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Flycatcher: A Journal of Native Imagination of literature and art published online twice a year (winter and summer).

Editors Christopher Martin, Kathleen Brewin Lewis, Karen Pickell, Precious Williams, Jennifer Martin, Laurence Stacey, Jordan Thrasher, and Megan Gehring created Flycatcher to help bring together a place-based literary conversation in suburban Atlanta. Flycatcher does not necessarily aim to be a regional publication, though the editors “do think of the southeastern United States as our literary ground.” Readers of Flycatcher can expect to find “good, lyrical, sometimes gritty pieces of writing and art that are expressions of belonging to a place – or sometimes a lack of belonging.”

The first issue features poetry from Janisse Ray, John Lane, Thomas Rain Crowe, Marianne Worthington, Erik Reece, J. Drew Lanham, Rosemary Royston; fiction from Sharanya Manivannan, Raymond L. Atkins, and Beverly James; nonfiction from Susan Cerulean, Bobbi Buchanan, Casey Clabough, Linda Niemann, Holly Haworth; visual art from Brian Brown, Sarah McFalls, and an interview with Barbara Brown Taylor.

While Flycatcher is planning for two issues a year, Martin says they hope to put out three or maybe four issues a year as they gain experience. Additionally, he says, “down the road, we’d like to explore the possibility of putting out one or two print issues a year. And right now we’re figuring out ways to get Flycatcher out into the community through readings, workshops, and other events.”

Flycatcher editors will consider all genres via e-mail. Deadline to be considered for summer issue is May 1, though submissions are accepted year-round and on a rolling basis.

The Barefoot Review is an online/PDF publication of poetry and short prose (non-fiction) meant to “provide a venue for people who have dealt with hardship to express themselves and read other about others who have faced hardship.”

Specifically, this biannual edited by Amy King, Nicholas Gordon, Mel Glenn, and Jason Teeple “welcomes submissions of poetry or short prose from people who have or have had physical difficulties in their lives, from cancer to seizures, Alzheimer’s to Lupus. It is also a place for caretakers, families, significant others and friends to write about their experiences and relationships to the person. They are a vital part to being able to live with an illness.”

Why Barefoot? The editors give several meanings: “Baring your soul and expressing naked feelings. Bare feet ground you, give you balance, and connect you to the earth. The review is here from a desire to help others.”

The editors understand that “writing can be a tremendous source of healing and allow difficult feelings and ideas to be expressed.” And while they understand the unfortunate reality that they cannot publish every piece they receive, they note: “Writing, verbalizing feelings that may be subconscious or unexpressed is more important than the acknowledgment of being published here.”

Contributors to the first issue include Sonnet Alyse, Karen Alkalay-Gut, Michele Battiste, Ruth Bavetta, Laura D. Bellmay, Linda Benninghoff, Mike Berger, Rose Mary Boehm, Harry Calhoun, Joan Colby, Carol Dorf, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Elizabeth Dunphey, J. Míchel Fleury, Meg Harris, Anne Higgins, Val Morehouse, David Mullen, B.Z. Niditch, Darlene M. Pagán, Natalie Parker-Lawrence, Jason Parsley, Amber Peckham, Lisa V. Proulx, Michael Rowe, Willa Schneberg, Doug Schroeder, Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, Anne Shigley, Shelby Stephenson, Marc Thompson, and Judith Williams.

The editors hope that each edition will continue to print pieces from target individuals and provide a venue for talk and expression of these difficult issues. In doing so, and in continued promotion of the publication, The Barefoot Review will increase awareness of the subjects it publishes.

The Barefoot Review is looking for e-mail submissions from two categories of people: 1) those who currently have or have survived a serious health issue and 2) those in their lives — caregivers, families, significant others, friends, doctors, nurses, social workers, therapists, anyone who has experiences to share. See the website for more specific details.

Crossed Out Magazine is an online bi-annual (summer/winter) edited by John Joseph Hill and Ana Zurawski, with the first issue is focused on fiction.

