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 three to five new stories per week. Special and Quarterly Issues are published throughout the year. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
MASTHEAD
| Founding Editor | Jennifer Greidus @copcoat |
| Managing Editor | Crow Jonah Norlander @crowjonah |
| Consulting Editor | Chris Dankland @cdankland |
| Creative Nonfiction Editor | Jo Varnish @JoVarnish1 |
| Assistant Fiction Editors | Tyler Dillow @brothertjd Rebecca Gransden @rlgransden Graham Irvin @grahamjirvin Gauraa Shekhar @bloodandgauraa Becca Yenser @beccayenser |
| Acquisitions Editor | Liz Crowder @lzcrowder |
| Social Media | Sean Littlefield Chumley Kaitlin Hanrahan @ColdSlaw99 |
| Readers | Tyler Dempsey @tylercdempsey Megan Carlson @MegsCarlson |
| Artwork | Bob Schofield @anothertower |
Elizabeth Crowder is a writer and law librarian based in Philadelphia, PA. She’s currently working on her first fantasy novel. She is also co-editor of The Sartorial Geek magazine. You can find her on Instagram @thelizcrowder.
Tyler Dempsey lives in Alaska where he is a Park Ranger for the National Park Service. His hobbies? Literature, mountaineering, gardening, dogs, and music.
Tyler Dillow lives in Wichita, Kansas. He writes poetry and fiction and was the Poetry Editor for Mikrokosmos/MOJO. He hopes one day to start his own press.
Nick Farriella is a writer from New Jersey. His fiction has appeared in New World Writing, McSweeney’s, Joyland, Hobart, and elsewhere. He’s on Twitter @nick_farriella
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.
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.
Crow Jonah Norlander lives in Maine with his family of humans and hounds. He is the co-editor of HAD.
Gauraa Shekhar lives in Manhattan with her husband and young dachshund. She is a Founding Editor of No Contact, and the Interviews Editor at Maudlin House.
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.
Becca Yenser is a queer writer from Oregon. They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Too High and Too Blue In New Mexico (Dancing Girl Press). A collection of creative nonfiction flash, The Grief Lottery, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in 2021. They split time between New Mexico and Kansas with their cat, NJ.
“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 fan