Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes

Guernica is a digital magazine with a global outlook, exploring connections between ideas, ideals, communities, and individual lives. It rejects binary thinking and conventional wisdom, investing instead in the power of counter-narratives, especially those driven by lived experience. Across fiction, poetry, essays, reportage, criticism, and art, Guernica is a home for established and emerging writers, in conversation with each other. Guernica is committed to global literature — highlighting work from independent presses across the Global South and translating work from every continent into English, and from English into global languages. Going into its twentieth year, Guernica remains a trusted home for incisive, urgent writing and singular perspectives on critical issues of the day.

Drawing on literary tradition—and discarding it when necessary—Los Angeles Review of Books dwells in contradiction: the tension between depth and breadth, filth and glamor, destruction and creation, dream and nightmare, that L.A. lives and breathes. LARB launched in 2011 in part as a response to the disappearance of the newspaper book review supplement, and with it, the art of lively, intelligent, long-form writing on recent publications in every genre. LARB has since become a polyvocal cultural force reinventing book criticism for the internet age. It publishes new reviews, essays, and interviews online daily, as well as a print journal, LARB Quarterly, and offers events and programs that connect writers and artists to readers both in Los Angeles and across the globe.

Mizna reflects the literatures of Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) communities and fosters the exchange and examination of ideas, allowing readers and audiences to engage with SWANA writers and artists on their own terms. It has been a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production since 1999, publishing a biannual print journal of poetry, fiction, essays, comix, and visual art in addition to producing the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, the largest and longest running Arab film fest in the Midwest. Recognizing that open cultural spaces are not a luxury but a necessity, Mizna also hosts classes, readings, and community events that offer points of connection between emerging and established SWANA artists and their local Twin Cities community and beyond.

n+1 encourages writers, new and established, to take themselves as seriously as possible, to write with as much energy and daring as possible, and to connect their own deepest concerns with the broader social and political environment—that is, to write, while it happens, a history of the present day. n+1 was founded in New York City, in 2004, by six young writers and editors who wanted to make a magazine that didn’t shy away from difficult and ambitious writing and would take literature, culture, and politics as aspects of the same project. In addition to the triannual print and digital magazine, n+1 also publishes books that expand on the interests of the magazine and programs readings, panels, and events in New York City and across the US.

Orion invites readers into a community of caring for the planet. Through writing and art that explore the connection between nature and culture, it inspires new thinking about how humanity might live on Earth justly, sustainably, and joyously. Founded in 1982, Orion has grown into a quarterly print magazine with in-depth features, poetry, photo essays, science reporting, profiles, book reviews, and interviews. Orion also publishes full-length books as well as original work on its website that probe humanity’s ethical obligation towards and connection to our planet and hosts workshops designed to help writers deepen their relationship with nature and place.

Dedicated to the complexity and vitality of the American South, Oxford American is a national magazine with a regional point of view. It began publishing in 1992 out of Oxford, Mississippi, and strives to reflect the multicultural tapestry of the region as it truly exists–to explore many Souths and trouble familiar, singular stereotypes. Oxford American publishes a wide array of literature written in diverse registers, including investigative reportage, memoir, cultural criticism, fiction, poetry, and book reviews, in addition to an iconic annual Southern music issue. Oxford American celebrates the South’s immense cultural impact on the nation–its foodways, literary innovation, fashion history, visual art, and music–and recognizes that as much as the South can be found in the world, one can find the world in the South.

The Paris Review showcases a lively mix of exceptional poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and delights in celebrating writers at all career stages. Its “Writers at Work” series, hailed by the New York Times as “the most remarkable interviewing project we possess,” offers rich psychological portraits and a trove of practical advice for aspiring writers, and has been a hallmark of the magazine since its inception in 1953. With a quarterly print journal, a website that publishes daily, a digital archive, and a podcast featuring a blend of classic stories and poems, vintage interview recordings, and new work, The Paris Review favors daring, original writing and seeks to be the best kind of party: open, inclusive, and excitingly vibrant.

ZYZZYVA was founded in San Francisco in 1985 to give West Coast poets, writers, and artists – many of whom were overlooked by an East Coast-centric publishing world – a much-needed platform. Over 35 years later, it has established itself as an acclaimed, nationally distributed publication that showcases contributors from all over the world while staying true to its regional roots. Each issue offers audacious work across genres while amplifying emerging voices, and examines ethical concerns as urgent as labor, the environment, borders, and technology. A single artist’s work features throughout every issue and guides its overall design, to elegant and cohesive effect. ZYZZYVA also fosters community in the Bay Area by offering writing workshops, partnering with local bookstores and organizations on literary events, and hosting free public readings with the release of every issue.

Bennington Review brings together writing that is as playful as it is probing through a geographically broad and culturally rich array of voices, whether prominent, up-and-coming, or new. First published in 1966, it relaunched in 2016 as a faculty-edited teaching publication that gives undergraduate editorial assistants at Bennington College hands-on experience working on a distinctive national magazine. This biannual print journal publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and film writing that is at once innovative, intelligent, and moving, under wonderfully elastic themes such as “Misbegotten Youth,” “Kissing in the Future,” and “Return to a Meadow.” It celebrates the unique pleasures of a bound print journal as an intimate, immersive reading experience.

