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40 Literary Magazines to Submit Short-stories, Non fiction and Poetry in India

Curious about literary magazines to submit short stories, non-fiction, and poetry in India? Then this post is for you.

Well done! By completing the piece you have been working on, you have completed the first step towards getting published. Now, let’s move toward the second step.

Introduction

Have you written something, but don’t know where to publish it? Maybe you’ve written poems you want to publish? Or a short story? Or maybe it is a work of non-fiction you want to publish on a credible platform? Further, do you wonder if you can get paid for your work? Or if there are literary magazines that focus specifically on India / South Asia?

We encountered these questions repeatedly in our workshops and from the participants of our various programs. So, we put together this list which we update regularly.

Why should you submit to literary magazines?

Irrespective of the genre of creative writing, getting published is very important for a writer. For many short-story writers, finding a good home for their work matters a lot. Even if having a published book to your credit is your ultimate goal, having short stories/poetry/non-fiction published in literary journals is an important milestone. It helps you add to your author profile and create a reader base that comes in handy when your book is released.

Getting published in prominent, well-recognized sites boosts your confidence. Exposure means people read your work, and that means feedback. That in turn helps you hone your writing skills.

Before we share the list of literary journals and magazines where you can submit your short stories, a few quick points:

  1. The magazines/journals have been listed in alphabetical order.
  2. All the below-mentioned magazines accept submissions only in English. In some cases, they accept translations too but those also need to be in English. We have a separate list of Literary Magazines in Hindi.
  3. At the time of publishing this article, all the mentioned literary journals and magazines did not have any submission fees unless specifically mentioned (sometimes in the case of annual print editions). However, that is subject to change at the discretion of the editorial team of the respective journals and magazines.
  4. Most of the magazines accept short stories across genres, however, some are specific to certain genres and themes of their issues. These have been highlighted in their respective cases below.
  5. Currently, we have included only the literary journals and magazines which accept submissions from writers based in India and South Asia and are based in South Asia. In the future, we might come up with a similar list for international submissions also.
  6. Most of the magazines have submission periods during which they are open to submissions and for the rest of the year, they are not. Do read the submission guidelines before submitting.
  7. Last, but not least, the list is dynamic and we will keep updating it from time to time. In case you feel we have missed out on any of your favorites, do let us know in the comments.

This list of literary journals and magazines is not just a great place to publish. These are also great places to read good writing.

Disclaimer: Himalayan Writing Retreat has no affiliation with any of these magazines or websites. We have solely collated a list as a reference guide for writers. In case of any queries, please write to the concerned magazines on the email ids provided on their sites directly. Team HWR will be unable to respond to any queries regarding your submissions to them.

List of  Literary Magazines to submit Short-Stories, Book Reviews, and Essays.

1455

Originally conceived as a magazine “by writers for writers” 1455 has greatly expanded its scope and seeks to celebrate storytelling of all types. Each issue of Movable Type revolves around a theme, and 1455 welcomes submissions year-round. Each issue will be accompanied by a live (virtual) reading, featuring the contributors.


Asia Literary Review

The Asia Literary Review is an independent quarterly literary magazine publishing the best contemporary writing from and about Asia, in English and in translation.


Auroras and Blossoms

Auroras and Blossoms run regular submission calls and accept six-word stories, essays, flash fiction, short stories, photography, paintings, drawings, and poetry.

  • Submission Guidelines: https://abpoetryjournal.com/submit/
  • Genre: All but the content should be positive content, as in stimulating, optimistic, confident, uplifting, inspirational.
  • Compensation: They offer ongoing royalties and complimentary PDF copies of anthologies to selected artists
  • Submission Fees: $6 per piece (or $15 for three pieces)

Antiserious

Antiserious is a quarterly magazine of essays, fiction, and poetry, and a blog that is a web archive of Indian culture and politics.


Ashvamegh- International Journal & Literary Magazine

Ashvamegh is a monthly literary journal cum magazine that aims at keeping the flight of literature always at the height that it deserves.

