Creative and Scholarly Writing: Literary Journals & Magazines

Publishes stories comprised of 100 words.

American Short Fiction is printed triannually and publishes short fiction stories. Several stories are made available on their website.

Novel is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the best new criticism and theory in novel studies. The journal took up this mission in the days of formalism and has responded to the innovative moments in the field during the half-century that has elapsed since then—including ideology critique, feminist and critical race theory, poststructuralism, cultural studies, and new historicism—by publishing the most interesting new work on the novel. Novel is especially interested in theory and scholarship that address these changes in terms of their formal, historical, political, and/or epistemological significance.

Valparaiso Fiction Review (VFR) is a publication of Valparaiso University and its Department of English. It features fiction from established and emerging authors. Issues are available on the journal's website.

Creative Nonfiction was the first literary magazine to exclusively publish non-fiction prose.

Fourth Genre publishes innovative work in non-fiction. Their website publishes some articles online, including essays on craft.

Issued bi-monthly, the American Poetry Review publishes only poetry.

This website maintains an anthology of videopoetry.

Poetry magazine is one of the leading poetry magazines in the United States. It is published monthly.

Valparaiso Poetry Review (VPR) is a publication of Valparaiso University and its Department of English. It features fiction from established and emerging authors. Issues are available on the journal's website.

Covering the study of US literature from its origins through the present. Along with an annual special issue, the journal features essay-reviews, commentaries, and critical exchanges. It welcomes articles on historical and theoretical problems as well as writers and works. Inter-disciplinary studies from related fields are also invited.

American Literature has been regarded since its inception as the preeminent periodical in its field. Each issue contains articles covering the works of several American authors—from colonial to contemporary—as well as an extensive book review section.

Boundary 2 publishes critical and scholarly materials relating to the study of literature and the humanities in the most important intellectual, literary, and cultural contexts and in a manner fully informed by important developments in theory and method.

Since its foundation in 1908, The Classical Quarterly has had a reputation for publishing classical scholarship of the highest quality. It publishes research papers and shorter notes in the fields of Greek and Latin language, literature, history and philosophy. Two substantial issues of The Classical Quarterly appear each year; and given the quality, range and depth of the articles which the journal publishes, no serious classical library can do without a subscription.

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture is a peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access journal. It publishes new scholarship in theory and criticism, comparative literature, and cultural studies.

College Composition and Communication publishes research and scholarship in rhetoric and composition studies that supports college teachers in reflecting on and improving their practices in teaching writing and that reflects the most current scholarship and theory in the field.

College Literature is dedicated to publishing innovative scholarly research across the range of periods, intellectual fields, and geographical locations that comprise the changing discipline of Anglophone and comparative literary studies. The journal is committed to the renewal of critique without restricting its scope to a particular national, chronological, intra-disciplinary or identity-based focus.

The oldest journal in its field in the United States, Comparative Literature explores issues in literary history and theory. The ACLA-affiliated publication presents a variety of critical approaches and offers a wide-ranging look at the intersections of national literatures, global literary trends, and theoretical discourse.

Founded in 1963, Comparative Literature Studies publishes critical comparative essays on literature, cultural production, the relationship between aesthetics and political thought, and histories and philosophies of form across the world. Articles may also address the transregional and transhistorical circulation of genres and movements across different languages, time periods, and media.

Contemporary Literature publishes scholarly essays on contemporary writing in English, interviews with established and emerging authors, and reviews of recent critical books in the field. The journal welcomes articles on multiple genres, including poetry, the novel, drama, creative nonfiction, new media and digital literature, and graphic narrative.

Founded in 1965, Early American Literature is the official journal of the MLA’s Forum on Early American Literature. It is the only journal that focuses on the scholarship and criticism of American literature through the early national period. It typically includes articles, provocations and inventions, review essays, and many book, resource, and conference reviews.

Eighteenth-Century Fiction (ECF) is an international, peer-reviewed quarterly devoted to the critical and historical investigation of literature and culture of the period 1660-1832.

ELH welcomes sophisticated, groundbreaking essays on all literatures in English and on cultural forms and contexts related to those literatures.

From 1957-2020, English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 published articles on fiction, poetry, drama, or subjects of cultural interest in the 1880–1920 period of British literature.

ESC is an academic journal based at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada, and is the official journal of the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English. As Canada's leading generalist journal in the discipline of English Studies, they publish quarterly in print and digital formats to a global audience.

Concentrating on works that are frequently anthologized and studied in college classrooms, The Explicator, with its yearly index of titles, is a must for college and university libraries and teachers of literature. Text-based criticism thrives in The Explicator. One of few in its class, the journal publishes concise notes on passages of prose and poetry. Each issue contains between 25 and 30 notes on works of literature, ranging from ancient Greek and Roman times to our own, from throughout the world. Students rely on The Explicator for insight into works they are studying.

The French Review is the official journal of the American Association of Teachers of French and has the largest circulation of any scholarly journal of French studies in the world. The Review publishes articles and reviews on French and francophone literature, cinema, society and culture, linguistics, technology, and pedagogy six times a year.

