Community poll results. In an internet drowning in AI and advertising, your real recommendations are everything.

Where The Cool Kids Are Submitting Their Writing: Part 2

The ultimate ranking of the world's liveliest indie literary magazines, curated by author and editor Charlie Fish. These are the passion projects; the kaleidoscopic cutting edge.

FISH List of Lively Indie Literary Magazines 2026

Journals that forward outstanding nonfiction to this respected anthology series founded in 1986. These publications identify exceptional essays that might reach the broader readership BAE provides.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for Best American Essays

Identifies publications that put forward outstanding online work for this respected digital anthology established in 2006.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

A comprehensive guide to journals that regularly nominate work for the Pushcart Prize.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize

Explore the all-time most popular nonfiction literary magazines. These outlets have been influential for writers of essays, memoirs, and nonfiction.

Most Popular Nonfiction-Only Literary Magazines of All Time

Find out the all-time most submitted-to nonfiction literary magazines. These publications are the go-to for writers of creative nonfiction.

Most Submitted-To Nonfiction-Only Literary Mags of All Time

Digital publications nominating outstanding essays and creative nonfiction for Best of the Net.

Nonfiction Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Highlights publications that regularly put forward essays, memoirs, and other creative nonfiction for Pushcart consideration.

Nonfiction Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize

Off Assignment

Who haunts you?

We all harbor thoughts about the strangers at the edges of our lives. Write a letter to an unshakeable stranger you’ve met along the way, whether traveling across the world, the country, or down the street. 

A great “Letter to a Stranger” has some magic to it, and often speaks to more than just what it's directly about. It's never colonialist or judgmental. It is a highly personal narrative that stirs up universal themes. 

Include a title in the “To___” format (for example, “To the Lady at the Subway Turnstile”).

Letter to a Stranger

Teju Cole writes: “The English word translation...descends from the Latin translatus: trans, across or over, and latus, which is the past participle of ferre, to carry, related to the English word ‘ferry.’ The translator, then, is the ferry operator, carrying meaning from words on that shore to words on this shore.”

What is one word you have come across that resists being ferried over in translation? Write about one of these untranslatable words, and the role it has played in your personal geography or voyages. 

No Equivalent

In this new series, we want to feature lyrical portraits of places at a distinct time of day or night. In contrast to the whirlwind nature of 36-hour travel, we want to indulge in a scene locked in the grasp of one specific time and place. Jean Valentine writes about 3 am in New York and Georges Perec writes about 10:30 in Paris. What’s the portrait of a time and place that bewitches you? To get started, use this sentence construction: “X a.m./p.m. in Y place is ____,” and write from there.




Witching Hour

Any writer knows that, often, the most interesting part of the assignment doesn’t make it into the story. Revisit the experiences that have stuck with you, the happenings that didn’t bend into the margins of the assignment, but that persist in your memory. This isn’t a behind-the-scenes travel diary—this is the story behind the story. 



What I Didn’t Say

The art we surround ourselves with affects our reality. What happens when we use authors or artists as guides to our travels, near and far? Which artist’s presence accompanies you down a street or rests with you on a park bench? Tell us about the interplay between art and reality, and how the lens of each showed you something interesting about the other. Title your submission along the lines of “Reading [author] in [place]”/ “Listening to [artist] in [place],” etc.




Under the Influence

For this column expanding from Didion’s canonical “Goodbye to All That,” we invite you to pen a narrative farewell to a place that has held significance in your life. It could be a breakup letter to your apartment (like Nancy Franklin's "How Did I Get Here?"), a revisit of a bygone version of your hometown (think “The Hard Crowd” by Rachel Kushner), an au revoir to that layover city you saw too briefly and left too fast, but where your life might have taken a different turn. We ask only that the essay be about your personal relationship to a place no longer yours.

Word count: 1000-2500. 

Examples: 

Goodbye to the Home Lost in the Palisades Fire by Leslie Jamison

Off Assignment

Highlights

About

Featured Call

Personal Essay Submissions

Appears in collections