Motivating their efforts to start up a new publication, Hill and Zurawski were driven by a desire “to publish short fiction that is fast paced and socially aware to some degree. We also believe that independent, free, online magazines allow writers a flexible and accessible platform to show their work.” Which is what readers can expect to find in each issue.

The inaugural issue of Crossed Out features short fiction by Sam Pink, Melissa Reddish, Benjamin Willems, James Hritz, Chris Castle, James Ford, Thomas Sullivan, and Robert Gerleman, as well as photography by Justin Purnell.

Hill says their future plans for Crossed Out include creating a downloadable and printable version of the magazine for upcoming issues. He also notes expanding consideration for content: “We also accept other types of submissions (photography, art, poetry, CNF, etc) for Issue 2 if queried first.”

Crossed Out is currently accepting short fiction and other content for Issue #2. Deadline: July 1, 2012; pay $20 USD per story.

drafthorse is a biannual (Feb/July) online publication of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual narrative, and other media art.

Editor Denton Loving, an emerging writer from East Tennessee, co-edits drafthorse along with Darnell Arnoult, prize-winning author of What Travels With Us: Poems (LSU Press) and the novel Sufficient Grace (Free Press). Liz Murphy Thomas is an artist, photographer and educator who serves as art editor.

Published by Lincoln Memorial University, located in the heart of the Appalachians, the theme of the drafthorse is “work and no work.” Denton Loving explains, “Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) was established as a work school in the heart of Appalachia, and work continues to be a driving force in our contemporary lives. Work has defined our region beginning with indigenous peoples, and later with settlers of European and African descent who extracted a living on steep hillsides amid a stunning but often treacherous landscape. Today, alongside a liberal arts education, LMU offers professional education in the areas of osteopathic medicine, law, education and business. The editors of drafthorse are interested in work, or the absence of work, as an avenue to explore how people both manifest and transcend their nature as physical and spiritual beings.”

drafthorse publishes content where “work, occupation, labor,” explains Loving, “or lack of the same, is in some way intrinsic to a narrative’s potential for epiphany. While we at drafthorse are just as eager to publish stories or poems about a grape grower from the Napa Valley or photographs of lobster fishermen in Maine, we originate from the mountain South, and we will most definitely look to publish a healthy dose of storytelling that reflects our own history in relationship to labor.”

Contributors in the first issue include Lisa Alther, Gloria Ballard, Joseph Bathanti, Gabriel Morley and Stephanie Whetstone with fiction; Matt Berman, Judy Goldman and Matt Martin with creative non-fiction; Michael Chitwood, Janet Kirchheimer, Maurice Manning, Chris Martin, Rosemary Royston, and Iris Tillman with poetry. Artwork by Jeff Whetstone and Robert Gipe.

Loving says the editors at drafthorse look forward to incorporating more music and film in the near future, and eventually hope to publish more than twice a year.

Submissions to drafthorse are accepted through email and on a rolling basis. The editors are particularly seeking original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and visual art.

Northwind is a literary quarterly published by Chain Bridge Press available online and via Kindle and edited by Tom Howard (Managing Editor) and Abbe Steel (Editor).

Tom Howard commented on the motivation to start a new literary magazine: “I guess because a world full of stories is a richer kind of world. And there’s something exhilarating about not only finding stories and poems that deserve an audience, but finding that audience as well. It’s a challenge and a responsibility. We also happen to think that there’s still a great demand for affecting and provocative stories and poetry, maybe a greater demand than ever. With the advent of mobile devices and e-readers, literature is so much easier to discover, and somewhere out there, there is a vast untapped audience of casual, intelligent readers who wouldn’t have known how or where to buy a literary magazine even ten years ago. So we’re in the business of discovery, in every way.”

Readers who discover Northwind, as Howard says, can expect to find “A blend of realism, surrealism, humor, melancholy, the future and the past, great characters, sharp dialogue, unguarded and unsentimental poetry, and sustained, lyrical writing. And an occasional ghost or talking chimp.”

