Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal that has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty years.

Publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art by folks of marginalized genders, including but not limited to women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work. We don’t want writers to feel restricted by gender or genre labels, so if you are unsure if your work is a fit for Room, please get in touch.

Room publishes work by people of all marginalized genders, including cis and trans women, trans men, nonbinary and Two-Spirit people (we publish everyone except cis men)

Who doesn't love getting paid? Who doesn't love Canadians? The literary magazines listed below were founded in Canada and pay for published work.

Canadian Lit Mags That Pay Writers

Basically what it says in the title. Our top most bookmarked fee-free lit mags that nominate for the Pushcart Prize.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize (and Don’t Charge Fees)

The top nonfiction lit mags in our database, ranked by how many users have bookmarked them.

The Ultimate List of Places to Submit Your Nonfiction

For the full list of 26 lit mags (plus Shannan's amazing analysis) check out our full Substack article here: https://subclub.substack.com/p/want-attention-on-social-media-submit-bf5

Want Attention on Social Media? Submit to These 10 Literary Magazines

A targeted resource for short story placements with potential for Pushcart recognition.

Fiction Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize

Specialized publications that recognize exceptional brief fiction through Pushcart nominations.

The ultimate ranking of the world's liveliest indie literary magazines, curated by author and editor Charlie Fish. These are the passion projects; the kaleidoscopic cutting edge.

FISH List of Lively Indie Literary Magazines 2025

FISH List of Lively Indie Literary Magazines 2026

Publications with narratives under 1,000 words selected for this anthology series. These journals consistently identify short-short fiction, exemplifying the artistry possible in compact narratives.

Lit Mags Featured in Best Small Fictions Anthologies

Looking for balance between prestige and accessibility? These magazines are competitive but attainable for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction writers.

Literary Magazines in the Sweet Spot

A comprehensive guide to journals that regularly nominate work for the Pushcart Prize.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize

All-time most competitive literary magazines. Getting published in these is a significant achievement for any writer.

Most Competitive Literary Magazines of All Time

Explore the most popular literary magazines of all time. These long-established publications are a staple in the literary world for writers of all genres.

Most Popular Literary Magazines of All Time

Highlights publications that regularly put forward essays, memoirs, and other creative nonfiction for Pushcart consideration.

Nonfiction Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize

Focuses specifically on poetry journals with established histories of Pushcart nominations.

Poetry Magazines That Nominate for the Pushcart Prize

Room

For funding reasons, we have to fill these pages with “Canadian” content; interested book reviewers who were born or reside in Canada can send their pitches to reviews@roommagazine.com.

Book Reviews (Canadian writers)

Room Magazine Fiction Contest

FIRST PRIZE: $1000 + publication in Room; SECOND PRIZE: $250 + publication in Room; THIRD PRIZE: $100 + publication on Room‘s website

Room Magazine Creative Non-Fiction Contest

FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 + possibility of publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + possibility publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room’s website

Room Magazine Poetry Contest

Room Magazine Short Forms Contest

Room Magazine Short Forms Contest for Flash  2025

This form is for "Canadian writers." Please use this form if you live within Canadian territories and provinces, or are a Canadian resident who lives overseas. Since our eligibility for national and local grants depends on a majority of our published content being Canadian, we kindly request that only Canadian writers use this form.
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Science is both a lexicon for what we know and a field of exploration for what we don’t know yet. In Room Magazine’s Science, as in science, we will savour curiosity, question orthodoxy, dig into hidden histories and understudied areas, and titrate, examine, hypothesize, collaborate, queer, and dream our way to wilder futures. How do we come about and decide what is knowledge? What knowledge is accessible, credible/sanctioned, or forbidden? What pseudo-sciences shaped society in the past, and are doing so now? What does it mean to have nonhuman teachers during the Anthropocene? Editors Chimedum Ohaegbu, Kailee Wakeman, Katie Stobbart, and Anna Lee-Popham seek your explorations of these questions, and invite as many other branching queries as you can imagine, for this issue.
Send us your women-in-STEM screeds, your poems shaped as research paper abstracts or Erlenmeyer flasks, your anatomical and botanical drawings that are just a little strange. Illustrate the inherent beauty of your favourite math formulae, or muse upon cognitive biases discussed by sociologists and psychologists. If you’ve ever dwelt on the history and modern-day evolution of medical racism, have a passion for Indigenous fire management systems, gesticulate when talking about neurolinguistics, or generally tend to think in -ologies, Room Magazine 49.1 Science is looking for you.
Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit.
Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world.
Submissions open May 19, 2025 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit. 
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Guidelines:

  Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
  We accept submissions upto 3500 words. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
  Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required. 
  We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us and withdraw your piece immediately.
  Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

Creative Non-fiction (Canadian Submissions ONLY)

Guidelines:

Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
We accept upto 5 poems, submitted in a single file. Please start each poem on a new page. 
We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us using Submittable's 'message' function (preferred) or at submissions@roommagazine.com.   
Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

