2015 Pushcart Prize Ranking of Literary Magazines — Nonfiction

2015CoverHome[Note: the 2016 Rankings are here.]

Below is the 2015 Pushcart Prize Ranking of Literary Magazines for NONFICTION.

For information about my annual magazine rankings and my methodology, go here.

Go here for POETRY and FICTION rankings.

The big news: Not much change at the top, but Tin House moves into the Top Ten. (With the inclusion of the 2014 rankings for comparison, you can see other movements in the list.)

If you find these lists useful, please make a donation by clicking on the link below. Or—even better—buy one of my books (from any source you like, including Amazon.com: In an Uncharted Country and What the Zhang Boys Know).

 

2015 Magazine 2014 2015 Score
1 Georgia Review 1 75
2 Orion 2 73
3 Sun 3 58
4 New Letters 8 42
5 Agni 4 40
6 American Scholar 10 35
7 Iowa Review 6 34
7 Tin House 13 34
9 Ploughshares 8 33
9 Threepenny Review 6 33
11 Conjunctions 11 29
11 Gettysburg Review 5 29
13 Missouri Review 11 28
14 Fourth Genre 14 25
15 Southern Review 16 23
16 Boulevard 18 21
16 River Teeth 15 21
18 Paris Review 19 19
19 Kenyon Review 19 18
19 n+1 21 18
19 Virginia Quarterly Review 23 18
22 Antioch Review 23 17
22 Ecotone 27 17
22 Image 23 17
22 Salmagundi 16 17
22 Shenandoah 21 17
27 Colorado Review 27 15
28 Creative Nonfiction 23 12
28 Raritan 29 12
30 Harvard Review 30 11
30 Poetry 30 11
30 Third Coast 30 11
33 Great River Review 36 10
33 Republic of Letters 36 10
35 Brain, Child 41 9
35 Five Points 36 9
35 Michigan Quarterly Review 36 9
35 Ninth Letter 41 9
35 Southwest Review 36 9
35 Speakeasy © 30 9
35 TriQuarterly 43 9
35 Yale Review 70 9
43 Bellevue Literary Review 30 8
43 Hudson Review 43 8
43 Hunger Mountain 43 8
46 American Poetry Review 46 7
46 Blackbird 46 7
46 Northwest Review 46 7
46 The Journal 46 7
46 Water-Stone Review 46 7
51 Granta 52 6
51 North Dakota Quarterly 52 6
51 Oregon Humanities 60 6
51 Passages North 52 6
51 Pinch 52 6
51 Sweet 52 6
51 The Point 52 6
58 American Circus 60 5
58 Arts & Letters 60 5
58 Believer 46 5
58 Fugue 60 5
58 In Character © 60 5
58 New England Review 52 5
58 New Orleans Review 5
58 Pleiades 60 5
58 Ruminate 60 5
58 Seattle Review 60 5
58 Sewanee Review 70 5
58 Tusculum 60 5
58 Witness 30 5
58 Radio Silence 5
72 Alaska Quarterly Review 70 4
72 Massachusetts Review 60 4
72 Narrative 76 4
72 Normal School 86 4
72 North American Review 70 4
72 Parnassus 70 4
72 Point, The 76 4
72 World Literature Today 70 4
72 ZYZZYVA 52 4
81 Alimentum 76 3
81 Boston Review 86 3
81 Brick 86 3
81 Cimarron Review 76 3
81 Florida Review 76 3
81 Gulf Coast 76 3
81 Kyoto Journal 76 3
81 Lapham’s Quarterly 76 3
81 Los Angeles Review 76 3
90 A Public Space 86 2
90 American Athenaeum 110 2
90 Asian American Writers Workshop 86 2
90 Bellevue Literary Press 86 2
90 Bellingham Review 86 2
90 Chautauqua 86 2
90 Columbia Review 86 2
90 Connecticut Review 86 2
90 Fiction International 76 2
90 Hotel Amerika 86 2
90 Malahat Review 86 2
90 Manoa 86 2
90 McSweeney’s 86 2
90 Memoir 86 2
90 Milkweed Editions – Press 86 2
90 New Ohio Review 110 2
90 Oxford American 86 2
90 PMS 86 2
90 Post Road 86 2
90 Provincetown Arts 86 2
90 Santa Monica Review 86 2
90 Subtropics 86 2
90 Writers Chronicle 86 2
90 Broad Street 2
114 42 Opus 110 1
114 American Interest 110 1
114 American Short Fiction 110 1
114 Another Chicago Magazine 110 1
114 Arts Fuse 110 1
114 Asia Literary Review 110 1
114 Baffler 110 1
114 Bat City 110 1
114 Black Pearls 110 1
114 Blood Orange Review 110 1
114 Bookforum 110 1
114 Callaloo 110 1
114 Camera Obscura 110 1
114 Canteen 110 1
114 Chicago Review 1
114 Dart Society 110 1
114 Diagram 110 1
114 Divide ? 110 1
114 Europa Editions 110 1
114 Event 110 1
114 Fiction 110 1
114 Fifth Wednesday 1
114 Five Chapters 110 1
114 Free Inquiry 110 1
114 FreshYarn.com 110 1
114 Graywolf Press 110 1
114 Haystack Mountain 110 1
114 Healing Muse 110 1
114 High Country News 110 1
114 High Desert Journal 110 1
114 Hollins Critic 110 1
114 Hub City Press 110 1
114 Idaho Review 110 1
114 Iron Horse Literary Review 110 1
114 Literary Review 110 1
114 Make ? 110 1
114 Marginalia © 110 1
114 Meridian 110 1
114 Minnesota Review 110 1
114 Mount Hope 110 1
114 Natural Bridge 1
114 New Haven Review 110 1
114 Noon 110 1
114 On the Page 110 1
114 Ontario Review © 110 1
114 Open City 110 1
114 Open Spaces 110 1
114 Oregon Quarterly 110 1
114 Other Voices © 110 1
114 Packinghouse Review 110 1
114 Palo Alto Review ? 110 1
114 Portland Magazine 110 1
114 Prism 110 1
114 Relief 110 1
114 River City Publishing 110 1
114 River Styx 86 1
114 Rosebud 110 1
114 Rumpus 110 1
114 Seneca Review 110 1
114 SN Review 110 1
114 Southampton Review 110 1
114 Stone Canoe 110 1
114 Stranger 110 1
114 Tiferet 110 1
114 Tupelo Press 110 1
114 Under the Sun 110 1
114 University of Michigan Press 110 1
114 Vocabula Bound 110 1
114 Wag’s Revue 110 1
114 Weber Studies 110 1
114 Western Humanities Review 110 1
114 Willow Springs 110 1
114 Delmarva Review 1
114 Wilson Quarterly 1
114 Tavern Books 1