American Chordata, a Brooklyn-based magazine, pairs emerging voices in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with visual artwork carefully chosen to create a sense of dialogue between forms. Since it began publishing in 2015, American Chordata has built a reputation as a launching pad, often finding writers and artists their first audience, and as a home for work that is innovative and stylistically daring. As captivating to look at as it is to read, this singular publication appeals to habitual lovers and first-time readers of literary magazines alike.

Apogee Journal urges the exploration of identity – including race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability – and its intersections. In line with the definition of “apogee,” the point in an object’s orbit farthest from the center, the magazine lifts up work by emerging voices on the cultural and political margins. Apogee was first conceived in 2011 by writers of color and international students in Columbia’s graduate writing program, and in the decade since, as an independent organization, deepened its commitment to upending the status quo and creating opportunities for writers of color. With the support of a membership program, all digital issues are available for free, and Apogee extends its reach beyond its website through readings, issue launches, workshops, and other programming.

Electric Literature’s mission is to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. In addition to essays, criticism, and literary news, it publishes two renowned weekly magazines: Recommended Reading, which features short stories and novel excerpts with introductions by esteemed writers, and The Commuter, a home for flash fiction, poetry, and graphic narrative. EL has been widening who is included in the literary conversation since 2009, and everything it publishes is available online for free. It favors writing that is intelligent and unpretentious, and literature that fosters empathy with pathos, critical thinking, and humor. EL also offers an abundance of resources to readers and writers, including virtual salons that help demystify the craft of writing and the publishing industry.

The Massachusetts Review promotes social justice and equality, along with great art. Committed to aesthetic excellence as well as public engagement, MR publishes work that provokes debate, inspires action, and expands our understanding of the world. Since its founding in 1959 by professors from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and Smith Colleges, MR has published and promoted emerging and established artists from the US and internationally. Each year, MR publishes a special issue highlighting an underrepresented community or a critical social topic; past issues have addressed civil rights, the cost of war, and queer identity, and have showcased work by Caribbean, Asian American, North African and Middle Eastern, and Native American writers.

Bellevue Literary Review publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that probe the nuances of our lives both in illness and health. By bringing together the perspectives of patients, caregivers, family members, healthcare professionals, and creative observers, BLR highlights a diversity of voices from all communities and all walks of life.  The first literary journal to arise from a medical setting, BLR has published two volumes of literature annually since 2001. As a newly independent literary arts organization, BLR engages its community of readers and writers through readings and events exploring the intersection of art, medicine, and science.

The Arkansas International seeks to put emerging and established authors from across the world in conversation with one another. Launched by the University of Arkansas’ Creative Writing & Translation program in 2016, the AI has published fiction, poetry, essays, comics, and works in translation from over 60 countries, including Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, South Korea, Iran, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Russia, Italy, Galica, and Hungary. The AI also awards the annual C.D. Wright Emerging Poet’s Prize and an Emerging Writer’s Prize, both given to authors who have not yet published full-length works.

Latin American Literature Today is a quarterly online journal that publishes outstanding works of contemporary Latin American literature. It is entirely multilingual, with every piece available in the original Spanish, Portuguese, or Indigenous language as well as English translation. LALT was founded in 2017 and is a sister publication to the University of Oklahoma’s World Literature Today, published since 1927. LALT sees Latin America’s cultural, linguistic, and geographic identity as fluid and hybrid, and seeks to deepen understanding of its complexity through fiction, poetry, interviews, essays, reviews, and in-depth dossiers on both emerging and venerated literary figures. 

Full Stop nurtures contemporary independent literary culture and the aesthetically, linguistically, and socially marginalized communities of writers and critics of which it is composed. Believing that a book’s significance can be elevated by high-energy interchange between writers and readers, Full Stop publishes online essays, interviews, and multi-genre critical inquiries that nourish the life of a work after publication. Founded in 2011, Full Stop has become an important resource for readers and writers, often providing the only in-depth critical engagement small-press publications receive. Full Stop also publishes innovative cultural criticism in a newsletter, monthly podcast, and quarterly magazine, and sponsors an Editorial Fellows program. 

One Story is built on a singular vision: to publish one short story at a time. Each month, subscribers receive a single work of carefully curated fiction, printed in a pocket-size chapbook designed to give readers a chance to slow down and think deeply. To spotlight new voices, One Story only publishes authors once. It extends its devotion to nurturing talent with One Teen Story, a magazine featuring teen writers. Since its founding in 2002, One Story has worked to increase and expand the readership, creation, impact, and value of short stories in the world.

