Lone Star Lit Mags

By Lauren Rheaume

Ah, Texas. Home of cowboys, rodeo, and the live music capital of the world. If you're a Texas savant, you might already know that the first word spoken from the moon was Houston, or that the state was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845. You might also know that the nation's first jalepeno flavored jelly was invented in Lake Jackson, and was first marketed in 1978.

But did you know that Texas is also the home of some very prestigious and interesting literary magazines? If not, it's time to paint your butt white and run with the antelope! Below is a list of journals from the Lone Star state. If you know of any others, feel free to add them to the list.

 
American Letters & Commentary is an eclectic literary magazine featuring innovative and challenging writing in all forms. The journal comes out of the department of English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Each annual issue features a substantial and diverse selection of fiction, poetry, essays, translation, and critical opinion by renowned and up-and-coming writers. Works from past issues of AL&C have been selected for Best American Poetry, Harper's, and the Pushcart Prize. The Fall 2011 issue is reviewed here.

American Short Fiction has published, and continues to seek, short fiction by some of the finest writers working in contemporary literature, whether they are established, or new or lesser-known authors. Anyone wishing to send a story to American Short Fiction should first become familiar with the work previously published by the magazine. Our standards for acceptance are extremely high.  The Spring 2008 issue is reviewed here and an interview with Editor Callie Collins is here.

Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review is a literary journal based in Austin, Texas that publishes poetry along with photographs, reviews and essays.

Camera Obscura is a Latin term that simply means "dark room." A camera obscura is therefore nothing more than a dark box or room with a pinhole at one end, and at the other, the projected image, in color, upside down, of the world outside the dark box by virtue of an amazing natural property of light traveling through a small hole. Add a mirror and you can turn the image right side up or direct it, add lenses to magnify the image, warp it, or project it onto paper and trace the image as Vermeer did, as Caravaggio was rumored to have done. We are the dark box. Your work is the pinhole. Camera Obscura is a biannual independent literary journal and internet haunt featuring contemporary literary fiction & photography. Contributors include established, as well as, emerging writers and photographers.  A review of the Winter 2010 issue is here.

Carcinogenic Poetry was founded in 2009 and is edited by Michael Aaron Casares. Carcinogenic Poetry has proven to be a base for the underground and independent poets and writers who want to read poetry and get their poetry read. Since its inception in the winter of 2009, Carcinogenic Poetry has featured over 100 poets and has been visited around the world by 1000's of readers and literary enthusiasts! Carcinogenic Poetry even boasts an annual print anthology! Carcinogenic Poetry is open to poetry submissions year-round. The motto at Carcinogenic Poetry is, "The truth is to lies like cancer!"

Carve Magazine (or Carvezine) is an online literary magazine that publishes short fiction on a quarterly basis. Carve seeks to publish outstanding literary fiction and to promote the writers we publish, helping both new, emerging, and established authors reach a wider literary audience. The magazine is named in honor of Raymond Carver, short story artist and master of the “minimalist” form, though his later works espoused a longer, more detailed style. We admire this dyad, as we strive to publish fiction that is both concise and generous. Above all, Carve, like its namesake, is honest fiction.

Dappled Things is a literary magazine dedicated to providing a space for emerging writers to engage the literary world from a Catholic perspective. The magazine is committed to quality writing that takes advantage of the religious, theological, philosophical, artistic, cultural, and literary heritage of the Catholic Church in order to inform and enrich contemporary literary culture.  explores the potential for super-brief literatures, via the immediacy of text-messages, to provide both writers and the general public with a literary appetizer--a ringing, vibrating love-note from the world of words. 

The First Line. The purpose of The First Line is to jump start the imagination--to help writers break through the block that is the blank page. Each issue contains short stories that stem from a common first line; it also provides a forum for discussing favorite first lines in literature. The First Line is an exercise in creativity for writers and a chance for readers to see how many different directions we can take when we start from the same place.

Front Porch is the online literary journal of Texas State University’s MFA program. Founded in 2006 by MFA students, Front Porch publishes exceptional poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reviews, and interviews. We’re also pleased to feature a one-of-a-kind video and audio archive, which showcases celebrated authors reading and discussing their work.  A review of the Fall 2011 issue is here.

