Here are 175+ free online literary journals

Recently, I’ve been exploring the world of online literary journals, reviews, and webzines.
The breadth, depth, and bounty of this sector is impressive. Quality may vary wildly, but there is quality here. There is a fair share of talented professionals blazing away. Opportunities abound in this sector for independent writers.
Just in the past few months, I’ve gotten three of my short stories accepted by two of these online journals. And I’m impressed enough by their other published works that I’m honored.
I want to know more within this sector. I want to do more. I went looking for a good list of online journals and webzines. But I couldn’t find one.
There are thousands of literary journals. Most have some sort of website. The key question is: Does the journal post poetry and/or fiction on its website with free, open access, for anyone to read? Or is the website a marketing tool to lead readers to pay to get the print magazine or content behind a paywall? Nothing wrong with the latter; that’s the old model, and it works fine.
But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m looking for literary journals that post poetry and/or fiction online with free, open access, for anyone to read. There must be hundreds of them, at least.
I found some nice listicles—usually someone’s idea of a top-10 or a top-20—but nothing pulling together a big list of free online literary journals.
So I dug. And here, following, dear reader, I present the fruit of my research: 175+ online literary journals that appear to post poetry and/or fiction online with free access, for anyone to read. I’m not claiming this is even an attempt to be comprehensive; yet it’s the longest list I’ve seen.
Now, most of these journals don’t pay. So, dear reader, if you’re submitting your poetry or short stories to pay rent or get rich, this list won’t do you much good. I also can’t offer any measurements of their readerships by quantity or quality. Can’t say who, if anyone, will read the work there.
Some of these entities are decades old; some are months old. Some are offshoots of long-established print magazines. Some come and go like mushrooms. Some offer easy-reading text online; some have readers download whole digital magazines. Some are hybrids. Some are genre-specific. Some are mission-driven. Besides poetry and fiction, many also publish reviews, essays, nonfiction stories, photographs, visual arts, comics, or other creative content.
Some look amazing. Some look like crap, yet might still contain great writings.
I’ve not vetted them—except to make sure they’re publishing free and open access literature, and that they have been active at least recently (as of Oct. 9, 2025.) I don’t attempt to rate, judge, characterize, categorize, explain, or recommend for or against any. There obviously are full spectrums of quality and focus. I leave that to you, dear reader, to assess.
Most of what I found came from the following sources. Some of these sources did attempt to rate, judge, and characterize the journals, so dear reader you might find useful information from their links: Book Riot, Columbia College Chicago, The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (clmp.org), EveryWriter, John Fox, Independent Book Review, Miami University Libraries, New Pages, New York Public Library, University of Arizona Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha Criss Library (UNOmaha), and Wikipedia.
Without further ado, here is my list of more than 175 literary journals that publish poetry or fiction online:
Latin American Literature Today