The Best Literary Magazines You Should Actually Subscribe To
2024-10-18 · 5 min read
Literary magazines are where the best new writing appears before it becomes a book. They're also where established writers experiment and publish work that doesn't fit neatly into their public-facing catalogs. Subscribing to even two or three will expose you to voices that bestseller lists never surface.
The Paris Review is the most famous literary magazine in the world for a reason. Its interviews with writers, running since the 1950s, constitute the single best archive of craft wisdom available. Recent fiction and poetry selections maintain its reputation for publishing emerging voices alongside masters.
Granta publishes some of the best narrative nonfiction and fiction in the English language. Based in London, each themed issue explores a topic through the lens of international writers. The magazine's Best of Young Novelists lists have predicted literary stardom with uncanny accuracy.
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, founded by Dave Eggers, treats each issue as a design object. Issues have arrived as cigar boxes, mail art, and illuminated manuscripts. The experimental format matches the experimental content: fiction that pushes boundaries while remaining readable.
n+1 is the intellectual magazine for people who find most intellectual magazines insufferable. Based in Brooklyn, it publishes essays on culture, politics, and literature that are rigorous without being academic. The writing is sharp, opinionated, and willing to challenge its own readership.
The Believer combines long-form interviews, cultural criticism, and visual art into a magazine that feels genuinely different from everything else. Its interview format gives subjects room to develop complex ideas over thousands of words, producing some of the best cultural journalism being published.
