Posts Tagged‘Literary Journals’
Where to Publish Flash Nonfiction & Micro-Essays
LATEST LIST UPDATE: JULY 2023
As promised, I’ve compiled what I am calling here a guide to journals and magazines that publish flash nonfiction/micro-essays.
Before I present the list, I need to issue a few clarifications and caveats.
First, this list by no means includes *every* journal or magazine that might publish your piece of flash nonfiction. For the most part, I’ve omitted publications that specify only that submitted essays should run “no longer than” or “up to” 5,000 or 8,000 words. It’s entirely possible that the editors of these publications will welcome something more along the lines of 500 or 800 words. But unless I’ve discerned a *specific* editorial interest in shorter-form nonfiction–whether through my own research into guidelines and past issues or through sources listed at the end of the post–I haven’t included them here.
I’ve also had to break my usual blog-and-newsletter-rule about limiting listings to paying journals only (and only publications that don’t require reading fees). But I’ve done my best to signal to you which journals state outright on their sites that they’ll pay for your work–look for the $–and which ones are equally upfront about charging fees. As of 2022, I’ve removed listings for journals that appear to charge fees but don’t pay contributors.
Important note: Not every publication is open to submissions year-round, but I’m not tracking that information here.
Worth a mention: Just because a journal is listed here doesn’t mean that it’s an ideal home for your work. Check out these tried-and-true tips for deciding whether you wish to send your work to any particular venue.
Finally: If you know of a journal or magazine that’s specifically interested in flash nonfiction and micro-essays that should be added to the list, please share your knowledge (bonus points for links, too) in comments. Thank you!
Without further ado…
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Thursday’s Work-in-Progress: Musings on and Resources for Micro-Essays
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have caught my delighted announcement last Saturday about a just-accepted essay. In fact, last week was pretty remarkable, because I received two essay acceptances. But the Saturday acceptance was notable for a couple of reasons.
First, that acceptance came after the same piece (or some iterations of it) had been rejected several times. Nowhere near as many rejections as some of my short stories have suffered on their way to publication–but still, finding this piece a home was by no means a super-smooth (or super-swift) process. By the time this essay is published, nearly one year will have elapsed since I began sending it out.
Second, the accepted piece exemplifies something that seems increasingly integral to my writing practice: the micro-essay (also known as flash nonfiction). I have two other new micro-essays circulating right now (yes, one of them developed from the poetry exercise I mentioned not long ago). If you add up the word counts of the three pieces–the one that was just accepted and the two newer ones–you don’t even reach 1500 words.
I’m only beginning to understand how and why this focus is developing for me. Which is why I was thrilled to discover “Focusing on Flash Nonfiction: An Interview with Dinty W. Moore” on the River Teeth blog this week. Among Moore’s many hats is the editorship of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction.
In addition to sharing his expert take on crafting flash nonfiction, Moore recommends some journals that feature this type of writing. Which reminded me of two other places where one may find potential homes for micro-essays: Pamelyn Casto’s newsletter and The Review Review‘s flash fiction resource list (also useful for flash nonfiction).
I suspect that I’ll be continuing to look for nice homes for flash nonfiction (not to mention additional places to read good examples of it), so if you have other suggestions–either for resource lists or specific venues–please share! Maybe we can come up with the “Ultimate List of Magazines & Journals That Publish Flash Nonfiction & Micro-Essays.”