The first issue of Northwind includes fiction by Christie VanLaningham, Malcolm Dixon, Miles Klee, L.E. Sullivan, Tom Johns, Amanda Bales, Michael Trudeau, Stephen Baily, and Robert Cormack; poetry by Carl James Grindley, Kenneth Pobo, Marydale Stewart, Mark Jackley, Steve Klepetar, Laura Kathryn McRae, June Sylvester Saraceno, Andr

Hailing from the west coast, The Monarch Review is available online (publish 3 times a week, or so) and in print (publish every six months, available to purchase online and in Seattle bookstores).

The editorial staff includes an eclectic mix of background and expertise with Jacob Uitti (Managing Editor, Poetry and Fiction Editor), Caleb Thompson (Nonfiction, Music and Poetry Editor), Andrew Bartels (Visual Art and Poetry Editor), Nick Koveshnikov (Technical Editor), and Evan Flory-Barnes (Music Editor).

Jacob Uitti provided some background information on the publication: “The Monarch Review was started in the spirit of the Monarch Apartments in Seattle, home to a myriad of writers, musicians, visual artists, thinkers, pranksters, cranks and the curious. We wanted to create a community, a forum, for upcoming and established writers and to continue the vagabond culture of the Monarch Apartments.”

Both online and in print, readers can find “work that displays the inherent human conflict. Poetry and faith and doubt. Fiction that knows death but is not dead. Essays that illuminate the difficulty and yet the humor of life. Art and music a person can both lose and find oneself in.”

The first print issue features works by Rebecca Hoogs, Rebecca Bridge, Jason Whitmarsh, Jim Brantingham, Amy Gerstler, Jed Myers, Ed Ochester, Abigail Warren, Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde (poetry); Chris Engman, Jesse Sugarmann (visual art); Jim Brantingham, Zac Hill, Valery Petrovsky, Caleb Powell (prose); and Julie Larios (interview).

Uitti says hopes the publication continues to put out high quality work, to maintain a community under the umbrella of the publication, and to reach more people in the coming months and years.

The editors encourage submissions of all work: “If it’s good, it’s good,” Uitti says. The Monarch Review accepts submissions year-round via Submishmash. Currently, there are no thematic issues planned.

Sucker Literary Magazine is an annual PDF and Kindle publication for young adults produced by Senior Editor/Founder Hannah Goodman, Art, Layout, and Design Executive Editor Alyssa Gaudreau, and Copy Editor Bouvier Servillas.

Goodman’s initial searches for exclusively young adult lit mags did not yield the kind of literature she was looking for, so she started Sucker to fill this void. In Sucker, she tells us, readers can find “edgy, compelling, new YA literature that both teens and adults can enjoy.” Goodman expands on their concept of edgy: “This means we do not avoid sex, drugs, complicated friendships and relationships with parents. It also means that we don’t want to preach to teens about those subjects. That being said, it’s not just about the subject. It’s also about language and voice: authentic sounding characters and a narrative voice that reflects the tone of the story.”

Sucker editors also hope that writers will see the publication as “something different” from other YA venues: “Not just ‘please no more vampires.’ If you love writing about vampires, then put him on a skateboard and have him crash into a human teenage guy. Maybe they fight and maybe the vampire loses. Maybe they become great friends. Maybe they fall in love.”

Sucker is also a different venue for writers in that the editors will be on the lookout for “raw talent that just needs a smidge of guidance.” Goodman explains: “Our staff readers fill out detailed feedback sheets to decide if the pieces should be accepted or rejected. Pieces that readers feel are close to being ‘there’ are critiqued and sent back to our senior editor.” From there, they will “invite the writer to be mentored for a draft or two.”

Contributors to the first issue of Sucker include: R F Brown, Claudia Classon, Shelli Cornelison, Candy Fite, Sarah Hannah Gómez, Hannah R. Goodman, Paul Heinz, Natalia Jaster, Josh Prokopy, James Silberstein, Mima Tipper, and Aida Zilelian.

Like so many new publications, Goodman’s plans for the future of the publication is simply to continue producing quality issues. She hopes to see the publication available as a print-on-demand version as well.

Sucker is currently open for submissions until May 1 via e-mail. Full guidelines on listed on the site.