The MacGuffin August 2025 features an expanded (and expandable fold-out) art portfolio of Sculptor Pascal Piermé to celebrate their fortieth volume in print. Returning contributor Max Blue offers a review of an obscure film by French auteur Jacques (“An Appeal to Unreason: On L’essai, the Banned Film of Jacques), and Ron McFarland revisits in poetry what is undoubtedly Vivaldi’s most famous work (“L’inverno”). Go for a ride with Angela Townsend’s nonfiction work, “Out to Dinner,” but do pull off for a pit stop to get the car’s-eye view in Colby Vargas’s fictional “Beast Runs.” Multidisciplinarian Laura Vogt bridges poetry and prose in a two-part mini feature, “Three Words for What We’ve Lost,” and in the poem “When My Kids Start to Speak English,” Kuo Zhang bridges cultures in a bilingual household to close the issue.

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

The MacGuffin April 2025 issue sold out at the 2025 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (!) but is now available again for individual purchase — whew! This hot issue features winners of Poet Hunt 29 with commentary by Judge Michael Meyerhofer as well as a look ahead to this year’s Poet Hunt 30 including a mini-feature of poems by Judge Darrel Alejandro Holnes. The issue rounds out with a quadruplet of short memoirs; fiction selections including Margaret Willey’s family drama — as turbulent as the lake it’s set on, and Angela Townsend’s “Present Lives,” whose main character invites readers to ‘tune in, turn on,’ referencing enhanced spirituality. All of this wrapped neatly within Jennifer Rodrigues’s compelling cover art, “Switch Plate.”

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

Celebrate forty years of publication with Fall 2024 The MacGuffin 40.1! Party in literary style with poetry from perennial MacGuffin fan-favorites Rebecca Foust, Poet Hunt 26 winner Patrick Wilcox, and Pushcart Prize awardee Jim Daniels; along with stories from Stephen A. Geller and Mary Lotz. Looking toward the future with authors new to MacGuffin’s pages: hit the mat in Tim Loperfido’s WWE-inspired epic, pay a three-poem visit to Susanna Rich’s Grandmother Mumchy, and take a relaxing, if somewhat hectic, family trip to the pool in Maureen D. Hall’s “The Pool.” Cap off the anniversary with the hometown art spread of woodcuts by Ernest Fackler.

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

The MacGuffin Spring 2024 (volume 39) features Barbara Crooker’s selections from POET HUNT 28, including Dawn Dupler’s grand prize–winning “Scars” and honorable mention selections by Johnny Cate and MacGuffin regular Rebecca Foust. There is also a four-poem spread by POET HUNT 29 guest judge Michael Meyerhofer. New prose selected for this issue invites readers to enjoy the unfolding postmodernism of Max Blue’s “Preservation”; the satirical “Taylor Kills a Unicorn” by Laton Carter; and the madcap reporter’s narrative of Nicholas Litchfield’s “Superstars of Today.” This issue features artwork by Metro Detroit painter and designer Linda Pelowski.

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

The MacGuffin Fall 2023 (vol. 39.2) issue welcomes a familiar name to the masthead’s editor slot: Brett M. Griffiths. Readers will remember Brett as a Poetry Staffer, and this issue’s diverse poetry selections should give a sense of this, from Angie Macri’s elegiac “The rain suddenly silver over the diamond,” to Rebecca Foust’s trio of Orwellian poems to, MacGuffin fan-favorite Joey Lew’s contemplative closing poem, “Holding Pattern.” The opening and closing stories follow the magazine’s recent bend toward narrative experimentation, with J. Grace’s Brautigan-esque “My Father Was a Serious Man” and the deconstructed narrative of Chris Wiberg’s “Multilateration” serving as prime examples.

