These magazines publish fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They are a mix of literary and genre magazines.

On Spec
This is a Canadian magazine of speculative fiction and poetry. They are open for submissions now.
Deadline: 15 December 2023
Length: Fiction up to 6,000 words
Pay: CAD100 for short-shorts (under 2,000 words) and poetry, CAD0.05/word for fiction up to 6,000 words
Details here.

(And, Strange Horizons is scheduled to reopen on 18^th December for speculative fiction submissions — see the announcement here – they usually remain open until they hit a submission cap. Various other genres are open for submissions. They accept up to 10,000 words for fiction (up to 5,000 words preferred); pay is $0.10/word for fiction, varies for others; details here and here.)

The Ex-Puritan
This Canadian magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, experimental/hybrid work, interviews, reviews, and poetry. They accept a limited number of fee-free submissions every month. 
Deadline: 25 December 2023, or until filled, for the next issue; reads year-round
Length: Up to 10,000 words for fiction, up to 4 poems; various for nonfiction (see guidelines)
Pay: CAD200 per essay; CAD150 for fiction; CAD100 per interview or review; CAD35 per poem (or page, capped at CAD120); CAD50+ per experimental or hybrid work, at an increasing scale depending on the nature of the piece
Details here and here.

(– And Ninth Letter is open for fee-free submissions of poetry and creative nonfiction for their print magazine via Submittable through December; they have reached the cap for online submissions of fiction, though there is no charge for mailed submissions; they pay $100 for prose and $25 for poetry; details here.
— Also, Bennington Review opened during mid-November; they accept fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, film writing, cross-genre work, and translations. Pay is $120-250 for prose, and $25 per poem. The deadline is 8^th March 2024. Details here and here.)

The Ampersand Review
This magazine is affiliated with Sheridan College, and they may prioritize work by Canadian writers (see guidelines). They accept fiction (including flash fiction), nonfiction, poetry, and pitches for reviews. See the note on their website: “Our reading period for Issue #6 runs from December 1st 2023-January 31st, 2024.”
Deadline: 31 January 2024
Length: Up to 4,000 words for short fiction and creative nonfiction, up to 5 poems
Pay: $100 for prose, $50 per poem/page up to $100
Details here.

Menagerie
They accept fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. “We believe in sentences so sharp they draw blood, the strange and inexplicable, the wild and weird and uncanny, words in thickets, clusters, and flocks, pieces that move us beyond caring what others think about said pieces.” You can read about them and the kind of work they like here.
Deadline: Open now
Length: Up to 5,000 words for prose, 3-5 poems
Pay: $50
Details here and here.

Palette Poetry
This is a poetry magazine. “Submissions for our Featured Poetry category are open year-round to poets at any stage of their careers. Featured poems are published online only and will spotlight a number of poems from new authors each month. We highly encourage emerging authors to submit.” They have other categories listed too on their Submittable page, including quick response for marginalized authors.
Deadline: Ongoing
Length: Up to 5 poems (see guidelines)
Pay: $50/poem, up to $150
Details here and here.

Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.

You can easily get a good feel for what The Good River Review has published recently by reading their most recent issue here. As a side note, the editor in chief, Kathleen Driskell, wrote a thoughtful letter from the editor about the shuttering of The Gettysburg Review, and literary journals in general. You can read it here.

Current students at the Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing can not submit to the journal, but everyone else can. Work must not be previously published. Simultaneous submissions are permitted as long as you reach out if your work is accepted elsewhere.

They try to respond to all submissions within 4 months.

While they publish excellent children’s books (I first encountered them through the book, The Rare, Tiny Flower by Kitty O’Meara), they do not appear to be open to unsolicited submissions of them.

Instead they ask for proposals about “fine and decorative arts, architecture, and design.” They go on to say, “we place a premium on works that contribute to advancing cultural, social, and environmental awareness. In particular, we are interested in books from artists, architects and architecture firms, designers, museums, galleries, arts organizations, professors, and universities. We seek out books and subject matter that will appeal to both general and professional readers.”

Only submit a proposal to them, if you feel like your book is a good fit based on the above description, and time spent with their catalog, here.

