Paying Narrative Nonfiction

Does It Have Pockets is an online literary magazine with an emphasis on the uncategorizable. Scifi poetry? Memoir as instruction manual? Fiction as recipe? If you’ve ever thought, “I’m not sure where this piece belongs,” try us! A note on our name: A question became a metaphor for what we carry into our lives and stories. Around here, pockets aren’t sewn shut for a good silhouette. We welcome your pockets: large, small, messy, empty, and frayed.
Topics: Open to all/most topics.
Lengths:    Interview, Review, Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Token to Semi-pro. Details: USD $10.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 19.4 days.
Acceptances: Approachable. 12.0% of nonfiction submissions accepted.

The Forge Literary Magazine was founded by volunteers from the Fiction Forge, an international online writers’ forum, which counts amongst its members and alumni winners of numerous literary awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Bridport Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize and the Pinch Literary Award in Fiction. Former members’ novels have been published by Bloomsbury, Chatto & Windus, Sceptre, Headline and Little, Brown…
Topics: Open to all/most topics.
Lengths: Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Semi-pro to Professional. Details: $100.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 15.8 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 2.9% of nonfiction submissions accepted.

The Good Life Review is a literary journal committed to exploring the overlooked. Based out of Omaha, Nebraska—astride the oft unnoticed—we recognize that there are a myriad of voices that call the regions surrounding us home. Our mission is to lift up the strange, the daring, and the underrepresented to reveal complexities hidden in our heartland and beyond. We seek to elevate writing that takes risks and challenges perceptions; writing that lingers and haunts long after the last line.
Topics:   Open to all/most topics, including: Place/Regions.
Lengths:   Essay, Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Token to Professional. Details: USD $60 for one piece; $75 for two pieces.
Avg. Response: Average responder. 63.3 days.
Acceptances: Unknown. None reported yet in nonfiction.

At Literally we embrace the complexity, intelligence, and creativity of women around the world. Inspired by Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, we strive to abolish the idea that beauty and brains are mutually exclusive. Our pages consist of thought-provoking literature, essays, and other art forms for women contrasted with the aesthetics of the feminine magazines we know and love, showing that the two can and do co-exist…
Topics: Open to all/most topics.
Lengths:   Essay, Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Token to Professional. Details: USD $25 per piece.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 34.5 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 6.7% of nonfiction submissions accepted.

New Voices is open to any new and emerging author who has not published a work of fiction or narrative nonfiction of novel length. You must not have a novel forthcoming at the time of submission. New Voices are published online only and will feature a number of stories from new authors each month. Stories published in New Voices have been selected for The Best Small Fictions and Best of The Net anthologies…
Topics: Open to all/most topics.
Lengths: Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Semi-pro to Professional. Details: USD $100 for flash; $200 for longer works.
Avg. Response: Average responder. 61.2 days.
Acceptances: Unknown. None reported yet in nonfiction.

Daily humor almost every day since 1998.
Topics:   Open to all/most topics, including: Lifestyle.
Lengths:    Review, Essay, Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: Unknown.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 7.0 days.
Acceptances: Unknown. None reported yet in nonfiction.

A sequestrum is a necrotic bone fragment, identifiable by its separation from standard skeletal structures. Despite its autonomy, these slivers retain the phosphates and marrows of their source. A sequestrum is a remnant, independent yet interconnected to its origin. And so is the writing we publish. Sequestrum is a journal of short prose and poetry. We publish concise, evocative writing that couldn’t exist in any other form, yet reminds us of the breadth and scope of longer works…
Topics:   Open to all/most topics, including: Other.
Lengths:     Review, Article, Essay, Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Token to Semi-pro. Details: USD $20.
Avg. Response: Average responder. 78.6 days.
Acceptances: Unknown. None reported yet in nonfiction.

Short Reads is a free literary magazine emailed every Wednesday morning featuring flash nonfiction. Each edition of Short Reads is a snack in your inbox, an invitation to take a little break but not to open yet another tab in your browser. The world throws a lot of information and noise at us, a lot of the time, and flash can be an antidote for that: a brief time-out that can take you out of yourself…
Topics: Open to all/most topics.
Lengths: Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: Professional. Details: USD $100 for original pieces; $25 for reprints.
Avg. Response: Average responder. 52.6 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 5.4% of nonfiction submissions accepted.

Sundog Lit is committed to publishing pieces that engage with tension, introspection, empathy, considered positionality, thoughtful form play, emotional courage, and musicality. Sundog Lit is equally committed to uplifting voices from all corners in hopes of breaking down ideas of who is widely read and rebelling against normative power structures that stifle expression…
Topics:   Open to all/most topics, including: Memoir.
Lengths:   Essay, Narrative Nonfiction.
Payment: to Semi-pro to Professional. Details: USD $50.
Avg. Response: Slower than average responder. 113.2 days.
Acceptances: Unknown. None reported yet in nonfiction.