The Lit Nerds publishes work with a focus on the bright side of humanity. Work that prioritizes hope and joy, and promotes empathy and human connection. Work that makes you think, makes you laugh, makes you feel a little bolder, happier, and more hopeful. Work that most of all celebrates life.

We believe in hope. We believe in joy, and kindness, and everyday magic. We believe in laughter and friendship and compassion and love. We believe in good writing. We believe that language has power and literature is an essential part of what makes us human.

We want to create a space in the world of literary magazines where hope can thrive. Where you can read a story or poem or essay and not worry about being subjected to some horrific image or soul-crushing moral, however artful it might be. Where happiness is treated with the same reverence as grief and pain, and you don’t have to choose between quality literature and faith in humanity.

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Flash fiction meets speculative worlds. Science fiction, fantasy, supernatural, futuristic—anything that transcends reality in very short form.

Speculative Magazines Looking for Flash Fiction

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

Online publications putting forward exceptional short stories for Best of the Net.

Fiction Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Digital publications advancing very short fiction for Best of the Net consideration.

Flash Fiction Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Best Microfiction, edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke, celebrates the art of the extremely brief narrative. These publications have editorial teams with particular sensitivity to the craft.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for Best Microfiction

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

Publications that nominate work for this respected anthology series founded in 2015 by Tara Masih to celebrate fiction under 1,000 words.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for Best Small Fictions

These magazines have the fastest response times, so you won't be left hanging for months. No more endless waiting. Just, you know, regular waiting.

Literary Magazines with the Fastest Response Times

Explore the all-time most competitive speculative fiction literary magazines. These magazines are revered in the fiction world for their editorial rigor.

Most Competitive Speculative Fiction Magazines of All Time

Explore the most competitive speculative fiction literary magazines this year. These magazines are revered in the fiction world for their editorial rigor.

Most Competitive Speculative Fiction Magazines This Year

Check out the all-time most popular speculative fiction literary magazines. These publications have a long-standing reputation for quality speculative fiction.

Most Popular Speculative Fiction Magazines 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

Online journals that specifically champion poetry for Best of the Net consideration.

Poetry Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

The Lit Nerds

We want poems that make us feel good. We want to see the beauty in the everyday and the magic in the mundane. We want to be in awe of the extraordinary and the sublime. We want to be reminded how indescribably amazing it is to be human, to be loved, to be alive, to exist at this exact moment in this exact place in our vast universe.

(Prose Poetry, Haiku, Sonnet, Villanelle, Ghazal)

Poetry

We believe that good fiction doesn’t have to have an unhappy ending. We believe conflict can be resolved, characters can make good choices, and fiction that’s fun to read is just as important as fiction that reveals the dirty undersides of humanity.

Send us your happy endings, your good triumphing over evil, your stories where the dog doesn’t die. Romanticize everyday life until we have no idea how we never saw the magic ourselves. Make us laugh, give us hope, restore a little bit of our faith in humanity.

Short Fiction

Life is filled with things and places and ideas that we love, that shape us into who we are. Things that thread through our pasts and carry into our futures and connect us to other people. We want to read about those things.

The ideal Five-Star Review combines personal experience, informational facts, and cultural relevance. It should focus on hope, humor, heart, or some combination of the three.

These are NOT simply reviews of things you like. Please don’t send us something you would post to Amazon or Google.

Five-Star Reviews

Part essay, part prose poem, we want to bring back the lost art of the love letter.

Whether the letter is addressed to a person, a place, a pet, an inanimate object, or something else entirely, we want to know what you love and why you love it in your most well-crafted poetic prose.

Word count is flexible.

(Literary, Personal Essay, Lyric Essays, Hybrid)

Love Letters

We want your best essays on writing craft and on the interplay of literature or other media with culture and humanity. We want well-thought out ideas and well-researched arguments. All essays should follow The Lit Nerds’ ethos and be positive, hopeful, uplifting, encouraging, etc. We don’t want your tear-down pieces or scathing commentary, we want to know what you think is good and interesting and cool and worth sharing.

Culture, Craft & Criticism

In honor of our favorite holiday, Bad Poetry Day, for the months of May, June, and July we’re accepting submissions of bad poetry to publish in a special issue on August 18th. <div><br></div><div>What is bad poetry? For us, the perfect bad poem hits that sweet spot between cliché and cringe, maybe has a wink and nudge or a punchline, always exhibits full commitment to the bit. It’s silly and stupid, but weirdly deep. It might have a particularly unhinged metaphor. It takes itself too seriously and knows it’s not serious at all. It would look phenomenal plastered artsy-fartsy-like over a 2010-era tumblr photo.<br><div><br></div><div>Max length 10 lines or 100 words, whichever is shorter; limit 3 poems per submission.</div></div>

2026 Call for Bad Poetry

We're looking for someone willing to read and vote on short fiction submissions for our magazine.

Fiction Reader

We're looking for someone willing to read and vote on poetry submissions for our magazine.

The Lit Nerds

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