  • Submissions guidelines: https://ashvamegh.net/submission/
  • Genre: All, except the following:
    • something that invokes terrorism
    • something that deliberately insults the sentiments of a religious community
    • something that calls for violence in any of its kind
    • unnecessary use of abusive words
    • erotica
  • Compensation: NIL
  • Literary Quotient: Medium

Borderless Journal

Borderless is a literary journal based in Singapore accepting submissions from across the world.


Cafe Dissensus

Cafe Dissensus is an alternative magazine dealing in art, culture, literature, and politics. It’s based in New York City, USA. We DISSENT. The magazine also runs a blog, Cafe Dissensus Everyday.


Contemporary Literary Journal of India

CLRI is a literary journal in English and publishes a wide variety of creative pieces including research papers, critical essays, stories, poems, book reviews, film reviews, arts, and photography of the best quality of the time.

  • Submission Guidelines: www.literaryjournal.in/index.php/clri/sg
  • Submission Fees: Any submission for their annual print edition has a reading fee of an unspecified amount.
  • Genre: All ( except any articles that reflect pornography, use racial language, hatred, or any sorts of aversion.)
  • Compensation: NIL
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

CHA: An Asian Literary Journal

Cha is dedicated to publishing quality creative works from and about Asia. At this time, we can only accept work in English or translated into English.

  • Submission Guidelines: https://www.asiancha.com/wp/submission-guidelines/
  • Genre: All (Though there are contests organised regularly which are theme-specific- the contest entries are also a part of the journal, if selected)
  • Compensation: NIL
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

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efiction India

eFiction India is a professionally produced independent magazine devoted to showcasing the work of writers with a connection to the Indian subcontinent.

  • Submission Guidelines: http://www.efictionindia.in/submit/
  • Genre: All but should be relevant to the theme of the issue. Writing should adhere to a mild R rating. Sexuality, violence, and unsavory language are acceptable but contributors should avoid the explicit and the gratuitous. Also, no erotica.
  • Compensation: NIL
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter is an online magazine with a focus on independent and alternative cultures in India. The scope of content includes films, books, theatre, food, music, art, and travel — personal essays, social commentary, human interest pieces, interviews, features, reviews, photography, and lots more.

  • Submission Guidelines:About | Helter Skelter Magazine
  • Genre: All
  • Compensation: Payment has not been mentioned on their site.
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

Himal South Asian Mag

Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional magazine of politics and culture.

  • Submission Guidelines: https://www.himalmag.com/submissions/
  • Genre: All
  • Compensation: Not all are paid. It is at their discretion to decide which write-up will be paid for. On average Himal pays USD 100-150 for an article, subsequent to publication.
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi)

Indian Literature is Sahitya Akademi’s bi-monthly journal. Considered to be India’s oldest and the only journal of its kind, it features translations in English of poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism from 23 Indian languages besides original writing in English.


Indian Review

Indian Review, as the name suggests is a literary journal based in India.

  • Submission Guidelines: https://indianreview.in/submit-your-work/
  • Genre: All except genre fiction ( e.g. horror, science fiction, mysteries) and any work containing explicit or erotic language
  • Compensation: If they are able to get sponsors, they aim to pay.
  • Literary Quotient: Medium

Inkspire

Inkspire is an online literary journal for aspiring Indian writers from across the world.


Indian Ruminations

Indian Ruminations is a monthly online literary journal especially dedicated to Indian English literature.

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Juggernaut

Though primarily a publishing house, the Juggernaut platform also allows you to upload your short stories and share your work with readers.


Jaggery Lit

Jaggery Lit is a DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal


Joao-Roque Literary Journal

Established in 2017, Joao-Roque Literary Journal celebrates Goa through its writings. They invite submissions from residents of Goa, Goans in diaspora, and non-Goans exploring Goa-related issues.


Kitaab

Headquartered in Singapore, Kitaab provides a writing and publishing platform to emerging and seasoned writers from South Asia to express themselves creatively.

