2026 Winners of The Lit Mag Incubator Project

Every lit mag editor I know has a list of things they’d try if they had the time, the money, or an extra human (or seven). The Lit Mag Incubator exists to fund a few of those things and see what happens.

The Incubator is run by Chill Subs in collaboration with CLMP. This year, we asked editors to pitch an experiment that tackles a problem the industry is facing. Once the winners are chosen, we give them funding and support to run their pitch and report back on what worked and (sometimes more importantly) what didn’t.

This year, we had nearly 200 editors apply. Here’s what you were trying to solve:

• About 60% of applications wanted to solve some version of, “How do we get people who aren’t submitting to read us?” Yup. And whoever solves this one gets a Nobel prize. We think Propagule has a good idea though. More on that later.
• Close to half talked about funding, sustainability, or paying contributors (and editors, and illustrators, and themselves).
• Print and distribution. Around a quarter wanted to get more print mags into folks’ hands.
• Too many submissions, not enough readers. This is one that’s no good for anyone. Exhausted editors make it hard to stick to timelines and response times and many-many magazines go defunct because of it.
• Artificial-is-anyone-else-so-damn-exhausted-by-this-crap?-Intelligence. We got fewer pitches than we expected, but nearly all of them focused on the same question: can anyone actually tell when something is AI?

Below, you’ll find this year’s winners. We wanted to back a variety of experiments where the greatest amount of magazines would benefit from the results. A couple are built for small magazines, some for large, and others will help tackle very specific, but prevalent issues many editors face.

Prompt & Paste Case Studies: Can Editors Really Spot AI-Generated Writing?

PHIL LIT

About the Experiment

Can experienced editors reliably distinguish human-written poetry and prose from work generated entirely by AI? The Prompt & Paste Case Studies puts that question to the test through blind reading experiments. Participating editors and readers will review randomized, anonymized selections of human-authored and prompt-and-paste AI-generated writing without knowing which is which. For each piece, they’ll identify whether they believe it was written by a human or AI (or indicate they’re unsure), rate their confidence, and note the textual cues behind their judgment.

We’ll compare responses with the known origins of the work to examine overall accuracy, false positives and false negatives, the relationship between confidence and correctness, and whether results differ across poetry and prose. Just as importantly, we’ll look at which supposed “AI tells” actually hold up, and which don’t. The goal isn’t to encourage suspicion toward writers or claim that AI authorship can always be detected; rather, it’s to give literary editors practical, evidence-informed guidance. Findings may inform future workshops on responsible editorial assessment, the limits of intuition, and fair policies for AI-generated submissions.

About PHIL LIT

PHIL LIT™ (or “Literature Lover”) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit literary arts organization and public charity, home to PHIL LIT Journal and PHIL LIT Books. We publish poetry, prose, and art through quarterly issues and our annual poetry anthology, Paragon, while creating opportunities for writers and readers to connect through readings, events, and community programming. We want readers to encounter work that is emotionally honest, ethical, expansive, dizzyingly creative, nature-allied, and/or existential. Rooted in a love of literature, PHIL LIT champions artistic individuality while promoting accessibility through free general submissions and free digital access to our current journal issue.

Why we chose it:

We couldn’t run The Incubator in 2026 without having an AI experiment in there and we think PHIL LIT designed a great one. We’ve done a lot of research into this ourselves and are stumped. Maybe it can lead to some workshops? At least it will get people talking! As opposed to all the screams.

Motif: The Lit Mag Aggregator

Propagule

About the experiment:

Motif is an aggregator of all independently published writing available online. By making it easier to discover, read, and share great work, we hope to make indie lit more accessible to both existing fans and new ones. It has been much discussed that most online literary traffic is driven by writers looking to submit, rather than readers looking to read. We believe this is a consequence of indie lit’s primary discovery tools catering to writers, rather than readers. As publishers ourselves over at Propagule, we understand the problems that small lit mags face. By making indie lit more accessible, we hope to raise cultural awareness of lit mags and drive better opportunities for publishers to share their work. For this experiment, we will develop a V.1 of Motif and work with Chill Subs to gather the first 100 beta users to test the product and see if it’s viable.