The Huntington Library Quarterly, launched in 1937, has been integral to the scholarly profile of The Huntington for over eighty years. Today it is an important interdisciplinary venue for academic studies of British and American history, literature, and art history in the early modern period.

The Journal of African Cultural Studies publishes leading scholarship on African culture from inside and outside Africa, with a special commitment to Africa-based authors and to African languages. The journal focuses on dimensions of African culture, performance arts, visual arts, music, cinema, the role of the media, the relationship between culture and power, as well as issues within such fields as popular culture in Africa, sociolinguistic topics of cultural interest, and culture and gender.

The Journal of Popular Culture (TJPC) is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association. The Journal of Popular Culture continues to break down the barriers between so-called “low” and “high” culture and focuses on filling in the gaps a neglect of popular culture has left in our understanding of the workings of society.

Language and Literature is an invaluable international peer-reviewed journal that covers the latest research in stylistics, defined as the study of style in literary and non-literary language. They publish theoretical, empirical and experimental research that aims to make a contribution to our understanding of style and its effects on readers.

MFS publishes scholarly essays that analyze the important aesthetic, cultural, political, and environmental developments currently shaping today’s academic and public conversations. A leading international literature and humanities journal, MFS focuses on the various modalities and uses of fiction in the broadest sense of the term—publishing material designed to speak to a wide audience of scholars, public intellectuals, and cultural practitioners working across diverse fields, regions, and venues.

More than one hundred twenty-five years ago, MLN pioneered the introduction of contemporary continental criticism into American scholarship. Since then, its reputation for high standards and excellent quality has continued and grown. Critical studies in the modern languages are featured in four issues (Italian, Hispanic, German, French) and recent work in comparative literature provides the foundation for the articles and notes in MLN. Every volume contains four single-language issues and one comparative literature issue.

Modern Language Quarterly accepts articles that pay attention to the broader scope of literary history regardless of genre or period. The focus of publication—and the sticking point—is literary history. General theory, historicist contextualizations, and self-contained close readings are not published

Narrative is the official journal of International Society for the Study of Narrative. Its mission is to publish essays that contribute to both narrative theory and the interpretation of individual narratives. The journal is interested in narrative across disciplines and across media, and, thus, it welcomes submissions on the theory and interpretation of the novel, the short story, narrative poetry, history, biography, autobiography, memoir, film, television, journalism, comics and other graphic arts, music, performance, legal writing, medical case histories, and more.

New Literary History focuses on questions of theory, method, interpretation, and literary history. Rather than espousing a single ideology or intellectual framework, it canvasses a wide range of scholarly concerns. By examining the bases of criticism, the journal provokes debate on the relations between literary and cultural texts and present needs.

Novel is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the best new criticism and theory in novel studies. The journal took up this mission in the days of formalism and has responded to the innovative moments in the field during the half-century that has elapsed since then—including ideology critique, feminist and critical race theory, poststructuralism, cultural studies, and new historicism—by publishing the most interesting new work on the novel. Novel is especially interested in theory and scholarship that address these changes in terms of their formal, historical, political, and/or epistemological significance.

Paragraph is a leading journal in modern critical theory, exploring critical theory in general and its application to literature, other arts, including film and visual culture, and society. Regular special issues by esteemed guest editors highlight important figures and themes in modern critical theory, such as Paul B. Preciado, Sarah Kofman, queer theory, film and the imagination, the human-animal relation, Francophone communities and more.

PMLA is the journal of the Modern Language Association of America. Since 1884 PMLA has published members’ essays judged to be of interest to scholars and teachers of language and literature. Four issues each year (January, March, May, and October) present essays on language and literature, and the September issue is the program for the association’s annual convention.

Renaissance Quarterly welcomes essays of various lengths, up to a maximum of 15,000 words (including notes, bibliography, and any appendices). They publish articles in all the fields represented by the Renaissance Society of America. Geographically, the journal’s reach includes Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and beyond. Chronologically, the journal focuses on the period 1300-1700 as well as the afterlife of the Renaissance in later periods across cultural production.

Research in African Literatures, founded in 1970, is the premier journal of African literary studies worldwide and provides a forum in English for research on the oral and written literatures of Africa. In addition to thought-provoking essays, reviews of current scholarly books appear in every issue, often presented as critical essays, and a forum offers readers the opportunity to respond to issues raised in articles and book reviews. Thematic clusters of articles and frequent special issues reveal the broad interests of its readership.

The Review of English Studies is the leading scholarly journal in the field of English literature and the English language from the earliest period up to today. Emphasis is on historical scholarship rather than interpretive criticism, though fresh evaluation of writers and their work are also offered in the light of newly discovered or existing material.

Rhetoric Review (RR) , a scholarly interdisciplinary journal of rhetoric that publishes in all areas of rhetoric and writing and provides a professional forum for its readers to consider and discuss current topics and issues. The journal publishes manuscripts that explore the breadth and depth of the discipline, including history, theory, writing, praxis, philosophy, professional writing, rhetorical criticism, cultural studies, multiple literacies, technology, public address, graduate education, and professional issues.