Poetry


Before submitting, please read about us to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate.
Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
We accept submissions up to 3500 words. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required. 
We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us and withdraw your piece immediately.
Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

Fiction

Room Magazine invites your visual/photographic work for our Science issue 49.1, edited by Chimedum Ohaegbu, Kailee Wakeman, and Anna Lee-Popham.
Science is both a lexicon for what we know and a field of exploration for what we don’t know yet. In Room Magazine’s Science, as in science, we will savour curiosity, question orthodoxy, dig into hidden histories and understudied areas, and titrate, examine, hypothesize, collaborate, queer, and dream our way to wilder futures. How do we come about and decide what is knowledge? What knowledge is accessible, credible/sanctioned, or forbidden? What pseudo-sciences shaped society in the past, and are doing so now? What does it mean to have nonhuman teachers during the Anthropocene? Editors Chimedum Ohaegbu, Kailee Wakeman, and Anna Lee-Popham seek your explorations of these questions, and invite as many other branching queries as you can imagine, for this issue.
Send us your women-in-STEM screeds, your poems shaped as research paper abstracts or Erlenmeyer flasks, your anatomical and botanical drawings that are just a little strange. Illustrate the inherent beauty of your favourite math formulae, or muse upon cognitive biases discussed by sociologists and psychologists. If you’ve ever dwelt on the history and modern-day evolution of medical racism, have a passion for Indigenous fire management systems, gesticulate when talking about neurolinguistics, or generally tend to think in -ologies, Room Magazine 49.1 Science is looking for you.
Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit.
Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world.
Submissions open May 19, 2025 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit. 
______
Guidelines
- In our art submissions, we are seeking works of glitches, surrealism, paper collage, photography, mixed-materials, and fabric-based art that supports our desire to knit together all the literary pieces we uncover during our submissions call.
- These are not images to illustrate accompanying writing, but submissions of their own standing. 
- Here is a collection of art that has recently appeared in our pages. Please take a look before submitting. 
- Submit up to five images (maximum of 1MB sized JPG or PDF) with a short paragraph about the work of art including: the title, size, medium and date. You can also direct us to your work online in your bio.

Photos/Art

Entry Fees 
All first submissions include a one-year subscription to Room. Residence is based on the address associated with your Submittable account, as this is where your subscription will be shipped. Our entry fees are designed to cover shipping costs and are:
If you reside in Canada: $45 CAD
If you reside in the US: 55 CAD
If you reside outside North America: 65 CAD
Additional entries are $7 CAD and do not come with another subscription. 

CONTEST ENTRY: Poetry

Nonfiction

CONTEST DEADLINE: JUNE 15
FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 + potential publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + potential publication in Room
THIRD PLACE: $100 + publication on Room's website
ENTRY FEES AND PRICING
All submissions include a one-year subscription to Room and our contest fees are the same as our regular subscription prices (your fees go right into making our magazine; we source our prize money and judge honorariums from other sources)
Entry fees include shipping and are based on the address associated with your Submittable account, as this is where your subscription will be shipped:
CONTEST RULES & GUIDELINES

CONTEST ENTRY: Creative Non-Fiction

CONTEST DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2026
FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 + publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room's website
ENTRY FEES AND PRICING
All submissions include a one-year subscription to Room and our contest fees are the same as our regular subscription prices (your fees go right into making our magazine; we source our prize money and judge honorariums from other sources)
Entry fees include shipping and are based on the address associated with your Submittable account, as this is where your subscription will be shipped:
If you reside in Canada: $45.00 CAD
If you reside in the US: $55.00 CAD
If you reside outside North America: $65.00 CAD
Additional entries are $7 CAD and do not come with another subscription. You must submit an initial entry before submitting an additional entry. If you submit an additional entry without first submitting an initial entry, your additional entry may be disqualified without refund.
Under "Fee," select the correct payment amount from the drop-down menu. You must choose the appropriate submission fee option, or your piece may be disqualified. No refunds are provided for selecting the incorrect fee option.
CONTEST RULES & GUIDELINES
We accept entries up to 3500 words. Please double-space all submissions.
Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required.
You can only upload ONE document (.pdf, .doc, or .docx preferred; can also accept .rtf) per submission on Submittable, so you must submit your entire submission in one file.
Submissions must be anonymous—please do not include your name or personal details anywhere in your document, including the file name. You will have a chance to include your contact information on the Submittable form. Cover letters and bios are not necessary and will not be forwarded to the judge.
Each entry must be original and unpublished.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your submission is accepted elsewhere, please notify us and withdraw your submission immediately.
Room's contests are open to women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work.
Previously commissioned Room writers are disqualified from entering the contest.
Any submission that does not meet these guidelines will be disqualified. The submission fee is non-refundable.
Please direct any questions or concerns to contests@roommagazine.com.

Room

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Featured Call

CONTEST ENTRY: Fiction

Appears in collections