  • Submission Guidelines: https://kitaab.org/submissions/
  • Genre: All
  • Compensation: NIL (Some of the stories will go into the upcoming anthologies/journals by Kitaab and authors will be paid royalties for their contributions.)
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

Muse India

Muse India is a literary e-journal with the primary objective of showcasing Indian writings in English and in English translation to a broad-based global readership.

  • Submissions guideline: http://www.museindia.com/MuseIndia/submission
  • Genre: All
  • Compensation: NIL (However, all the writers submitting their work should be registered Members of the journal. If they are not already so, they should enroll as Members. Membership is free.)
  • Literary Quotient: Excellent

Mithila Review

Mithila Review is an international science fiction and fantasy magazine founded in late 2015 with focus on speculative fiction and poetry.

  • Submission guidelines: https://mithilareview.com/submission-guidelines/
  • Genre: Speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, horror, alternative history, magic realism, uncanny and weird)
  • Compensation: If/when their Patron funds permit, $10 for original poetry, essays, flash stories (under 2.5K words), and reprints; $50 for original stories between 4-8K words or longer.
  • Literary Quotient: Medium

Out of Print

Out of Print magazine is an online platform for short fiction with a connection to the Indian subcontinent.


Poetry without Fear

This is a bilingual online quarterly magazine of poetry in English and Assamese.


Spark- The Magazine

Spark is an online literary magazine exploring Word, World, and Wisdom.


Storizen

Storizen is a literary ezine based in India which also has a physical magazine released annually.


The Caravan

The Caravan is India’s first long-form narrative journalism magazine which also publishes short stories.


The Bombay Literary Magazine

The magazine largely publishes literary fiction, as well as some poetry and book reviews, and encourages submissions on topics which are less spoken about.


The Bombay Review

The Bombay Review is a bi-monthly online literary magazine publishing short fiction and poetry, with annual print anthologies.


The Bangalore Review

TBR publishes exemplary writing from all over.


The Little Magazine

The Little Magazine encourages writers to send in their work from all over the world.


The Lookout Journal

The Lookout Journal is a quarterly magazine that invites submissions on a specific theme for the issue.


The Curious Reader

The Curious Reader publishes intelligent, thought-provoking, and well-written original articles related to books, literature, and writing.


The Meraki Magazine

The Meraki Magazine welcomes the love of literature, aiming to bring forth raw imaginative & artistic sparks of people in English and Urdu language.


The Shanghai Literary Review

The Shanghai Literary Review is a biannual English-language print magazine that features quality creative work from or about Asia and introduces new voices to the critical conversation on world literature and publishes it both in print and online.


The Indian Quarterly

Indian Quarterly is aimed at a judicious mix of new and well-established writers and artists, and a balance of Indian and international talent in print.


The Punch Magazine

The Punch Magazine is an initiative by Punch Art and Culture Foundation and is a monthly digital magazine of arts, literature, and culture featuring fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, and interviews.


The Purple Pencil Project

The Purple Pencil Project aims to talk about literature in various Indian languages through different mediums events, awards, videos, books, merchandise.


The Universal Journal

‘The UNIverse Journal’ is a digital publishing platform that aims to connect passionate writers with passionate readers who will support their work.


The Little Journal of Northeast India

This is a journal featuring art and literary content from Northeast India.


Chaicopy – MCPH Literary Journal

A bi-annual literary journal dedicated to upcoming voices started in January 2023


We hope this list takes you one step closer to getting published. Do share this with all your friends who are writers or who aspire to get published and also with those who enjoy reading great literature. You may also want to check out our list of Top Literary Agents.

Here’s wishing more power to your pen!

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Quick Jump

72 Responses

    1. Hi Selma,

      Thank you so much for reaching out! We have added Joao-roque literary journal to the list.

  1. Really thankful to you for sharing the list of various magazines. Hope to get published in the near future.
    Regards

  2. Wow !! Thanks for providing a platform especially for beginners like me to offer our work.. it’s a great opportunity and I really excited to share some of my work .

