Smart Search List of the Day

Paying Fee-Free Literary Fiction

Smart Search is one of several search options for our members. It enables you to search for publishers and agents using the most common options and provides a short list of results that's curated and updated daily. This helps you find that gold nugget in the stream with as little effort as possible. Although you aren't a member yet, we are giving you a free preview of our Smart Search List of the Day below. Check back tomorrow for a new search. Read our Guide to Smart Search for more information about this feature.

Instructions: Select at least one bolded (asterisk) option below and click Search. To include some lesser-known publishers, select "Include Wildcards."

Piece:

Clear

Poetry Form:*

Topic:*

Include Scholarly publications

Genre:*

Style:*

Medium:*

Length:*

Include literary agents as well as publishers

Max. Results:

Fees:

Include Fee-Based Submissions

Pay:

Paying Projects Only

Include 'Unknown' Payscale

Refinements:

Include Wildcards

Wildcards are listings that are lesser-known and don't have enough data yet for complete statistics.

Exact Matches Only

Sort By:

Today's Smart Search List of the Day is: Paying Fee-Free Literary Fiction. Check back tomorrow for a new list.
Color Coding: Purple indicates a Wildcard, Green indicates a paying publication, and Blue is everything else.

Banshee

Banshee is a journal of exciting, accessible, contemporary writing from Ireland and around the world.
Genres: General.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story.
Payment: Professional. Free copy(ies). Details: EUR €75 for flash fiction; €250 for a story.
Avg. Response: Average responder. 77.4 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 1.3% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

Claudine

Claudine is free, online monthly literary magazine. Each issue presents two microfictions, two micro creative nonfictions, a micro by a new writer, and a prose chapbook review (or two). Just like Claudine the cat, the prose we publish is curious, clever, and quick. Our mission is to rekindle each reader's sense of humanness through original microprose and to highlight the breathtaking array of story and emotion captured in prose chapbooks produced by small, independent presses…
Genres: General.
Lengths: Flash Fiction.
Payment: Professional. Details: USD $25.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 6.0 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 5.3% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

The Last Line Literary Journal Wildcard

cover image for The Last Line Literary Journal

Over the years, we've found that ending a story is almost as hard as starting one. All too often we receive wonderful tales that have one more sentence or paragraph than needed, and we've kicked around the idea of doing an issue of The First Line where we flip the script and give you the last line. But why just one issue? Why not a whole new journal? Well, your wish is our command.
Genres: General.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story.
Payment: to Token to Professional. Details: USD $20-$40.

Select

Jump to Actions

Micro of the Month Writing Challenge

No description available.
Genres: General.
Lengths: Flash Fiction.
Winner's Prize: Professional. Details: USD $30 for winner.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 22.8 days.
Acceptances: Approachable. 9.1% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

Mud Season Review

Mud Season Review is an international literary journal run by members of the Burlington Writers Workshop, a free writing workshop based in Vermont. We seek to celebrate the full process of artistic creation, from inspiration to publication—welcoming into our open and collaborative community wide-ranging voices that tramp and track in the mud of human experience. Our staff is dedicated to creating a journal that mirrors the openness of these workshops…
Genres: General.
Lengths: Short Story.
Payment: to Semi-pro to Professional. Details: USD $50.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 47.6 days.
Acceptances: Unknown. None reported yet in fiction.

Select

Jump to Actions

Neon & Smoke

Neon & Smoke is a home for bold, voice-driven fiction with emotional weight and narrative fire. We publish stories that don’t sit quietly—tales where the plot might thrill, chill, or make you laugh, but always reveals something deeper. We crave characters who leap off the page, language that crackles, and stories that blur the line between genre and literary not for the sake of novelty, but it’s the most honest way to tell the truth…
Genres: Open to all/most genres, including: General, Horror, Suspense/Thriller.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story.
Payment: to Semi-pro to Professional. Details: USD $20 flat payment.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 1.7 days.
Acceptances: Average. 8.1% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

Orison Books

Today, a significant gap exists between literary publishers and strictly religious publishers. Literary publishers occasionally publish books of spiritual depth, but few, if any, set out to do so as a mission and raison d’être. Religious publishers, on the other hand, tend to publish work that offers little appeal to readers outside a particular ideological group…
Genres: General.
Lengths: Novella, Fiction Collection, Novel.
Payment: + Unknown advance. Unknown royalties.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 69.4 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 1.5% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

Queen's Quarterly

Queen's Quarterly is a multidisciplinary journal aimed at the general educated reader. We print unpublished articles, essays, reviews, short stories and poetry.
Genres: Open to all/most genres, including: General.
Lengths: Short Story.
Payment: Unknown. Details: Payment is "determined at time of acceptance."
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 2.4 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 6.9% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

Reckoning

Reckoning: an imperfect means of navigation by which one determines where they’re going using only where they’ve been. Reckoning: a settling of scores; justice. Environmental justice: the notion that the people responsible for shaping the ways humanity collectively values and interacts with all ecosystems, forms, and sources of life have not historically been the people who suffer the consequences of those choices, and that needs to change…
Genres: Open to all/most genres, including: General, Fantasy, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novelette.
Payment: Professional. Details: USD $0.15/word.
Avg. Response: Faster than average responder. 35.8 days.
Acceptances: Challenging. 1.8% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

The Sunlight Press

The Sunlight Press is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, digital literary journal that provides a home to new and established voices. We welcome creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, book and film reviews, photography, and reflections by artists on their craft. We want to hear the ways people turn toward light and hope, whether it is through the arts, culture, spirituality, or humor, and also how they respond to darkness and navigate unknown spaces…
Genres: General.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story.
Payment: to Semi-pro to Professional. Details: USD $50.
Avg. Response: Average responder. 71.1 days.
Acceptances: Approachable. 11.8% of fiction submissions accepted.

Select

Jump to Actions

Bulk Actions: Select all | Deselect all

Jump to Top

Add selected to Favorites
Add selected to Ignore List (Ignored listings will be hidden from you across the site.)

Cookie Consent: This site uses secure first-party cookies for essential, preference-setting, and statistical purposes. We do not use any marketing, advertising, or third-party cookies. Read our full cookie policy.

Accept All Cookies

Allow Essential Cookies Only