This summer, Sacramento Literary Review turns one year old. We accomplished so much this year, and we are immeasurably proud of all the excellent writing we’ve published and immeasurably grateful to all the excellent writers who shared their work. 

As we approached this milestone, we wanted to take a critical look at our mission and the future direction of our publication. One thing we learned this year was that, without a clear guiding purpose, it is easy for a small literary magazine to blend in with the many thousands of other small literary magazines. That’s why, for our upcoming issue, we have revised our mission to better meet the needs of the literary community. We believe that many of these principles have already implicitly guided our selections for previous issues, but for now, read this mission statement as an ideal we are striving for.

Our primary goal is to expand the traditional audience of literary magazines by sharing the highest quality contemporary fiction and poetry we can get our hands on with the widest audience we can reach. Unlike the many literary magazines whose online paywalls or print-exclusive content (unintentionally) creates barriers between the writing community and the general reading public, we employ vigorous promotion and an accessible online format to break them down. In short, we strive to prove that literary magazines aren’t boring.

Sacramento Literary Review is highly selective, publishing just one or two short stories and a handful of poems per issue. We seek out bold new writing. Go to The Paris Review for excellent ‘timeless’ poetry and short fiction. Stay here for writing that takes risks, for work that goes straight to the political, for work from our time, for our time. Maybe some of it will end up being timeless. But first, it must be timely.

We are also switching to biannual print publication and rolling online publication to reduce costs while expanding our reach. To submit, please see our submission guidelines for more information about what we are looking for.

We are a California 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. View and download our bylaws and conflict of interest policy.

Editor — R. Corley Hong
Associate Editor — Serena Way

Board
— Trevor Douglas
— Serena Way
— Erin Brown

ISSN 2996-2803 (online)
ISSN 2996-3133 (print)

To submit, please visit our guidelines page. If you have any questions or concerns, please email [email protected].