    1. Thanks for your comment, Mithun. We will be publishing a list of non-English Literary Magazines where people can submit their creative writing soon. We have made a note of this, and will include abletricks in that.

  3. Hi
    Your list of writing platforms has been very helpful for an aspiring writer/poet like me. I am already publishing my short stories and poems in some of the dailies and weeklies in my city. However, I’d like to reach out to a wider audience and improve further.

    Thanks
    Zerine

  4. Hello there!

    I am the co-founder and co-editor of Auroras & Blossoms, a platform dedicated to positive and uplifting art. We accept poetry and short stories all year long. Poetry can be submitted to our Auroras & Blossoms Poetry Journal, while short stories go into our Auroras & Blossoms Creative Arts Journal.

    Would you be able to add us to your list?

    https://abpoetryjournal.com

    Thank you very much for your consideration!

  5. Thanks for the list
    What about compiling a list of active literary agents in India to help writers .

  6. Thanks a lot for this very useful information to clueless budding writers like me. It’s definitely a beginning for me. Hope to successfully submit my stories.

    1. Hi Ravi,

      Thanks for writing to us!

      Congratulations for the website. While the idea behind it is really wonderful, we noticed it is still in very nascent stages to be featured in the list. We will revisit this a few months later and review.

  7. Hi,
    I am a freelance writer. I curated my own website where i publish my blogs based on the buddhist philosophy of which i am a practitioner.
    The link to my website is : http://www.tellingtales.info
    I am looking for platforms where i can get my work posted for a wider reach. Please get back to me in case this sounds of relevance to anyone.

    Thank you !

  8. You could also add The Little Journal of Northeast India which publishes poems, short stories, art and photos based on or inspired by Northeast India.

  9. Thank you for your time. Please include The Weekly Avocet – every weekend, Editor a prompt, courteous and kind Charles Portolano, Very encouraging to emerging Nature poets. Their guidelines:
    If you don’t send them, we can’t share them!
    Share one of your Fall-themed poems,
    4 photos, haiku (up to 10), Saving Mother Earth Challenge poems
    Please read the guidelines before submitting
    Only one poem, per poet, per season. Please send your submission to angeldec24@hotmail.com
    Or cportolano@hotmail.com
    Please put (early or late) Fall/your last name in the subject line.
    Please be kind and address your submission to me, Charles. Thank you.
    (Just so you know: I do not read work from a poet who doesn’t take the time
    to address their submission to the editor, who they want to read their work.)
    Please do not just send a poem, please write a few lines of hello.
    Please do not have all caps in the title of your poem.
    Please no more than 45+ lines per poem.
    Please no religious references.
    Please use single spaced lines.
    Please remember, we welcome previously published poems.
    Please put your name, City/State, and email address under your poem. No Zip codes.
    Please send your poem in both the body of an email and an attachment. We look forward to reading your Fall submission

    1. Hello!
      This is a great list, Thank you. I’ve a small collection of poems and short stories and I want to know if I can send it to multiple magazines/journals at the same time. How should I go about this ? I’d appreciate any help.
      Suchita.

      1. Hi Suchita,

        Thank you! Glad you found it to be of value.

        You can send your work to multiple magazines/ journals at the same time. Some magazines have a criteria of avoiding multiple submissions at the same time, while some are comfortable accepting them. You can check their submission guidelines about this. However, it is advisable to inform them as soon as your piece is accepted elsewhere so that they can remove it from their evaluation queue.

        Hope this helps.

    1. If you go to the website of the individual magazines, each will have it’s own submission guidelines. All the best!

  10. Thanks for sharing this list. It is great and I also follow few of them, It is a great help for new writers to publish to take good exposure. I appreciate your this great thought. Please continue it.

  11. I like to convert short stories into radio plays- both in Hindi and English…could you connect me with people who are looking out for such writers. Thank You.

