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A literary magazine, or “lit mag”, focuses on literary and visual art not found in traditional magazines. It may publish lesser-known works by established authors or up-and-coming unknowns, as well as interviews, book reviews, short stories, poems, visual art prints, and essays. Funding can come from universities, grants, or sales. Due to limited circulation, it’s known as a “small magazine”, but has helped launch the careers of many writers. Literary magazines can range from professionally printed journals to photocopied pages, and have embraced the internet with online publications and workshops.
A literary magazine, often called a “lit mag” in writing circles, is a publication focused primarily on forms of literary and visual art not always found in traditional magazines. A literary journal may choose to publish lesser-known works by an established author or the best work by an up-and-coming unknown. A typical literary magazine may also publish interviews, book reviews, short stories, poems, visual art prints, and essays. Sponsorship and revenue for a literary magazine can come from a university, government grant programs, or subscription and advertising sales.
Due to its limited circulation and nominal market share, a literary magazine is also known in the publishing industry as a “small magazine. This is not a disparagement against the quality or artistic merit of a literary magazine, but it separates the product of a small print from the large-scale runs of a traditional publication. The staff and contributors of a literary journal are often proud of this fact, as breaking into mainstream publishing can be a very difficult and political process for novice writers. A literary journal offers contributors a more accessible alternative to the often insular world of the traditional press.
A number of well-known writers and poets received their first publishing credits in a literary journal. For example, poet T. S. Eliot’s signature poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was first published in Poetry Magazine, a well-known but small literary magazine based in Chicago, Illinois. Other authors began their professional careers as editors of their college’s literary journal or as regular contributors to an influential literary journal such as the now-defunct The Hourglass, which was popular with 1920s writers.
A literary magazine today could literally be anything from a professionally bound and printed journal to a stack of photocopied pages held together with a staple and a prayer. Some literary magazines have found success in the mainstream publishing world, such as Plowshares and The Virginia Quarterly Review. Others have become a testing ground for emerging writers and poets around the world. The world of literary journals has also embraced the Internet, with literally hundreds of online publications and workshops devoted to publishing promising (or occasionally not-so-promising) works by amateur or inexperienced contributors.
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