Sending your work to the New Yorker and hearing nothing back is practically a rite of passage for a writer—but it still stings. Meanwhile, the endless churn of crises in the news cycle only adds to the weight on a writer’s spirit. I find it helpful to remember that readers and writers are actively imagining solutions to our imperfect world—and that much of this vital work has always been championed by independent magazines. Despite budget cuts and vanishing grants, many smaller but highly reputable journals are run by editors actively seeking a novel point of view, a voice willing to confront the true uncharted territory of the imagination.
Nonfiction writers, especially, hold the power to introduce clearly articulated ideas that speak to the suppressed worries and agonies of the public. Think of Susan Sontag’s varied work, or James Baldwin’s fluid prose coupled with piercing observations about race in America. They belong to a long chorus of writers who faced troubled times and wrote through them. And by the time you encounter the “next big thing” in the New Yorker, there’s a good chance they first appeared in the margins—in a smaller literary magazine. For that reason, among others, independent journals deserve our support. They want, and need, your words and your time. What follows is a list of such journals, wholly subjective and by no means definitive.
Editor Oscar Villalon is one of those impressive, behind-the-scenes tastemakers who always show up in literary history. Villalon judges national contests, identifies talent, and, most important, as editor in chief, pushes forward new thinking through the San Francisco–based journal Zyzzyva, which proudly declares itself a reflection of the values that make the northern California city a “cultural beacon.” The cultural stance of Zyzzyva is intelligent and critical while also maintaining the conviction that the world can still hold wonder and goodness. Recent issues have centered around tech, resistance, the border, and labor, to name but a few. Three issues are published each year in print, with some content available free online.
Based in Toronto, Brick was launched by Stan Dragland and Jean McKay in 1977 as a book review magazine, before husband-and-wife team Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding widened its perspective to include essays. Staying true to its Canadian roots, Brick is naturally smart and highly literary with beautiful writing from Canadian authors but also international in scope, aware of the myopia that can afflict some North American writers. This is a writer’s magazine, with each issue a love letter to excellent work. The biannual issues are online and in print.
The Drift, from New York City, is only five years old, a brash, bold journal actively looking to find emerging writers with fresh voices and thinking. Sharp editors Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka don’t have time for any hand-wringing excuses as to why liberal leadership is struggling; the fiendishly smart—and youthful—writers in the Drift know they deserve a better world than this. The Drift manages to be clearly political but also at times lighthearted, probably because its editors aren’t pandering to anyone. Issues are online and in print three times a year.
Many single-topic magazines devote attention to species loss or climate change, but Emergence, which also focuses on the natural world, seems solely aware that out of all these environmental changes, something new is developing—or emerging—that will impact our lived spiritual lives. The editors resist easy emotional notes like unchecked grief or epiphanies, often using photos and multimedia visuals along with prose to ask readers to find a new way not only of thinking, but of seeing. One award-winning essay on the migration of trees tracked, both in prose and in video, how trees are literally “walking” across the planet, in search of new places to live. Much of Emergence is online, while one gorgeous print issue makes a subset of this material physically available each year.
It’s hard not to think about Orion’s early years without remembering the groundbreaking work of writer and environmentalist Barry Lopez. Today Orion invites readers and writers to join in its mission of caring for the planet, this focus strengthened under editorial leadership that has expanded the list of contributors to include a new and diverse group of writers. A submissions page clearly states the themes of upcoming issues, along with guidelines for submission; upcoming subjects include whales in 2026. Orion is available both online and in print.
In 2002 a little-known writer named Cheryl Strayed published the essay “The Love of My Life” in the Sun; a decade later Strayed’s essay about grieving her mother’s death was developed into the best-selling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Knopf, 2012). Founding editor Sy Safransky and current editor Rob Bowers and staff have continued the magazine’s mission to find beautifully written stories about the human experience. Located in North Carolina, the Sun champions, issue after issue, the work of well-known and emerging writers spinning yarns and moving testimonies about the human experience, aware that it is our stories that in aggregate create our culture. The Sun is online and in print.
There has always been a counterculture, and seminal sixties figures like Malcolm X, Albert Camus, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to name just a few, found a home in the Oregon-based Evergreen Review. Founded in 1957 and relaunched in 1998, then in 2017 online, Evergreen boasts a historical list of contributors that reads like a who’s who of independent thinking. Restless writer and critic Dale Peck is the current editor in chief and has maintained and furthered Evergreen’s forward-thinking mission. Recent issues have included international writers—Porochista Khakpour edited an entire issue devoted to the writing of Iran, for example. At present, Evergreen primarily exists online.
Before you read Breasts and Eggs (Europa Editions, 2020) by Japanese writer Kawakami Mieko, her work appeared in translation in Monkey, the passion project of Japanese writer, critic, editor, and tastemaker Shibata Motoyuki. With the recent boom in Japanese writing in translation, Tokyo-based Monkey has become something of a primary source for finding “the next Kawakami.” It is also a place where young translators can find a home for writers whose work they champion, to become part of the global effort to share writing in translation. Monkey also publishes the occasional essay. Work appears primarily in print, with a few previews available online.
Agni, founded in 1972 at Antioch College, is now based in Boston and has, from its inception, launched many writing careers, including that of this somewhat obscure author. The key seems to be that its editors are excellent readers and writers, with an eye for finding original voices breaking ground in language, thought, and execution. Like the other journals here, Agni does not shy away from politics but values superb writing. Agni exists online and in print.
Hobart magazine is a traditional literary journal featuring poetry, fiction, interviews, and essays, but there is something distinctly Southern California and cool about each issue, mixing highbrow thinking with plenty of references to contemporary culture and pop culture. The vibe is intelligent, unpretentious, and a little bit punk rock, fearlessly poking fun of and at times challenging East Coast intellectual formality. Current submission requests include “rejected and fucked-up Modern Love essays.” Hobart exists online and in print.
Marie Mutsuki Mockett is the author of two novels, The Tree Doctor (Graywolf Press, 2024) and Picking Bones From Ash (Graywolf, 2011), and two books of nonfiction, American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland (Graywolf, 2020), which won the Nebraska Book Award, and Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey (Norton, 2015), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award.
Author photo: Goodrich via Japanorama