Magazines That Publish Myth-Driven Fiction
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Wondering how authors today are taking inspiration from mythology? Do you enjoy reading short stories written by new authors? Are you writing a piece based on an ancient story and wondering who might publish it?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, here’s a list of magazines to consider. The following have either mentioned myth-driven fiction in their submission guidelines or published pieces with such elements in them. I included the links to many of the examples I found, in case you feel like reading other people’s work before trying to publish your own.
In alphabetical order, the list is as follows:
Allegory, an annual online magazine of fantasy, SF and horror, published an excerpt from J.E. Taylor’s novel Silencing the Siren, in which a siren goes bounty hunting for monsters while promising never to hurt any of them.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies This online magazine publishes “literary adventure fantasy: fantasy set in secondary-world or historical paranormal settings, written with a literary focus on the characters.” Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s novelette, The Orangery, was a 2016 Nebula finalist and takes inspiration from myths about those such as Apollo and Lotis.
Bourboun Penn looks for character-driven “slipstream, cross-genre, magic realism, absurdist, and the surreal” speculative fiction. They published Priya Sharma’s story Pearls, which is told from the perspective of a modern Medusa in New York city.
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Clarkesworld published Erin Hoffman’s nonfiction piece “The Wine Dark-Sea” about color perception in ancient texts, including The Iliad. Carrie Laben wrote “Something in the Mermaid Way”, about families who make mermaids from monkies.
Daily Science Fiction is an on-line magazine specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and everything in between. In his 2017 story “The God Election,” Ian Watson tells a story from the perspective of the God of Unbelievers that (ironically perhaps) still mentions the existence of a “shrunken” Zeus.
The Drabblecast is an online speculative fiction magazine and podcast for 500 to 4000 word pieces. They published “The Little Mermaid of Innsmouth” in 2015, which is a take on the Hans Christian Andersen fish tale that includes Lovecraftian lore.
Enchanted Conversation Magazine is a bi-monthly webzine that publishes original stories using fairy tale, folktale, and mythic themes. In April 2009 they published Maria Carvalho’s story “Written in the Stars”,, which picks up from where Greek mythology left off.
Many editors at Flash Fiction Online have “fondness for science fiction and fantasy, but they also like literary fiction,” according to their site. In 2019, Alexei Collier published “How to Tame the Sphinx Haunting Your Garden”.
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Edited since 1996 by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet publishes fiction that “tends toward but is not limited to the speculative.” They published a short story by Leslie What, who wrote the Tachyon Publications novel Olympic Games: Zeus, Hera, and the Archetypal Battle of the Sexes.
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast focuses on “stories about women who loved women in history.” The writer guidelines say stories must be set in a specific time and place in history, and can include fantastic events or beings that people of that era considered real. Stories should feature lesbian-relevant themes. In June 2017 The Lesbian Talk Show published “Sappho of Lesbos – The Woman and the Legend”.
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Lethe Press Named after the Greek river of forgetfulness, this independent publisher was seeking short stories based on fairy tales for an anthology in November 2019. They show a tendency for body positive gay erotica and chubby male protagonists.
Lightspeed publishes everything: “from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.” “Great Gerta and the Mermaid”appeared there in July 2020.
NewMyths.com publishes speculative fiction of every stripe except graphic horror. Their cover art in the March 2019 issue featured the Great Goddess Morrigan, the dominant deity throughout Europe more than 5000 years ago known as the transporter of souls between life and death.
PodCastle is “open to all the sub-genres of fantasy, from magical realism to urban fantasy to slipstream to high fantasy.” They reprinted Charlotte Ashley’s novelette the Satyr of Brandenburg in October 2019.
Strange Horizons publishes “global, inclusive” science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, and all other flavors of fantastika. In “The Names of Women,” published in 2018, Natalia Theodoridou takes inspiration from mythology such as Zeus’ lightning bolt and the story of Jason and Media.
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Thrilling Words promotes episodic fiction, in which each story can stand alone but also builds on the same world or idea. Authors produce two flash fiction stories, related but not dependent, one of which appears on the website and the other in the members area. In “A Dearth of Gods,” W.M. Frenzel writes about mermaids, the sea goddess Thetis, and more.
Timeless Tales Magazine publishes only retellings of fairy tales and classic myths. Their fall/winter issue for 2019 is titled “Hades and Persephone.”
Truancy describes itself as “a non-profit venue for retold and revised traditional narratives: folktales, fairytales, legends, and myth.”
Unreal Magazine says it is “looking for stories that define the rules of magic at this indefinite point in time.” In Quentin Norris’ story “A Firey Muse,” a witch gives the freelance writer protagonist a sip of mead that in Norse mythology instills the ability to tell poetry.
Wigleaf publishes stories under 1000 words, including Amber Sparks’ “In Which Athena Designs a Video Game with the Express Purpose of Trolling Her Father.”
Zooscape says on its site that the editors love science-fiction with animal-like aliens, as well as fantasy with talking dragons, unicorns, or witch familiars. Since this magazine started in September 2018, it’s a bit soon to judge, but stories about centaurs don’t seem to me off limits here.