Science Fiction Studies is a refereed scholarly journal devoted to the study of the genre of science fiction, broadly defined. It publishes articles about science fiction and book reviews on science fiction criticism; it does not publish fiction. SFS is widely considered to be the premier academic journal in its field, with strong theoretical, historical, and international coverage. Roughly one-third of its issues to date have been special issues, with recent topics including Technoculture and Science Fiction, Afrofuturism, Latin American Science Fiction, and Animal Studies and Science Fiction.

Shakespeare Quarterly (SQ) is a leading journal in Shakespeare studies, publishing highly original, rigorously researched essays, notes, and book reviews. Published for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Oxford University Press, SQ is peer-reviewed and extremely selective.

Published semiannually since 1967, The Southern Literary Journal is concerned with the literary and intellectual life of the American South, in the most expansive sense of that term. It features essays dealing with southern writing from all periods and genres, and its eclectic approach includes literary criticism, historical studies, and thematic and comparative analysis.

Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) is the only journal in the United States that focuses exclusively on American Indian literatures. With a wide scope of scholars and creative contributors, this journal is on the cutting edge of activity in the field. SAIL invites the submission of scholarly, critical pedagogical, and theoretical manuscripts focused on any aspect of American Indian literatures as well as the submission of bibliographical essays, review essays, and interviews. SAIL defines "literatures" broadly to include all written, spoken, and visual texts created by Native peoples.

Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 (SEL) focuses on four fields of British Literature which rotate quarterly as follows: Winter-English Renaissance, Spring-Tudor and Stuart Drama, Summer-Restoration and Eighteenth Century, and Autumn-Nineteenth Century. It includes historical and critical essays that contribute to the understanding of English Literature.

Studies in Romanticism is the flagship journal of Romantic literary studies. Edited at Boston University since its founding there in 1961, SiR has been committed to advancing the study of literature and culture in the dynamic "Romantic Century" of 1750-1850. International in sympathies and interdisciplinary in approaches, SiR publishes the highest caliber scholarship on British, Anglophone, and European Romantic-era studies from diverse methodological perspectives.

Since its inception in 1969, Studies in the Novel has published incisive criticism of the novel across all periods and genres, and from all interpretive approaches. Covering both emerging and established novelists, its issues feature five to six essays, eight to ten reviews of recent books on novels and novelists, and the occasional review essay. Ambitious, comprehensive coverage includes essays reflecting interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse approaches to the novel, and articles are rigorously refereed by scholars drawn from an extensive international pool. Once a year, Studies in the Novel engages a renowned guest editor and publishes a special issue focused on a single topic or author.

Style addresses questions of style, stylistics, and poetics including research and theory in discourse analysis, literary and nonliterary genres, narrative, figuration, metrics, rhetorical analysis, and the pedagogy of style. Contributions may draw from such fields as literary criticism, critical theory, computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, philosophy of language, and rhetoric and writing studies. In addition, Style publishes reviews, review-essays, surveys, interviews, translations, enumerative and annotated bibliographies, and reports on conferences, Web sites, and software.

For over 50 years, SubStance has published rigorous, creative contributions to contemporary critical debates from a range of theoretical perspectives. Consistent with our commitment to readers and authors to expect the unexpected, our series SubStance At Play invites experimental visual and digital submissions that seek to extend the boundaries of established scholarship.

TDR provides scholarship on performances and their social, economic and political contexts. With an emphasis on the experimental, avant-garde, intercultural and interdisciplinary, it covers dance theatre, performance art, popular entertainment, media, sports, rituals and performance in politics and everyday life.

Text and Performance Quarterly (TPQ) is a peer-reviewed publication of the National Communication Association. TPQ publishes original scholarship that explores and advances the study of performance as a social, critical, communicative practice; as a theoretical lens; as a critical method; as a technology of representation and expression; and as a hermeneutic. Scholarship in TPQ addresses performance and the performative from a wide range of perspectives and methodologies, and it investigates sites of performance from the classical stage to popular culture to the practices of everyday life.

Over seven decades, Theatre Journal has achieved an international reputation as one of the most significant publications of theatre and performance studies today. The journal features scholarly articles that are at the cutting edge of theatre, dance, and performance studies; focusing on historiographical, cultural, and/or theoretical analyses in both national and transnational contexts. Two special issues and two general issues are published each year; all issues include book and performance reviews. The journal also features an online section that includes interviews with artists, think pieces, and other alternative approaches to knowledge production.

One of the first interdisciplinary journals in the humanities, founded in 1956, Victorian Studies remains the flagship journal in the field. Featuring essays on topics from literature, social and political history, fine arts, science, philosophy, economics, and law, Victorian Studies is the official journal of the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA), publishing an annual special issue devoted to the NAVSA conference.

Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature welcomes interdisciplinary approaches to Victorian literature and culture that respond to developmental shifts in the discipline of Victorian studies. Formerly named The Victorian Newsletter (ISSN: 0042-5192), Victorians Journal looks forward to continuing its long history of scholarly excellence and professional integrity.

Creative Screenwriting magazine is an educational online resource for screenwriters and filmmakers. They publish articles on the screenwriting craft and the business landscape as well as comprehensive interviews with working screenwriters and creative executives.