Forty Ounce Bachelors. Founded in the spring of 2011, FortyOunceBachelors is operated out of beautiful Austin Goddamn Texas and releases new electro-literary issues on the first day of every month. We publish as much literature as possible with a small assortment of columns and features, as well as reviews and a mixtape. At FortyOunceBachelors, we don't care what your name is, what degrees you can claim, or how well your agent speaks of you. We publish work based on how engaging we find the material. All submissions get equal consideration, and we will never charge a reading fee. For that matter, we firmly believe that rejection letters don't do anyone any good. They more often than not inspire writer's block or even fuel a writer's tendency to give up. FortyOunceBachelors will not waste paper and pleasantries sending you a typed letter that eloquently rephrases "No, thanks." Instead, we promise to reply to all unselected submissions with what we hope is relevant, constructive feedback and some suggested reading. If we can't publish your work, we want to at least offer some help as you hone your craft and develop as a writer. Whether our responses aid you through seventeen revisions of the same story or start over with a new poem, we want your work to get better and better until it finds a home. 

Gulf Coast. Founded in 1986 by University of Houston faculty members Philip Lopate and Donald Barthelme, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts seeks to publish and promote quality literature in our local and national communities as well as to teach excellence in literary publishing to graduate and undergraduate students. Three reviews of Gulf Coast are here.

Haijinx. We accept original, unpublished haiku (preferably between 5 and 10 at a time), renga and renku, & haiga and sumi-e. We will also accept previously published work in these categories, but please include the publication information at the time you submit your work and do not submit work currently under consideration elsewhere. Please make sure that each submission contains a majority of unpublished work. Non-English works may be submitted with translation. We will publish them in both English and their native language. If you do not have a translation, contact us to see if we know of a translator who might work with you.We are always looking for articles on haiku, even from authors who disagree with us. Please contact us with your article ideas beforehand.

NANO Fiction. Founded in 2006 by Kirby Johnson and Jennifer Eberhardt, NANO Fiction is a bi-annual publication with issues appearing in the spring and fall. We publish flash fiction, prose poems, and micro essays of 300 words or fewer.

Reunion: The Dallas Review. For over two decades, Reunion: The Dallas Review has been dedicated to finding and publishing exceptional examples of short fiction, drama, visual art, poetry, translation work, non-fiction, and interviews. You may remember Reunion by its former name, Sojourn. We have a new look and a new name, but our mission remains cultivating the arts community in Dallas, Texas, and promoting the work of talented writers and artists both locally and across the globe.

Quicksilver is a literary magazine produced by students of the University of Texas at El Paso's online MFA program.  Quicksilver has many connotations, both literal--the mineral was mined in Terlingua, south of El Paso--and figurative--the word means erratic, malleable.  Quicksilver also equals charged writing: the best content we can find.

Southwest Review. Begun in 1915 and located on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Southwest Review is the third oldest, continuously published literary quarterly in the United States. Selections from Southwest Review have been reprinted in volumes of The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, The Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South, and elsewhere.

Southwestern American Literature is a biannual scholarly journal that includes literary criticism, fiction, poetry, and book reviews concerning the Greater Southwest. Since its inception in 1971, the journal has published premier works by and about some of the most significant writers in the region — and beyond. 

Torch Literary Arts is a nonprofit organization established to support and promote the work of African American women. We publish contemporary poetry, prose, and short stories by experienced and emerging writers alike. Our signature on-line journal, TORCH: poetry, prose, and short stories by African American Women has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, and many more. Read a review of TORCH'S winter 2010 issue here.

Unstuck Magazine is an independent literary annual based in Austin, Texas. We emphasize literary fiction with elements of the fantastic, the futuristic, the surreal, or the strange — a broad category that would include the work of writers as diverse as Borges, Ballard, Calvino, Huxley, Tutuola, Abe and (of course) Vonnegut. In our pages, you’ll find straight-up science fiction and fantasy; domestic realism with a twist of the magical; and work that experiments with form or blurs the boundaries between poetry and prose. We also publish a small selection of poems and essays.

vandal journal was founded in spring 2009 in College Station, TX. It is not a reaction to something, but a catalyst to conversation. It is the immigrant and the disenfranchised, the frustrated and the abandoned, the hopeful and the progressive. It is the work of the activist, for we believe that art and literature are obsolete if they don't move you, make you cry, make your bowels hurt from beneath your skin, make you outraged, sympathetic, or simply give a fuck.

Visions International. We publish well crafted exciting poetry and translations from modern poets, everywhere. Particularly interested in translations from less well known languages. for example we’ve published work from Albanian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Faroese, Kurdish, Icelandic, Urdu, just to name a few.

Visions with Voices welcomes submissions by Spoken Word artists and poets. Our primary mission in creating Visions with Voices is to promote the Spoken Word as a legitimate genre with standards that differentiate excellent work. We are creating here a venue that will give the artist a sense of accomplishment along with a respectable publishing credit.

Lauren Rheaume is the Director of Marketing and Outreach for The Review Review.

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