About Propagule:

Propagule champions experimentation, transgression, and aesthetic novelty. Propagule is engrossed by narrative, style, and form. Propagule rejects the literary/genre divide. Propagule is Speculative Surrealism. All good writing is literary. Propagule releases new issues biannually, featuring a carefully selected entourage of original fiction. Also published: interviews with artists, essays, and other nonfictional ideations (Musings); flash fiction (Motes). We can be reached at contact@propagule.co.

Why we chose it:

We’ve thought for a long time that a reader-app of some kind for indie lit is the first step toward getting more outside folks to read lit mags. Everything else people consume is on an app, and yet we’re all still publishing to websites with no centralized hub. We know several folks have tried, but we think this new methodology by Propagule/Motif has a great shot.

Submissions ImPossible: Reimagining The Common’s Reading Team

The Common

About the experiment:

Since its founding, TC has prided itself on the extensive editorial attention our team gives each submission: multiple reviews and rounds of feedback from a range of perspectives. As we receive an increasing quantity of submissions during each open submissions period, however, this robust reading process has become more difficult to sustain. We have come to feel we are underserving our submitters, who wait months for responses; our editors, who are forced to play constant catch-up; and our team of volunteer readers, who get excited and recommend great pieces that sit in submissions limbo until editors are able to make final decisions.

In the coming publishing year, with the support of Chill Subs & CLMP, we at TC plan to reimagine the structure of our reading team. We will build a smaller, but more engaged team of readers, hired and trained by our editors and given greater agency in the submissions queue. These readers will read a greater number of submissions weekly and participate in monthly check-ins, and will be provided an honorarium and more formal status on the editorial team. Like many of its peer publications, TC has long relied on a large team of volunteer readers to help work through the magazine’s submissions queue, and while their feedback is vital, a larger team has not translated to shorter submissions response times. Taking into account feedback of past members of the reading team, we have reimagined a new, more empowered reader-editor role, that we hope will shorten response times and better serve the writers who entrust us with their work and the readers who turn to TC for excellent place-focused literature, as well as TC’s small, but dedicated editorial team.

About The Common:

The Common is a magazine and nonprofit organization dedicated to building a vibrant platform for literature and art that embodies a modern sense of place: work that explores how the stories we tell are shaped by where we are, come from, or long to be. We make new and underrepresented voices accessible to readers around the world through public programming; mentorship and education initiatives; and our biannual print journal and open-access digital publishing project TC Online. Recent issues feature portfolios of writing from Ukraine, Jordan, and by Catalan women writers, and members of U.S. migrant, immigrant, and seasonal farmworker communities.

Why we chose it:

As both editors and writers, we love the idea of developing editorial teams with more intent. Will it make the process better for the magazine? Will it get responses to writers quicker? Could this be a better method for larger outlets that pays off in the long run? This sort of information will be invaluable to publishers. The cost of time wrangling huge volunteer teams can sometimes outweigh the cost of a few key folks on board.

The Wayfarers Street Team

OTHERSIDE

About the experiment:

It’s a difficult time for queer art, which is why we founded OTHERSIDE in the first place. Online censorship is worsening. Some social media platforms mark any posts containing words like “trans” or “queer” as inappropriate content; automated/algorithmic moderation misclassifies queer content as sexually explicit even when it isn’t, something we’ve experienced firsthand. Traditional marketing methods for literary magazines (a.k.a. screaming into the social media void) can only go so far. With this project, we’re trying something totally different! We’ll be leveraging our most enthusiastic supporters, turning them into a street team devoted to spreading the word in queer community spaces: bookstores, coffee shops, reading groups, conventions, campus organizations… all the many places where we know queer readers can be found! We’ll be delivering materials like bookmarks, stickers, postcards, and more—some devoted to the magazine, some that emphasize our online community—and using custom QR codes and subscription links to track the results. Our goal is to find out which locations and materials prove most successful: Where are our prospective readers located, and what works to get their attention? And how can we build on the incredible support of the community we’ve already built in order to grow?

About the magazine:

OTHERSIDE is a queer-led literary magazine that publishes speculative literature and art by 2SLGBTQIA+ creators. We’re especially interested in offering a home to stories that might be “too queer” or “too unrelatable” to find a home elsewhere, and we’re determined to always do everything we can to champion our community… whether that’s launching a side project to help prospective editors gain hands-on experience or running a Discord community where members swap critiques, share submissions opportunities, and talk about craft. We launched in January 2026 and have published more than 100,000 words by queer authors from around the world since then.

