1161117New Delta Review1161117Nimrod1161117Obsidian1161117Orion1117Outlook Springs1161117Potomac Review1161117Prism1161117Provincetown Arts1161117Pulp Literature1161117Quarterly West1117Quiddity1161117Redivider (?)1161117Reed Magazine1117Reservoir Journal1161117Rumpus1161117Salamander1117Salt Hill971117Shade Mountain Press1161117Spectacle1161117Vassar Review1161117Water-Stone Review1161117Western Humanities Review1161117Worcester Review1161117Woven Tale Press1117Yemassee1161176Anomalous1710.5176Asian American Literary Review1710.5176At Length1710.5176Austin State University Press1710.5176Baltimore Review1710.5176Barrelhouse1160.5176Beloit Fiction1710.5176Crab Creek Review1710.5176Cutbank1710.5176Dalkey Archive Press1710.5176Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review1710.5176Elm Leaves/ELJ (?)1710.5176Enizagam1710.5176Fiction1710.5176Fjords1160.5176Four Way Books1710.5176Fourteen Hills1710.5176Gigantic (?)1160.5176John Daniel & Co.1710.5176Joyland1710.5176Little Fiction (H)1710.5176Lumina (?)1710.5176Malahat Review1710.5176Massachusetts Review1710.5176Memorious1710.5176Mid American Review970.5176Midwestern Gothic © 1160.5176Mud City/Chapter House1160.5176Mythium © 1160.5176Natural Bridge1710.5176New York Tyrant1710.5176Normal School1710.5176North Carolina Literary Review1710.5176Outpost 191710.5176Pear Noir © 1710.5176Pegasus Books1710.5176Post Road1710.5176Press 531160.5176Puerto del Sol1710.5176Seneca Review1710.5176Sixfold1160.5176Sonora Review1710.5176Texas Review1710.5176Texas Review Press1710.5176Transition1710.5176Tweed’s (?)1710.5176World Literature Today1710.5