Merganser Magazine is a free online literary magazine, featuring a variety of prose and poetry.
Debuting in winter 2024, we aim to publish many writers and artists whose work transcends disciplines and genres.
We are now accepting submissions - we encourage you to submit!
Please submit prose (fiction or creative non-fiction) and poetry by email to Jake Ott at editor@mergansermagazine.com. Include submission files as attachments.
Include as many stories and/or poems as you like. We'll consider every piece you submit, although we prefer not to publish more than one piece from the same author within a 6 month period.
Standard formats (e.g. standard manuscript format) are preferred, but not strictly required.
No hard editorial guidelines. We're eager to find strong, well-written pieces across a wide range of material. That said, our business model prioritizes shorter works, as well as those which are suitable for online reading (avoid long paragraphs). Anything longer than 2,000 words is likely a hard sell.
We allow simultaneous submissions. Email editor@mergansermagazine if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
No reprints.
For prose, we pay the SFWA pro rate of $0.08 USD per word. For poetry, we pay $1 USD per line.
We aim to respond to all submissions within 1 month of submission. If you have not heard from us after 1 month, please reach out for an update.
Works translated, written, or developed by AI tools are strictly not allowed.
If your submission has been accepted, please wait 6 months before submitting again. This will ensure your next submission receives full consideration.
To increase chances of acceptance, read the magazine! You will see what has been accepted before. Typically, we publish what we feel were the most tightly written and creative pieces we received.
Currently, Merganser Magazine stores NO personal information.
We hope to soon run advertisements through Google AdSense on this site. When we do, we will direct you to our more detailed privacy policy page.
Jake Ott
LinkedIn
Ian Li
"Dandelion of Creation"
K. Lynn Harrison
"From the Delta Front"
Christina Chin
"Scene From a Celestial War"
Pooja Joshi
"A Remembered Nightmare"
Sara Lewis
How To Grin In The Dark
Joshua Ott
"Wellsen, Worsen?"
John T. Schumacher
"The Wolf You Feed"
Brian Wolfe
"A Walk In The Woods"
Background image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI