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Chill Subs
@chillsubs.bsky.social
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chillsubs.bsky.social
The countdown begins... only 5 more days of voting for Best Lit Mag Awards! Today's comment is this glowing review someone left for Zoetrope: All-Story.

Shout your love for all your fav lit mags from our virtual rooftops: www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

#writing #writers #litmags
Only three or four stories per issue, but every one of them is a standout. No filler. This is where the very best short story writers are pushing the boundaries of the form. Absorbing, innovative, and daring, it's just the most enjoyable read you can get in a lit mag.
December 2, 2025 at 8:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
The brilliant @charliefish.bsky.social's second annual FISH list is out! 4,000 magazines, 14 different criteria, all indie lit goodness.

Check it out here: www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....
→ The 2026 FISH List (Finest Indie Story Houses) of lively lit mags • Flash Fiction Magazine - One flash story a day • The Lascaux Review - Beautiful language is meant to be heard • Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Literary adventure lantasy with flair and impact • Consequence - Human realities of war and geopolitical violence • trampset - Work with lost and wandering hearts • The Sunlight Press - Moments that give birth to epiphany • Okay Donkey - Home for the odd, off-kilter, or just plain weird • Pangyrus - Stories connect here • SmokeLong Quarterly - Honesty, emotional resonance, and vulnerability • McSweeney's Internet Tendency - Daily humor since 1998 • BULL lit mag - Rewriting modern masculinity • The Forge - Where literary excellence is the only criteria • Emerge Literary Journal - Growth, change & experimentation • Radar Poetry - Interplay between poetry and visual media • Terrain.org - Work focused on place, climate, and justice Painstakingly scored by Charlie Fish with data provided by Chill Subs and awards data by Brecht de Poortere.
December 2, 2025 at 5:01 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
So excited to share this sweet comment a voter left for @claudineliterary.bsky.social!

Our Best Lit Mag Awards close in a week, so get your votes in now‼️ www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

#writing #writers #litmags
I want to shine a light on Claudine, a brand new lit mag which has already shown so much care and thought in how they do things. Their editor has been in the submission trenches and it shows. They do a fantastic job highlighting each piece and have a special category for “new” writers. Their line edits were also thoughtful and improved my piece.
December 1, 2025 at 8:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
If you don't know about The Pushcart Prize or Best of the Net, allow us to brief ya so you can be properly impressed.

These 2 annual anthologies showcase some of the best writing in indie lit.

Editors nominate their favorite work from the year, these are our noms ⬇️
Thread Lit Mag's 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominations Spot by Sharni Miller At the End of the Quantum Tunnel by Sristi Anatomy of an Heirloom by Noopur Sharma Scale by Abigail Harber-Kelly Stone Math by Mike Bove Street View by Mallory Pearce [Pushcart Prize Logo] CHILL SUBS® Thread Lit Mag's 2025 Best of the Net Nominations Before Our Meal Becomes a Temporary Thing by DC Restaino Spot by Sharni Miller Stone Math by Mike Bove [Best of the Net logo] CHILL SUBS®
December 1, 2025 at 5:06 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Today's voter comment shoutout goes to @whaleroadreview.bsky.social!

And as always, vote for our Best Lit Mag Awards here: www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...
Every issue is genuinely curated and crafted with so much care. EIC Katie opens each issue release with brief, specific details of the variety you’ll find for each season, and from beginning to end in issues, poems seem in actual conversation with each other. I’ve been in awe of the space for both religious imagery and queer imagery, for reverent and irreverent, and applaud the coexistence of pieces as a body. There are pieces and words I remember long after.
November 28, 2025 at 10:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Writer's Digest is taking votes for their 101 Best Websites list! So if you've enjoyed Chill Subs, Sub Club, or The Forever Workshop, please give us a vote at the form below <3

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Photo of the Bernie Sanders "I am once again asking for your financial support" meme but it just reads "I am asking for your support." For context, the meme is a screenshot from a campaign video. In the photo, he's standing outside in the snow with a grey jacket on, his face is lightly flushed with a sort of stern look, and he's mid-speech with his mouth open.
November 28, 2025 at 2:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Love this comment for @outlooksprings.bsky.social!
And people, you know the drill...

Get out there and vote (for your favorite lit mag)! www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...
This journal is just killing it, and deserves some love. It has incredible design, and fills a real niche with genre-defying fiction and poetry. You'll find a mix of big names and first-timers, and it really truly is a literary magazine for the people.
November 27, 2025 at 5:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
I think this comment for @newohioreview.bsky.social speaks for itself 🖤

Show your favorite lit mags + editors some love before our Best Lit Mag Awards voting closes next month! www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...
This magazine was one of my best publication experiences as a writer. I heard from a few readers after publishing with them which rarely happens. They publish in print and then release the issue online so you get the best of both worlds. They give you the option of recording your piece. They made me feel like a "real" writer.
November 26, 2025 at 5:01 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
You know, I've never thought about the idea that there could be an office dog who cares about writers. Maybe that's an oversight from me.

But really, this voter's note for @lemonwoodquarterly.bsky.social is gold.

Vote for your favorite lit mags (+ office pets): www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...
1) The editors, illustrators, web masters, coders, and the office dog care about writers. 2) They are all active on socials, not just to tell their story but to tell your story. 3) Lemonwood pays real money.
November 26, 2025 at 12:00 AM
chillsubs.bsky.social
One of my favorite parts of the day is looking through all the comments on our Best Lit Mag Awards votes, like this super sweet one left for @okaydonkeymag.com!

Click here to show your favorite lit mags + editors some love <3: www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
Okay Donkey is one of the lit mags that I always stop to read. The work is always stunning and full of heart. From their social media presence, it's also abundantly clear that they love celebrating the continued success of their contributors. Grateful for them and their continued work!
November 24, 2025 at 5:04 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
That's a tough one! Honestly, I'd fiddle around in the browse filters for subgenres and just see what catches your eye. These are just the most common ones in fiction, for example.
The image shows a list of fiction subgenres, each with a checkbox next to them and a number. Literary 2511 Hybrid 603 Speculative Fiction 503 Fantasy 301 Experimental 299 Science Fiction 297 Horror 273 Humor 208 Other 195 Magical Realism 189 Absurdist 138 Gothic 129 Mystery 125 Thriller 99 Folklore 98
November 24, 2025 at 3:57 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
A little bit of luck, a little bit of skill—you might just make it through the sweet spot.

Check out how to submit to them here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/sweet-...

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
17 Lit mags in the sweet spot (3-8%) Competitive | Popular • The Colored Lens - Stories that shift our perspective • New Ohio Review - The breadth of the American experience • Fiction - Publishing the difficult, experimental, and unusual • Oxford Poetry - Oldest dedicated poetry magazine in the UK • Gulf Coast - International cultures, voices, and aesthetics • North American Review - Challenging the status quo • Pseudopod - Podcast of dark, compelling short horror • The Shore Poetry - Cutting, strange, and daring work • Intrepidus Ink - Danger, struggle, emotion, and overcoming • Pigeon Pages - Voices not always allowed to sing loudly • Waxwing Literary Journal - Harmony and dissonance • Hayden's Ferry Review - Work that takes risks and engages • EPOCH - Cornell University's long-established print magazine • Factor Four Magazine - High-quality speculative flash fiction • lowa Review - Expertly curated, carefully edited, and beautifully designed • Sundog Lit - Engaging with tension, introspection, empathy • Room - Canada's oldest feminist literary journal Our stats-backed lists are based on 258642 tracked submissions from our 69378 users. Check them out at our link in bio!
November 21, 2025 at 5:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
We adore that this person could not stop singing @trashcatlit.bsky.social 's praises in the comments!

Vote for your favorite lit mags + editors to win our 2025 Best Lit Mag Awards here: www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
Apart from publishing great stories, and their quick feedback, and publishing links to writers’ other work, and publishing interviews about their writing, and their regular newsletter promoting writers’ work, and informing them of new opportunities, and having started to publish their writers in print, and putting a lot of effort into building up a great community of writers (see their wall of Trash Family Portraits for just one example of many) they are a pleasure to to work with!
November 21, 2025 at 3:02 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
We love seeing all the comments people leave for their favorite mags! This one goes out to @troublemakerfire.bsky.social <3

Show your favorite lit mags + editors some love and vote for our annual Best Lit Mag Awards: www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

#writing #writingcommunity #writers
Amazing to work with, Davi is hilarious and iconic, published me AND nominated me for a prize! Don’t sleep on the small indies; you’ll get more attention and love than you will from a big magazine.
November 20, 2025 at 3:05 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
This is your annual reminder that the only one who decides when you're done submitting to a magazine is YOU 🫵

Never give up. Never surrender.

Submit to these mags here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/one-pe...

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
The 1% club (good fuckin' luck) • Boulevard - Publishing the linest promising new voices • Frontier Poetry - Poetry that pushes language forward • Blue Earth Review - Ambitious and exuberant work in a small format • Lunch Ticket - Work that strives for a more just world • The Adroit Journal - Bizarre, raw, paradoxical work between land and sky • Sixth Finch - Bringing contemporary art and poetry to all • A Velvet Giant - Experimental work that resists binary categorization • Boston Review - Reimagining the world through reason and hope • TriQuarterly - Cultural inquiry through writing and art • The Dark - The best in dark fantasy and horror monthly • Gasher Journal - Art that precisely guts us with surgical skill • James Gunn's Ad Astra - Celebrating speculative fiction in the 21st century • Banshee Exciting, accessible contemporary Irish writing • Muzzle Magazine - Writing of revolution and revelation • Ninth Letter - Exceptional literary writing illuminated by cutting-edge design • Seize the Press Magazine - Dark and anticapitalist speculative fiction • Shoreline of Infinity - Award-winning international SF magazine from Scotland • The Deadlands - Monthly speculative stories, poems, essays on the beyond Check out our link in bio for this list + more recommendations!
November 19, 2025 at 5:07 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
It’s back 😏

Nominate Your Favorite Lit Mags of 2025 through this form ⬇️

www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

Let’s love on some editors, folks. They freakin’ deserve it!
Writers! Who are the best litmags of 2025? CHILL SUBS®
November 17, 2025 at 2:47 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Lit mags are usually known for their slow response times, but these amazing flash fiction pubs are trying to change that!

Submit to them here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/fast-f...

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
Fastest flash fiction magazines that respond in 1 week or less • Bending Genres - Thrilling, fanciful, oddball, unusual, stunning • Flash Frog - Stories like dart frogs: small, bright, and deadly to the touch • HAD - Minimalist, irreverent mag with popup submission calls • Kinda Weird Mag - Celebrating creativity at its roots • The Insurgence - Informative critical writing and celebratory creative writing • Genrepunk Magazine - Literary magazine for weird little experiments • Mukoli: The Magazine for Peace - Peacebuilding, healing, and changemaking • Hotch Potch Literature and Art - Discover, delight and differentiate • The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts - Weekly bursts of compression & decompression • MetaStellar - Wandering to the limits of what could be • The Future Fire - Progressive speculative fiction • The Rye Whiskey Review - E-zine dedicated to all things barroom • Intrepidus Ink - Gutsy, fearless, and unapologetic November 13, 2025
November 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Went down a New Yorker research rabbit hole and now we’re all gonna get FAMOUS, friends!

Read the full list here: bit.ly/m/ChillSubs FULL DISCLOSURE THOUGH - that is one of our paid pieces.

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
Want to publish in The New Yorker? Start with these 5 lit mags • The American Poetry Review + A top-ranked lit mag known for making careers • Denver Quarterly + Dedicated to pushing the boundaries of prose and poetry by publishing experimental work • London Review of Books + Work that reaches deep into the heart of the human condition and asks the difficult questions • Mid-American Review + A small but mighty open secret of a lit mag that's been around since the 70s • Poetry + A sprawling poetry paradise organized and designed with the reader front and center
November 12, 2025 at 5:01 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Tbh all poets have main character energy, so idk HOW we managed to narrow it down to 11. A lot of help from @onlypoemsmag.bsky.social and sleep deprivation probably.

Submit here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/poetry...

#writing #writingcommunity #poetry
11 Poetry mags with main character energy • Poetry #The power of words to transform lives • The Common #Literature with a modern sense of place • Lucky Jefferson #Publishing social change • The Stinging Fly #The best new writing from Ireland and beyond • Swamp Pink #Poems that leap from the very first line • Gulf Coast #Flow of international cultures, voices, and aesthetics • Seedlings #Roots in the old world and branches in the new • The Poetry Review #The heart and hands of poetry in the UK • 32 Poems #Poetry for the ear, the eye, and the ego • The Threepenny Review #Inspiration, radical accuracy, and genuineness • The Kenyon Review #Emerging writers from diverse communities CHILL SUBS® X ONLY POEMS
November 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Wowwweee over 3000 of you have already have joined First Draft November 🥲

Our free 30-day challenge where we write 50,000 words of our first drafts, side by side.

We have so many festivities planned friends. Come join? (Link in bio)

#writing #writingcommunity #writers
this is YOUR sign to write a novel First Draft November
November 3, 2025 at 3:01 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
It’s the spooky-ooky season and we’ve got a treat for you 👀 Bloodletter Magazine is extending their submission deadline by a week for all your last-minute scares! (Because we all know that writers are soooo good at hitting deadlines…)

www.chillsubs.com/lists/freak-...

#writing #writingcommunity
Lit Mags That Want Your Freak Shit Bloodletter Magazine x Chill Subs Graphic is a white, stylized illustration of a skeleton on a black background with the Bloodletter Magazine Logo on the left side. The Bloodletter Magazine logo is the word Bloodletter on a stencil of a wax seal.
October 31, 2025 at 5:01 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
These lit mags remind us of enchanting libraries, misty gardens, and secrets hidden within dusty tomes. If that sounds like your perfect afternoon, click the link to submit <3

➡️ www.chillsubs.com/lists/dark-a...

#writing #writingcommunity #litmags
→ Lit mags with dark academia vibes • The Yale Review #Join a conversation 200 years in the making • Poetry London #A catalyst for change • Fugue #Work that haunts and echoes • 32 Poems #Poetry for the ear, the eye, and the ego • The Ex-Puritan #A pioneering literature • The London Magazine #Since 1732 • New England Review #A vital snapshot of the literary moment • Willow Springs #Work that commands attention • The Massachusetts Review #Variety and vitality October 29, 2025
October 29, 2025 at 7:01 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Free MFA “ask-me-anything” event tomorrow(:

Register here: luma.com/pq8khn3q

Hosted by The University of Alabama’s MFA faculty

📍Virtual 📅 Wed 10/29 🕐 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EDT

#Mfa
The University of Alabama is Partnered with Chill Subs
October 28, 2025 at 5:59 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
These award-winning lit mags would be a crown jewel in any writer's bio *wink*

Submit to them here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/excell...

#writing #writingcommunity
14 Lit mags with excellent reputations *Competitive *Popular • AGNI #Jolting the inner eye • Baltimore Review #Space for expression • Brevity #Spotlighting the brief essay form • Gulf Coast #Community-oriented excellence • The Cincinnati Review #Championing diversity and growth • Granta #Narrative, visceral, and high-stakes • Georgia Review #Honoring differences • Kenyon Review #Lyric risk and emotional presence • The Malahat Review #Top-tier writing with a Canadian focus • Island Magazine #Sharp, artful, and grounded • The Missouri Review #Current and curated • Black Warrior Review #A beacon for adventurous writing • The Threepenny Review #Radical accuracy and genuineness • SmokeLong Quarterly #Eclectic and challenging work
October 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
chillsubs.bsky.social
Are you:
- Applying to MFA programs?
- Curious about how an MFA can support your goals?
- Baffled by what to include in an MFA application?

Join University of Alabama MFA in Creative Writing faculty members John Estes and Brooke Champagne on Oct 30 for an AMA on all things MFA!

luma.com/pq8khn3q
Poster graphic for a virtual AMA event. Title reads, "The MFA Life (star symbol) From applications, finding community & beyond" There is also a white RSVP button, and a few variously aligned texts that read "Chill Subs Live" and "with John Estes and Brooke Champagne" The right hand side shows two photos of people: John Estes, who has deep-set eyes, short brown hair, and some greying facial hair, is wearing a black button-up shirt and standing in front of a well-lit tree and white picket fence while smiling softly. Brooke Champagne, who has long brown hair, is wearing a light orange shirt under a navy blue jacket and orange earrings. She is standing against a blurred grey background and has a radiant smile.
October 23, 2025 at 1:03 PM