 

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Comments

  1. This is really helpful, Cliff. Thanks. Who knew there were so many! Have you ever ranked them by circulation? Do you think you might rank online journals? I’m interested not just in prestige (so to speak) but also in reaching a wide audience. When Prime Number published a story of mine I was able to share the link with friends and family who don’t read lit mags. They enjoyed the piece and I enjoyed their responses.

    1. Ellen, the list is just the tip of the iceberg, because there are far more journals that have not won Pushcarts than have. Ranking by circulation would be interesting but very hard, since circ. numbers aren’t widely available, although the Writers Market lists such info (maybe Duotrope does too?). Some online journals are included on my list, if they’ve been honored by Pushcart. A ranking of just online magazines is needed, but I’m afraid it would have to be pretty subjective because there’s nothing comparable to the Pushcarts by which to judge. (The current “best of” for online stuff is kind of sketchy.)

  2. Mr. Garstang,

    We have tried emailing you to send you a complimentary copy of Issue 14 “Risky Words” of our literary mag, Epiphany but it bounced back saying your mailbox is full. We would love to be ranked by Perpetual Folly.

    Please let us know the best way to send you the file, if you’re interested.

    Thank you,
    Samantha K. Smith
    epiphany.magazine@gmail.com

  3. Glitch as of 9/17/15––pressing “read more” doesn’t work, just reloads the page. So I can’t see the ranking. Doesn’t work in either Firefox or Safari.

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