5 Awesome New Literary Magazines

Hundred of new literary magazines appear each year, and hundreds of others shut down. Especially in the realm of online literary magazines, there's no way to tell which new magazines will sink and which will float. Below are five new literary magazines, established in 2010 or 2011, that show promise. Keep your eye on these new literary magazines as they grow and establish themselves in the literary world.

Revolution House
www.revolutionhousemag.com

Revolution House is a new literary magazine that grew out of an online community of writers waiting on their MFA application responses. Because of this online origin, the staff of editors is a diverse set of writers, many of whom are also MFA students at highly ranked schools such as Columbia, Purdue, Florida State and University of Michigan. Established in early 2011, Revolution House has been active in social media and created quite a hype for their first issue, nabbing a few hundred Facebook "likes" before the debut issue even appeared. That debut issue lived up to its hype, featuring literary talents such as Myfawnwy Collins, Deanna Larsen and Courtney Thomas Vance (also an editor of Mixed Fruit), with stories and poems that tackled tough subjects such as bisexuality, conjoined twins and manic depression. Revolution House accepts submissions year round and publishes quarterly.

Timber
www.timberjournal.com

Timber is the student-run publication of the MFA program at University of Colorado- Boulder. One of the things that sets Timber apart from other new literary magazines is its multi-genre platform. While many literary magazines focus on fiction and poetry, Timber also accepts submissions in Creative Nonfiction and Digital Literature, which includes experimental hybrid forms such as hyperfiction and multi-media literature. In 2010, Seth Abramson listed CU-Boulder as one of the most "underrated" MFA programs; Timber is the up-and-coming literary magazine of an up-and-coming MFA program. Timber released their debut issue in late 2010, and plans to release two online issues per year as well as an annual anthology, what they're calling a "book object." Timber accepts submissions year round.
(Full disclosure: I'm currently on the Timber fiction editorial staff.)

Mixed Fruit
mixedfruitmag.com

Many of the editors of Mixed Fruit were part of the same online community that spawned Revolution House, but the roots of Mixed Fruit run deeper. More than ten years ago, co-founders Abby Norwood and Lindsay Shields played around with creating a magazine that they distributed to friends and family. Now that their vision has coalesced into a real literary magazine, Norwood and Shields are joined by an editorial staff of widely published writers, some of whom hail from MFA programs such as the Michener Center (UT-Austin), Washington University and University of California-Irvine. In addition to fiction and poetry, Mixed Fruit accepts Creative Nonfiction and visual art. The editorial staff is made up of polyglots, so Mixed Fruit actively seeks literary translations. Established in early 2011, Mixed Fruit released their debut issue in summer 2011. Mixed Fruit accepts submissions year round and publishes every other month.

Bourbon Penn
www.bourbonpenn.com

Bourbon Penn is a new literary magazine that focuses on "odd" fiction, including styles such as magic realism, bizarro and slipstream. The first couple issues featured never-before-published writers alongside established writers such as Nathaniel Tower (founder of Bartleby Snopes) and Matthew Bey (editor of Space Squid). Bourbon Penn is available in multiple formats: you can read it for free online, or you can pay a small fee to get a copy of the literary magazine on Kindle or to order a print copy. Bourbon Penn is a paying market, offering between $10 and $25 for short stories. Bourbon Penn accepts submissions year round (but does not accept simultaneous submissions) and publishes a new issue a few times per year.

Amethyst Arsenic
www.amethystarsenic.com

Amethyst Arsenic is a new literary magazine that publishes poetry and visual art. Each issue has a different set of guest editors who are established poets from the Boston area. Amethyst Arsenic is a paying market, offering $5 per published poem, as well as $50 if they choose to nominate your piece for one of the online literary awards such as Best of the Web, Best of the Net or the Pushcart Prize. In addition to publishing their online literary magazine, Amethyst Arsenic is also one of the sponsors of the 2011 National Poetry Slam. Established in 2011, Amethyst Arsenic released their debut issue in summer 2011. Amethyst Arsenic only accepts submissions during specific reading windows, and publishes a new issue twice per year.

This is clearly not an exhaustive list of the promising new literary magazines of 2010 and 2011, and is based on only one writer's research and opinion. If you know of a new literary magazine that you think is awesome, please leave a comment with information and a link to it.