International literary magazines

The world’s best literary magazines

Literary magazines are a vital source of information not only for those who work in the sector, but also for people who love literature and want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and news from the world of publishing. Budding authors may find space in them to publish their works, as well as practical hints for improving their writing technique.

However, it can be difficult to choose the magazine that best suits your tastes and interests from the vast array of paper and digital publications available. So, to help you, we’ve prepared an overview of the most famous, long-lived and award-winning periodicals on the global publishing scene, divided up by literary genre. While this list is by no means comprehensive, it should at least provide a good starting point for more in-depth research.

Poetry

Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) is a British contemporary poetry magazine founded in 1965 by English poets Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. The two writers wanted to break down cultural barriers and introduce the English-speaking audience to international poetry, particularly voices ‘hidden’ behind the Iron Curtain.

MPT contains a collection of poetry, essays and reviews from all over the world, along with technical insights aimed at poets and translators. According to its website, it seeks to ‘give voice to the silenced, exiled and excluded, and create a diverse and creative community of translators, poets and readers’ by exploring the connections and differences between different global writers.

The magazine has covered 90 different languages, 463 authors and 349 translators over the past decade, offering a vast selection of high-quality works and many interesting reflections on how language and culture can give rise to different forms of poetic expression.

MPT’s editorial staff also organise a series of related activities, including translation workshops, pamphlets and public poetry readings, both locally and internationally. The magazine is published three times a year and is available in both paper and digital format.

Fiction, poetry and non-fiction

American Chordata is an independent English-language literature and art magazine, founded in Brooklyn (NY) in 2015 and produced by a team of volunteers based in cities across the USA. The magazine brings together art and literature and employs an original and unconventional approach, seeking to present unusual points of view on the human experience. The stories, poems and essays in the magazine, as well as the photographs that accompany the text, are the work of promising up-and-coming authors and artists. As former editor Alison Lewis explained in an interview with the platform It’s Nice That, the aim is ‘valuing subject difference and diversity of perspective, and seeking to publish work that gives words and stories to complicated, challenging, and often subversive feelings and experiences’.

True to its mission, the magazine combines sophisticated and evocative words and images, using curious and sometimes provocative language to describe reality. Subtle references are often used to link text and photographs, generating original interpretations and perspectives.

The annual magazine can be purchased in paper form in certain European and American bookshops, while most of the back issues can be browsed free of charge on the publication’s website.

Science fiction and fantasy

Founded in 1930 in the United States, Analog Science Fiction and Fact is the longest-running and most popular sci-fi magazine in the world. It has won numerous prizes throughout its history, and hosted many famous science fiction writers, including Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson and Greg Bear, to name but a few. In 1938, its editor, John Campbell, decided to change the magazine’s name from Astounding to Analog, to emphasise the striking similarity between the science presented in the stories it published and the real science being conducted in labs across the world.

Driven by a desire to explore the impact of science and technology on the human condition, the editors have always also dedicated plenty of column inches to real scientific research with the potential to change the future of humanity. The fiction the magazine publishes has to meet strict standards of scientific accuracy, often describing real people in potentially real futures. Incredibly, during the Second World War, before the attack on Hiroshima, it published a story accurately describing the atomic bomb, leading FBI agents to search the magazine’s offices for traces of a potential leak.

As well as stories and poetry, Analog also contains reviews of new books, articles and opinion columns dedicated to the latest scientific and technological research. The periodical is released every two months and is available in both printed and digital form.

Founded in New York in 1968, Locus is one of the top magazines for science fiction, fantasy and horror fans. The American monthly publication, available in paper and digital format, provides reviews of newly published or soon-to-be-released works, news on new publications and literary conferences and interviews with both well-known and emerging authors. It also produces a list of all the sci-fi books and magazines published in the UK and USA every month.

Today the magazine is produced by the Locus Science Fiction Foundation, a non-profit body that organises workshops and other initiatives to spread the word about fantasy and science fiction literature. It also manages the Locus Awards, prizes awarded by the magazine’s readers to the best fantasy and sci-fi works. Although direct entries are not accepted for the competition, writers can send their book to the editors to request a review in the magazine, not only giving them visibility in the publication, but also qualifying them to be considered by readers for the Locus Awards shortlist.