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

The MacGuffin Spring/Summer 2023 issue marks the final volume of long-time typesetter and designer Ione Skaggs. The publication sends her off in grand style with a new story with a post-modern bend from MacGuffin favorite Gracjan Kraszewski to open things up and closes with a touching story that ruminates on both art and artists from Jeffrey Ihlenfeldt. In poetry, Karen Marker admits she’s “Been Following You on Instagram” and Laura Grace Weldon muses on the theater of our own lives in “Rich People We Know Offer Theater Tickets;” all this plus a four-poem spread of food-related poetry to inspire any reader’s next charcuterie foray. Cover art: “Dinner Guests” by Carol Aust, whose works are also featured in a full-color portfolio inside the issue.

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

The MacGuffin Winter 2023 (38.3) issue features Lynne Thompson’s Poet Hunt 27 commentary and selections: Grand Prize Winner Judy Brackett Crowe and Honorable Mentions Abby Caplin and Sam Ferrante. Leaving Poet Hunt 27 behind, The MacGuffin gives readers a look ahead to 2023’s Poet Hunt 28, guest judged by Barbara Crooker, with a five-poem spread from the judge-to-be. The issue is rounded out with an eclectic collection of prose: from Carolyn Watson’s Hitchcockian “Hag,” to Scott Ragland’s postmodern World War II short “Wings,” to Carolyn Highland’s “Echoes,” and Gigi Cheng’s masterful essay “The difference between Chinese and English.”

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

The newest issue of Schoolcraft College’s The MacGuffin (vol. 38.2) makes good on their staff’s mission to find work that takes risks with and evolves the narrative form. Look to Lisa L. Leibow’s “The Watch,” which utilizes multiple forms of the written word, as well as the magazine’s first-ever comic panel; Derek Updegraff’s “One Day at Work” satirizes message board vernacular; and A.J. Cunder’s “A Recipe for Chicken Parm” entwines the story in, well, a recipe for chicken parm. Augmenting these works are Janée J. Baugher’s ekphrases on two Andrew Wyeth paintings and Len Krisak’s tribute to “Four Characters” of a bygone era in Hollywood. Cover image: Mission Cone Flowers by Maeve Croghan.

The MacGuffin Spring 2022 (Vol. 38, No. 1) comes with a double-shot of Poet Hunts past and present. Beginning with Guest Judge Indigo Moor’s selections from Poet Hunt 26: Grand Prize Winner Patrick Wilcox and Honorable Mentions Camille Carter and Karen Hones. Following is a five-poem feature of 2022’s Poet Hunt 27 Guest Judge Lynne Thompson. All of these writers were recently featured in a YouTube reading. In addition, this volume features Poetry by David Brehmer, Sarah C. Brockhaus, Anthony DiMatteo, Kevin Grauke, Eloise Klein Healy, Mary Beth Hines, Ken Holland, Margaret B. Ingraham, Marci Rae Johnson, Susan L. Leary, Alison Luterman, James Macmillen, Marjorie Maddox, Chrissy Martin, James McKee, James McKee, Karl Meade, Kathleen Meadows, Teresa Milbrodt, Derek Mong, Hanna Pachman, J. Scott Price, J. Stephen Rhodes, M.A. Schaffner, Deborah Bachels Schmidt, Carla Schwartz, John Zedolik; Nonfiction by Angela Bean, Jessie Carson, Bruce Cohen, David James, Judith Saunders; Fiction by Michael Garcia Bertrand, Felicia Cameron, Tom Eubanks, Bill Kitcher, Randy F. Nelson, Emanuele Pettener, John Picard, Daniel Webre; along with the postcard views Cuba as portrayed through Bruce Katz’s evocative watercolors.

The cover of the MacGuffin’s Vol. 37.2 is a postcard, painted by featured artist Kathleen Frank, sent from summer vacation. Travel stories abound: hike to ESSNWNAU-AL in Gracjan Kraszewski’s “First Impressions” and fly out to Saskatchewan on a brief hunt for truth and a certain mythological creature in Alexander Wentzell’s “Big Feet.” Check out what other pieces are in this issue at The MacGuffin website.