X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine’s vision is to publish uncomfortable, entertaining, and unforgettable prose that shines brighter than the skeleton in your body, prose that sees through the skin and reveals something deeper. We work hard to give our readers the best authors on the planet. 

We publish two new stories per week. Special and Quarterly Issues are published throughout the year. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

MASTHEAD

Founding EditorJennifer Greidus
Managing EditorKatharine Coldiron
Consulting EditorChris Dankland
Creative Nonfiction EditorJo Varnish
Assistant Creative Nonfiction EditorMichael Todd Cohen
Fiction EditorCrow Jonah Norlander
Assistant Fiction Editors Joshua Hebburn
Kira K. Homsher
Claire Hopple
Graham Irvin
CK Kane
Features EditorRebecca Gransden
Acquisitions EditorLiz Crowder
Reviews EditorEvan Williams
Social MediaSean Littlefield Chumley
ReadersCamille U. Adams
Caterina Alvarez
Jessika Bouvier
Tex Gresham
Conor Hultman
Jillian Luft
Emily Myles
Luz Rosales
M. C. Smith
Holden Wright
Artwork

Bob Schofield
Steve Anwyll

Media LayoutKKUURRTT
 

Sean Littlefield Chumley is a Chicago-based writer, optician and baker. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently at work on a novel. He’d love to stay and chat but he has cookies in the oven.

Michael Todd Cohen’s work appears in Columbia Journal, JMWW Journal and HAD, among others. He lives with his husband and two dogs, by a rusty lighthouse, in Connecticut. He is currently pursuing his MFA at Goucher College. You can find him on twitter @mtoddcohen.

Katharine Coldiron is the author of Ceremonials, a novella; Plan 9 from Outer Space, a monograph; and Junk Film, a collection of essays. Her work as a book critic has appeared in the Washington Post, the Guardian, NPR, and many other places; as an essayist, in Conjunctions, Ms., Bright Wall/Dark Room, and elsewhere. Find her at kcoldiron.com or on Twitter @ferrifrigida.

Elizabeth Crowder is a law librarian and co-founder of The Sartorial Geek magazine. She is also an Associate Editor for Uncharted Magazine. Her writing appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. You can find her on Instagram @thelizcrowder.

Tyler Engström is a digital farmer/artisanal producer of scalable content and farm-2-table works of literature for an audience of cultural taste makers.

Rebecca Gransden lives on an island. She is published at Tangerine Press, Burning House Press, Muskeg, Ligeia, and Silent Auctions, among others. Her books are anemogram., Rusticles, and Sea of Glass.

Joshua Hebburn is a fiction writer who lives in Los Angeles. His fiction has appeared in New World Writing, here, and elsewhere.

Kira K. Homsher is a writer from Philadelphia, soon to move west with her boy and dog. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Passages North, Barrelhouse, Hobart, DIAGRAM, and others. You can find her at kirahomsher.com and tweeting @bogcritter.

Claire Hopple is the author of four books. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, New World Writing, and others. More at clairehopple.com.

Graham Irvin is from North Carolina. He has writing in BULL: Men’s fiction, Back Patio Press, Punk Lit Press, and The Nervous Breakdown. He wants to cook liver mush for the whole world.

CK Kane is an American writer living in London. She wrote and directed the feature film Behind Some Dark Cloud and is working on her first novel.

KKUURRTT writes and Adobe Creative Suites.

Jillian Luft is a Florida native currently residing in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Expat Press, Booth, The Forge Literary Magazine, and other publications. Find her on Twitter @JillianLuft.

Crow Jonah Norlander lives in Maine with his family of humans and hounds. He is the co-editor of HAD.

Nicholas Rall is a writer living above a restaurant that only serves one meal.

Luz Rosales is a fiction writer from Los Angeles. Their work has appeared in Strange Horizons, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Black Telephone Magazine, and elsewhere. They are an editor for Lupercalia Press and Ginger Bug Press and a reader for Farside Review and The Gamut Mag. They can be found on Twitter @TERRORCORES.

Jo Varnish is raising her three kids and four rescue dogs outside of NYC. A freelance writer and literary writer, Jo is in the final stages of her MFA.

Evan Williams is a poet and essayist from the cornfields of the Midwest. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Pleiades, and Joyland, among others. They are the author of CLAUSTROPHOBIA, SURPRISE! (HAD Chaps, 2022), and can be found on Twitter @evansquilliams.


“X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine is my favorite new journal. Whenever I feel the fatigue of fiction, all I have to do is go there and read one of the brilliant, idiosyncratic stories curated by the awesome editors and writers Jennifer Greidus and Chris Dankland. Each story they publish gives me a pleasurable jolt of electricity, the linguistic equivalent of touching someone’s hand and getting a static electric shock, or a story that generates a more intense charge, in the sense of being struck by lightning.”

-Alistair McCartney, author of The Disintegrations

“X-R-A-Y is legit lit. Best writers around publishing favorites of mine along with surprisingly good newcomers. Everything I’ve read there has been great. Jennifer and Chris are the most provocative and exciting editors you’re likely to come across.”

-Troy James Weaver, author of Temporal

“A clouded X-R-A-Y Magazine is your moon tonight. I stand at a corner of the internet and stare up, astonished by its own secret light.”

-Eîlot Tuerie, publisher at Wasted Books

“X-R-A-Y is doing a phenomenal job at curating stories that are excellent and weird. The writing is strong, the aesthetic is unconventional, and Chris and Jen celebrate their writers well. Honestly though, all I care about is whether the writing moves me, and X-R-A-Y stories have been doing it for me on a freakishly consistent basis.”

-Stephen Mortland, a super X-R-A-Y contributor

“Words can be like X-R-A-Ys if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”

-Aldous Huxley, our biggest fa