    1. Hi Sudha,

      While we do not have any specific information about people who are looking out for such writers at the moment, we would encourage you to connect with individual radio stations directly with your pitch. Alternatively, you could also consider reaching out to podcasters who are into story-telling. Some of them also invite guest storytellers to their shows.

  12. I really like what you’ve shared, and that it’s so well organised it’s such a pleasure to read it. Thank you so much. Hope to get published in one of these mags 🙂

  13. Hi there,

    It would be great if you could add The Letters Page to your list. We are an online literary journal, and we publish creative pieces which are sent to us as handwritten letters. You can read our submission guidelines here, https://theletters.page/submit/

  14. Hi, Chetan sir!

    Hemanya here, from last year’s Himalayan Writing Retreat for teens. Not sure if you remember me considering the number of retreats you’ve organised plus my unusual name, but ok 🙂 anyway, thank you so much for putting this list together! It was a HUGE help. I’ve come quite some distance from where I was during the retreat- I’ve started blogging on a website, will soon make my own blog, working on it, won a 7000 cash prize for an essay contest and been published in Inkspire, one of the magazines here. Tell me if you’d like the links to it, that is, the average writing of a thirteen year old 🙂 The blog posts are absolutely wonderful and I really want to thank you for organising such a beautiful retreat. It changed me. Sorry for being late with the updates but I wanted to have done something before I told you, and I considered writing a mail but I wanted to drop a suggestion as well- why don’t you guys start your own literary mag? You could also publish the first time submitters so you could show them first hand how submissions are made, cover letters and all, I struggled with that a bit. Hope everything’s ‘ight and your book is going great and you haven’t dropped it! My regards to your wonderful team. I regularly tune in to your blog but none has topped the toilet paper and Bollywood translate ones. 🙂 Stay safe.

    1. Many many congratulations Hemanya. That is a lot of achievements in a pretty short period of time. You have some great suggestions and our only challenge is bandwidth, with us being a small team of just three. But thanks for the update and for reaching out.

      Keep the writing going!!

  15. Is all these paid ? I mean do I get any remuneration for submitting my work ? I wanted to monetize my write ups so …

    1. Hi Namrita,

      Some of them do pay if your write-up is selected for publication. You can go through their submission guidelines before sending your work. The guidelines will have all the details clearly mentioned therein.

  16. Greetings!
    The Red Megaphone is an initiative that pulls bashful writers into the limelight. We believe that absolutely anyone can write. Our motto is #OpenYourMindOut

    Here’s our website: https://www.theredmegaphone.Com/

    We would be very grateful and highly honored if you could add us to you amazing list of literary magazines.
    Thank you!

  17. This post was truly worthwhile to read. Being receptive to learning something new every day means that you are open to improvement. Many notable authors you know are readers. So if you are new to writing a new format of fiction, the best thing to do is search for something that can help you. Here are some of the hacks you can incorporate as you come up with a successful short fiction Tips to Come Up with a Successful Short Fiction

    1. Hi,

      Most of the magazines do accept Asian writers’ works also. Would request you to read the submission guidelines carefully before sending in your work/s.

  18. Creation and Criticism (ISSN: 2455-9687)

    [Creation and Criticism (CC), which is a Quarterly International Peer-reviewed Refereed e-Journal Devoted to English Language and Literature, aims at providing an opportunity to the researchers and scholars for sharing their creative and critical views through poems, plays, fiction, interviews, book reviews and research articles.]

  19. Nice article.
    Thanks for publishing very useful content. I am sure this will definately a way to newby writters how to write an artical.

  20. Hello,
    May I know where I can submit translated work. I have translated a short-story from Assamese to English and searching for a journal to publish it.

    1. Hi Tanushree. We don’t have a specific list of Magazines that accept translations, but you can check the list in this blog itself. I imagine some would be open to translations.

  21. Thanks so much for the list. It is indeed quite exhaustive and the links work. Greatly appreciate the compilation work.

    1. All the literary magazines we list accept submissions, but we do not see a submissions page on your website. Without that we cannot list you. Once you add a submissions page please let us know.

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