Electric Literature is a nonprofit digital publisher with the mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. We are committed to publishing work that is intelligent and unpretentious, advocating for emerging, diverse voices, and demonstrating how literature and storytelling illuminate social justice issues and current events. We are dedicated to using our large and active platform of 3.2 million yearly readers to launch the careers of tomorrow’s most exciting writers, publishing over 500 pieces by more than 400 authors every year. We are particularly interested in writing that operates at the intersection of different cultures, genres, and media.
Electric Literature began as a quarterly journal in 2009 and became a non-profit in 2014. In 2022, we won the Whiting Digital Literary Magazine Prize in recognition of our “exceptional reach” and ability to “evaporate publishing’s traditional barriers and make literature transparent, accessible, irresistible.”
We publish 2-3 times a day, Monday through Friday, with a focus on book coverage (interviews and reading lists), literary fiction, and general creative nonfiction. On Mondays and Wednesdays, you’ll find our acclaimed weekly literary verticals: Recommended Reading, which publishes short stories and novel excerpts with personal recommendations, and The Commuter, our home for flash fiction, poetry, and graphic narrative. Recommended Reading launched in 2012 and will publish its 600th issue on November 20, 2023. The Commuter launched in 2018 will publish its 300th issue on November 29, 2023.
Work published by Electric Literature has been recognized by Best American Short Stories, Essays, Poetry, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Mystery, and Comics, the Pushcart Prize, Best Canadian Short Stories, The Best of the Small Presses, and the O. Henry Prize.
Everything published by Electric Literature is available to readers for free, and as a non-profit, we rely on contributions from those readers to survive. To support our work and our mission, please consider becoming a member or making a one-time contribution. All gifts are tax-deductible, and members receive special benefits such as year-round submissions and shorter response times. We launched our popular virtual salon series in 2020 in response to the pandemic, and have since made it a permanent offering. Recordings of past salons are available for purchase in our store.
Electric Literature is grateful for the support of the Amazon Literary Partnership Literary Magazine Fund and the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses, the New York State Council on the Arts with the Support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Literary Arts Emergency Fund, and the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize.
Electric Literature monetizes some book links on our site. If you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission, which goes towards paying writers. These commissions do not influence what books we feature or how we choose to cover them.