Conjunctions has propelled literature forward for four decades by publishing groundbreaking fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction that marry visionary imagination with formally innovative execution. Each issue illuminates a complex theme—such as exile, desire, the body, or climate change—in a book-length format that gives space to long-form work and a multitude of perspectives. From its home in Bard College, Conjunctions and its founding editor, Bradford Morrow, have earned recognition for uplifting both new writers and contemporary masters who challenge convention.

Rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area, Foglifter is a platform for LGBTQ+ writers that supports and uplifts powerful, intersectional, and transgressive queer and trans writing through publication and public readings to build and enrich our communities as well as the greater literary arts. Since 2016, this biannual journal has provided a path to representation for a broad selection of LGBTQ+ voices, centering queer and trans literary artists of color, youth, elders, and those beyond traditional LGBTQ+ cultural centers so that readers and audiences can see their own experiences authentically represented through queer and trans literary arts.

Kweli’s mission is to nurture emerging writers of color and writers identifying as women by creating opportunities for their voices to be recognized and valued. Founding editor Laura Pegram has guided Kweli since 2009, publishing a triannual online journal and investing in writers’ growth through workshops, fellowships, readings, an annual conference, and an international festival. Kweli, which means “truth” in Swahili, celebrates cultural kinship and the role of the literary imagination to envision a world where the narratives we tell reflect the full truth of history and blaze a path of new possibilities for the future.

Nat. Brut (pronounced “nat broot”) is an online journal of art and literature dedicated to advancing inclusivity in all creative fields. Since 2012, it has published two issues annually—as well as folios that collect work at specific intersections of marginalized experiences—bolstering voices that are buried, ignored, or absent from public consciousness. As a home for the playful, the unruly, the formal, and the experimental, by artists who are trained and untrained, Nat. Brut believes in the power of juxtaposing diverging voices to form surprising and unfamiliar connections.

The Common is a print and digital literary journal with a mission to deepen our individual and collective sense of place. Based at Amherst College and under the direction of founder and editor Jennifer Acker, it features literature and images suffused with the particularities of place, including portfolios and works in translation from vital literary communities around the world. Through its print issues, open access website, public programs, and mentorship of the next generation of writers, readers, and editors, The Common serves as a space for the global exchange of ideas and experiences.

American Short Fiction publishes stories that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure the world with delicate expertise. Founded in 1991, ASF has earned a national reputation for first-rate fiction and a commitment to fostering the careers of a diverse range of writers. Each issue, assembled by coeditors Adeena Reitberger and Rebecca Markovits, publishes works by well-known authors alongside emerging voices that enrich our understanding of ourselves, our world, and the possibilities of the form.

Named for the river that runs along The University of Alabama, Black Warrior Review is the oldest continuously-run literary journal produced by graduate students in the United States. Since its founding in 1974, it has become known for nurturing writing that moves outside boundaries of form and genre, and has a rich history of taking risks and championing the unexpected. BWR continues to create space for experimentation by showcasing uncommon literature by intergenerational and international writers that push against expectations and subvert structures of oppression.

The Margins is a literary, arts, and ideas magazine dedicated to inventing the Asian American creative culture of tomorrow. As the editorial arm of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, it draws upon a commitment to social justice to imagine a vibrant, nuanced, multiracial, and transnational Asian America. The digital magazine currently houses three special projects: Open City, A World Without Cages, and the Transpacific Literary Project, and works in tandem with AAWW’s fellowship programs to nurture emerging Asian American writers.

The Offing is an online literary magazine publishing creative writing in all genres and art in all media. It champions writing that digs deep into the wonder and horrors of the world, examines everyday curiosities and cultural artifacts, and challenges aesthetics, politics, ideologies, literature, and the human experience. The Offing makes compensating writers a priority and actively amplifies voices marginalized in literary spaces. The Offing is a place for new writers to test their voices and for established writers to test their limits.

A Public Space welcomes voices and conversation unheard elsewhere. In print, online, and in person, the singular literary, arts, and culture magazine nurtures writers and readers, too, expansively challenging them to move beyond borders. Under the direction of founding editor Brigid Hughes since 2006, A Public Space is committed to excavating archives of distinction, and devoted to nurturing new talent through its fellowship program as well as dynamic events for everyone.

Fence is a biannual print journal of poetry, fiction, art, and criticism. Founded by Rebecca Wolff and in continuous publication since 1998, their mission is to maintain a dedicated venue for writing that speaks across genre, socio-cultural niches, and ideological boundaries. Fence publishes largely from unsolicited submissions, and is committed to the literature and art of queer writers and writers of color. Fence encourages collective appreciation of variousness by showcasing writing that inheres outside of the constraints of opinion, trend, and market.

Words Without Borders is the premier destination for global literary conversation. Founded in 2003, WWB seeks to expand cultural understanding by giving readers unparalleled access to contemporary world literature in English translation while providing a vital platform for today’s international writers. To date, its free digital magazine has published work by more than 2,200 writers from 134 countries, translated from 114 languages. WWB’s online education program, WWB Campus, brings this eye-opening international literature into the classroom.