Their submission guidelines are here. Please follow them carefully, if your work is a good fit. They try to respond to all submissions within two months.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

In my psychology classes in school, I learned that you overcome your fears not by avoiding them but by facing them. So, as a young, ambitious writer, I started doing the things I was afraid of doing, such as submitting my work to a magazine I really admired.

I don’t know if it was luck, skill, or the goodness of people, but doing scary things didn’t turn out to be as dreadful as I’d expected. In fact, it led to some of the most rewarding experiences I’ve enjoyed as a writer. And so I believe more of us should try scary things to challenge ourselves. Here are some ideas:

Announce your writing project on social media

Starting with something small is a great way of getting used to doing scary things. Set your goals for the year/month, then share them online. Announce what you’re working on. Share daily progress (word count, number of pages, etc.) Write about what went well and what didn’t. Keep a writing log, but in public.

Let someone whose opinion you deeply value read your writing

This does not include people who’ll always say good things about your work just to encourage you. To truly challenge yourself, ask for feedback from someone who understands what good writing looks like and would give you honest feedback. This could be a colleague, a fellow writer, or someone you respect. It’ll make you work harder on your prose, polish it, and make it presentable–so even if they end up not reading it because they’re busy, at least you’ll have an edited piece which you can then:

Submit to a literary magazine

One of the things I’ve learned is that we writers are very bad at judging the quality of our own work. I’ve heard from several writers and bloggers who expected a piece of writing to do well only for it to hear crickets, while what they thought was an ordinary post took off and was widely loved. I have experienced this myself.

So if you have a piece you can send to a particular literary magazine that you read regularly and understand well, submit it to them instead of spending forever trying to perfect it. The worst thing that can happen is that they say no and you don’t get to add the publication to your CV. But that’s how your CV is right now already, so why not give it a go? What if they say yes?

Share an excerpt of some of your worst writing

Not every day is a good writing day. Sometimes, it’s confusing writing, at other times, it’s hilariously poor work. Back when I had a years-long daily writing streak, this happened quite often—I was young and just learning, after all.

At one point, tinkering with a terrible first draft, I wondered just how bad famous writers’ first drafts were. Since we never get to see that, I thought, why not publish my own bad writing? Perhaps another writer might appreciate knowing that we all can mess up words and it’s okay if that happens.

I don’t remember how many people saw my blog post. But that’s not as important as the fact that I learned to laugh at myself; my drafts were bad and nonsensical and overly dramatic and that was fine.

Contact an author you love

Every time I read a short story online that I really love and/or wish I’d written, I find the author’s email or website and send them a thank you note–both for the time I spent enjoying their story and for the inspiration they gave me to work on my own.

How is this scary? When you love someone’s work, it can often be daunting to contact them–what would they think of you and your writing? What if it makes you feel like you’ll never be as good as them?

But contacting authors has led to only good things. Many times, I’ve received replies— including two from one of my most favorite authors, Marie Brennan. I’ve also been on the receiving end of such emails a few times—once from this very magazine.  (Thanks, Dorothy!)

Emails like these are reminders that words matter, no matter who writes them and where they are published. And this is true regardless of whether you’re the one sending or receiving them. They’re also reminders that other writers aren’t my competition. I don’t have to be jealous, I don’t have to consider myself a failure, or find that my ambitions aren’t enough–thoughts that are often difficult to confront.

Do a 30-day public writing challenge

Posting your work online for anyone to read is scary but don’t we all want people to read and love our work? Writing online is one way to do that—and I suggest doing it not once, but every day for 30 days. After that, you can stop posting and reflect on what you learned about publishing on a regular schedule. Or you can continue posting and build a community of readers.

However, be careful in choosing which stories/poems you share online. Magazines consider online publication, even on a super obscure public blog with zero views, as a previous publication, and will not accept your piece on these grounds alone, regardless of its quality.

But if your goal is to become more comfortable with sharing your work, be open to criticism (and appreciation) or establish a regular online writing practice, then I’d highly suggest posting your work online. Who knows what love and opportunities you might find as a result?

At the very least, doing scary things like this will help you understand one thing: nothing in the world is as terrifying as our own ideas of how bad things could get. The reality, surprisingly, is much kinder than we believe.

Bio: Ratika Deshpande is the editor of The Metronome, a bi-monthly magazine for people who want to study psychology and make a career in the field.