Why we chose it:

The internet is a crappy place for getting attention and that’s tenfold when social media platforms (the way we find each other on here) suppress the content you’re creating. We’re all tired of the maze of awfulness on here. We think OTHERSIDE’s experiment is perfect for anyone who is trying to get out there and reach their audience in the “real world.”

Lit Mag Friends

By ! (Exclamation Mark Literary Journal)

About the experiment:

Thousands of literary magazines exist around the world, but many of these magazines may never get to know one another. Too often we simply coexist, and sometimes we even compete for readership. Our experience collaborating with journals like FLARE Magazine, however, has shown us that we can work and flourish together.

Lit Mag Friends is an experiment exploring what might happen when literary magazines stop coexisting and start collaborating. Every other month, we’ll be paired with another literary magazine with a similar readership—aka our “lit mag friend.” Together, we’ll promote each other on social media, recommend each other’s publications to readers, offer subscription discounts to each other’s audiences, and direct writers whose submissions we rejected to try our partner publication when their work might be a better fit.

Although these acts can seem rather small, we believe that, by really meaningfully supporting each other, both of our publications can reach new readers and build a stronger community. We will, of course, document the results, challenges, and lessons learned throughout this process.

Ultimately, we hope our experiment will be a great success and inspire other literary magazines to do the same. Litmags, let’s move forward together!

About ! (Exclamation Mark Literary Journal)

Founded in February 2026 in Mohkínstsis (Calgary), Canada, Exclamation Mark Literary Journal isn’t here for writing that’s merely beautiful. We want prose and poetry that jolt—stories that make you stop, gasp, laugh, or...have a heart attack. Because the best writing doesn’t just deserve a period. It deserves an Exclamation Mark!

We publish new issues weekly online and quarterly in print.

Why we chose it:

This experiment gets at the heart of why so many folks get involved in the indie lit world. Sure, many want to write. Others want to create beautifully curated magazines. But almost everyone we come in contact with is looking for community. This project leans on that connection to see how we can use that to solve the age-old conundrum of finding a bigger audience.

Postcards from the Darker Side of the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest Gothic

About the experiment:

One of the hardest things for a new literary journal is to get stocked in brick and mortar bookstores. Book buyers are inundated with emails from indie publishers, traditional publishers, self-published authors, and more–it’s nearly impossible to stand out in that crowded inbox. Our experiment is to go back to the analog days of actual physical mail in the form of postcards. We will mail out informational postcards about our literary journal to as many bookstores in the Pacific Northwest as we can. The hope is that by getting into their actual hands we’ll get their attention and their orders! As Ingram does not share which specific stores have ordered, we will include a QR code on the postcard that leads to a simple one question form where they can enter their store name so that we may know they ordered, include the store on our “Where to Buy” website page, and promote the store on our social channels.

About Pacific Northwest Gothic

Pacific Northwest Gothic is an annual print journal publishing Gothic fiction, poetry, art, and essays by current and former residents of the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington for our purposes). We publish literary Gothic horror pieces filled with liminal spaces, psychological unraveling, death, and darkness, told beautifully. Our first issue released October 1, 2026, and our next will be released in August of 2027. Learn more at pnwgothic.com.

Why we chose it:

We loved this experiment for its simplicity and repeatability. Some postcards and QR codes. Will that help get your magazine more attention from small distributors? We hope it works. We hope that after the results of this experiment come out, bookstores around the country will be buried in indie lit post cards. We’ll see.

What happens next…? Next, we will meet with each of these magazines to discuss how each experiment will be put together.

We’ve capped the length of these experiments at 10 months, but the results of some might come sooner than others. We’ll check in with each team along the way and publish what they learn, including the parts that flop. If one of these works, steal it! Go try it out. Put your own twist on it. That’s the whole point of The Incubator. We want these experiments to lead to insights other editors and writers can take with them and apply to their own projects. Once a project has wrapped, the results will be shared live to the editors of CLMP and published in Chill Subs or with partners so everyone can read it.

Thanks to CLMP for running this with us, and to every editor who took the time to share what they’ve been working on.

Now go read! The easiest way to solve the biggest problem editors face is to keep saying this, over and over to anyone who knows how to read (less and less each day): go read a lit mag!