About Fiction

Fiction is a semiannual publication established in 1972 with a circulation of 4,000. It typically runs 150-250 pages, with illustrations or occasionally photos. The guiding principle of Fiction has always been to go to terra incognita in the writing of the imagination, and to ask that modern fiction set itself serious questions, interrogating the nature of the real and the fantastic. It represents no particular school of fiction, except the innovative. Fiction has traditionally attempted to make accessible the inaccessible, to bring the experimental to a broader audience. As a result of its willingness to publish the difficult, experimental and unusual, Fiction has a unique reputation in the U.S. and abroad as a journal of future directions. We pride ourselves on publishing established writers along with new, emerging voices. Stories first published in Fiction have been selected for the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, O. Henry Prize Stories, and Best American Short Stories. In the past we have featured work by such prize-winning authors as John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Heinrich Böll, Yasunari Kawabata, Camilo José Cela, Günter Grass, and John Barth to name a few, and have solicited work from such places as Haiti, China, Germany, Iran, Italy, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Israel, Japan, Mexico and Iran.

Submissions

We are currently not accepting online submissions. If you have already submitted work for consideration, click here to check on the status of your submission.

Due to the overwhelming response of our readers and writers, Fiction has received thousands of online submissions in the past several months. We are therefore temporarily suspending online submissions while our small but dedicated staff reads each submission. While our online submissions are suspended, you are welcome to submit to our mailing address below (please indicate in your cover letter if you are a subscriber).

Before submitting, non-subscribers should read several issues of the magazine to determine if your work fits with Fiction. Portions of the current issue and past issues are available to read on this site, and print versions are available for purchase by single-issue order and subscription on our subscription page. If you would like to see a recent issue, we offer an examination copy at a reduced rate, which you can also order on the subscription page. You may also mail us at our postal address below with payment of $7 for an examination copy.

At Fiction we welcome a discourse with our readers and submitters; when you submit, please tell us what you liked in one of our recent issues. How does your story illuminate, parallel, or contrast with one of our recent stories? We welcome your feedback and try to respond in kind whenever we are able.

We are a very small staff, assisted by a small team of caring and generous volunteers, who are collectively dedicated to reading and responding to the thousands of submissions Fiction receives annually. To aid us in this commitment, we ask that you submit only one story at a time, and no more than two stories per year. We are sorry that we are not able to read submissions of multiple stories, nor any unsolicited submissions that exceed two within a single reading year (September 15 - April 5). Any multiple submissions that we receive will regretfully be discarded, as will submissions sent during our off-season. We thank you for reading Fiction, and look forward to hearing from you.

As the name implies, we publish only fiction. We are looking for the best new writing available, leaning toward the unconventional, and we accept a variety of genres: experimental, satire, literary, translations, and contemporary (however, no romance, science fiction, etc.).

Fiction receives about 250 unsolicited manuscripts a month and accepts about 12-20 manuscripts an issue, or 24-40 a year. Our reading period is September 15 - April 5.

To submit, please send a complete manuscript with cover letter and SASE to:

Fiction
Mark J. Mirsky, Editor
Department of English
The City College of New York
138th St. & Convent Ave.
New York, NY 10031