X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine’s vision is to publish uncomfortable, entertaining, and unforgettable prose that shines brighter than the skeleton in your body, prose that sees through the skin and reveals something deeper

We work hard to give our readers the best authors on the planet. 

We publish two new stories per week. Special and Quarterly Issues are published throughout the year.

Crow Jonah Norlander

Chris Dankland

Jennifer Greidus

Jo Varnish

X-R-A-Y

Accept previously published: "Work previously published in print only welcome if in no violation of original rights."

Make you feel at home: cozy, meme-friendly, a sense of community, all that stuff

Active on social media

Promote writers even after publication - hype hype hype

QUIETUDE

Three years ago, June Martin jokingly declared herself the world's greatest writer and, since then, no one has challenged her for the title. Her short fiction has appeared in X-R-A-Y, BULL, JAKE, and other lit mags. Her debut novel, LOVE/AGGRESSION, is forthcoming with tRaum Books in spring 2024.

Third-person

June Martin is an Oakland-based writer and comic artist. She is the author of the novel LOVE/AGGRESSION, short stories in X-R-A-Y, BULL, JAKE and other publications. She's the fiction editor for New Session and was a 2024 Lambda Literary fellow.

Normal Third Person

James Jacob Hatfield is a displaced engineer, a painter, and many other contradictions. His work has appeared in X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Barely South Review, Chaleur Magazine, Havik, and others. His ekphrasis poem “torrents of lahar, No. 36” was anthologized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. He is a Sterling Fellow and a Weymouth Fellow. He is the creator and curator of the Gemini Sessions Substack. He lives in Durham, NC.

Current

a little bummer of a story that involves a chicken attack

Erase the Line

Four seasons in a year and in the life of an older couple.

The Four Seasons

Saturday Night (at the ER)

“They’re calling it curious, the scientists. They’re saying we didn’t love them enough.”

Thunderstorm Facts

"Like everyone else, when I see the plane, I get up from the table to get a better look. I’m not exactly sure at what speed planes travel, but I know a plane must travel faster when it’s diving."

Trajectory

Bad Seeds

Bruce Ford meanwhile was pining for Joe-Dog.

Joe-Dog

"I’m inside the lobby waiting on an oil change when I hear it. Across the street, a man struggles to hold a sign against the wind. I squint to read through the shop’s window: 'You are all going to die.' 

This is what the man is yelling."

MAINTENANCE

I will hire bodyguards to protect me at all times and I will wear a bulletproof suit. The protection will cost money but if it saves my life it will be worth it.

Domestic

It was a limited conversation but one that I have cherished because I knew who was talking to me.

Work

He rolled back the flap of skin, in the same way one might open a tin of sardines. He sloshed his hands in the opening, then tugged on something that gave with a snap.

The Tournament

1. Setting serves as the introduction to the story. The sky, gray and looming with thunder and sideways rain, withholds for this moment, this moment when...
2. The characters meet in a bus stop kiosk, the glass kind with the light blue and yellow...

How to Tell a Love Story

My Parents Do Not Meet

Omens Aside, I Kenned It Wouldn't Last

Sami was given credit for A-Plus At-Home Dialysis's new marketing campaign, which included, among other things, car decals with the company's name and URL. Now, a van bearing the company's name has been involved in multiple car chases.

Endless Violence at APlusAtHomeDialysis.com

I’m in California now, where bees die in the light. Where everybody dies first, then lives forever. The bees are alive. Their flattened bodies tattoo the pavement, stain the places pressed flat with a concrete leveler.

All The Bees in California are Dead

Perhaps by now they weren’t the most well-adjusted people they’d ever been. Perhaps by now they’d become, even to themselves, a little strange.

At The Well

Longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2022

Sonata

My mother’s house always looked halfway to collapse.

On Building a Nest

Super Black

Porcelain

Sweetness

MOONRAKER

"The feeling of having your ligaments torn apart from one another and having your guts ingested is unique, as you might imagine. Have you had a root canal? I haven’t, but I’ve heard terrible things."

The Troll by the East Bridge

It’s like her spirit disintegrated into every corner of every wall in this house. Every blemish, every unfolded blanket, every mismatched coffee mug. Everything. 

Strawberry

 TOM CLANCY DID NOT WRITE DOMESTIC THRILLERS AND DEFINITELY DIED ON OCTOBER 1ST, 2013 by Evan Hannon TOM CLANCY DID NOT WRITE DOMESTIC THRILLERS AND DEFINITELY DIED ON OCTOBER 1ST, 2013

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