Children’s literature

Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature is a quarterly magazine written in English that covers topics linked to literature for children and young people. It features research on children’s fiction, interviews with authors and illustrators, reviews of literary works and school books, news about major competitions and projects to promote reading. In addition, the editorial staff periodically issue calls for emerging writers to submit their work for publication in the magazine’s various themed issues.

Bookbird is the official magazine of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), a global non-profit organisation that seeks to give children all over the world, and particularly in developing countries, access to books. The Association also supports research and initiatives in the children’s literature sector by funding projects to promote reading, creating libraries, training teachers, librarians and parents and organising workshops for writers, illustrators and publishers.

Every two years, the magazine dedicates space to the Hans Christian Andersen Award – one of the most prestigious international prizes in children’s fiction and illustration – with articles on and interviews with the competition’s candidates and winners. Bookbird is available in a digital version in English and Spanish and in a paper version solely in English.

Cinema and art

Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, Zoetrope: All-Story is a quarterly magazine packed with short stories, one-act plays and essays on the world of cinema. Originally designed as a magazine for stories and plays by emerging authors who dreamed of writing for the big screen, over the years Zoetrope has published works by some extremely famous authors, including Wes Anderson, Margaret Atwood, Pedro Almodóvar and Haruki Murakami. As well as winning some of the most prestigious fiction awards, it has also won various prizes for its editorial design, with graphics supplied by numerous renowned artists including David Lynch, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and Lou Reed.

The editors also organise two competitions every year: the first, the Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Competition offers the authors of the best stories of up to 5,000 words cash prizes, the publication of the winning work in a digital supplement, and the opportunity to be represented by various talent agencies. The American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition, meanwhile, is dedicated to screenplays for feature films and pilot  scripts for TV and streaming services. Each work is read carefully by a group of professional readers, the staff of American Zoetrope and Francis Ford Coppola himself. The winning script and the nine shortlisted entries are sent to various global film production companies for consideration, including Sony Pictures Classics, Netflix and Fox Searchlight.

Thrillers

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, founded in 1941, is considered one of the world’s best mystery and crime literature magazines, both by lovers of the genre and by crime novelists and short story writers. It has received hundreds of awards over the course of its long history, and hosted famous authors like Stephen King, Agatha Christie, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, but it has also always given plenty of space to up-and-coming writers, launching the Department of First Stories in 1949. The editorial team’s careful selection work has given many new writers their debut, from Levinson & Link (the creators of Colombo, Murder, She Wrote and other famous detective series) to Harry Kemelman (the author of the Rabbi Small novels) and Nancy Pickard. The magazine, published every two months and available in both paper and digital formats, publishes short stories written by authors from all over the world and also incorporates all the various subgenres of mystery and crime writing, including noir, hard-boiled stories and thrillers.

The Strand Magazine, a quarterly literary magazine founded by George Newnes in 1890, became famous for publishing Arthur Conan Doyle‘s short stories and so helping to cement the success of his legendary character Sherlock Holmes. From mid-1891 until his death in 1930, the author published an impressive 56 stories featuring the renowned detective in the magazine, many illustrated by the celebrated artist Sidney Paget. The periodical launched the careers of some of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, including Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon and Rudyard Kipling. Today it features works by many contemporary bestselling authors, such as Alexander McCall Smith, R.L. Stine and Michael Connelly.

The magazine – and its blog – contain short stories, articles, interviews with writers, reviews of mystery novels and thrillers and writing tips from famous authors. The magazine’s website also has a shop for crime fiction fans with a wide selection of books at discounted prices and gift ideas inspired by popular stories: from puzzles featuring the settings of some of Agatha Christie’s novels to Sherlock Holmes calendars.

Our review of international literary magazines ends here, but your journey through this fascinating world is just beginning. There are countless other interesting publications available online, perfect for feeding your love of reading or getting your writing career off the ground! We can’t wait to help you print your first book.