Accounts: You may now create an account on litmags.org. What does that mean? Once you create an account you will be able to:

1. Save favorite mags to your account. To do this, click the "fave!" link below the name of any listing. This will store a link to the magazine's listing on litmags.org in your profile (accessible by clicking the 'profile' link in the header of any page). It will allow you to track submissions, and will give you news updates on the front page of litmags from that magazine.
2. Track submissions. Once you fave a magazine, you can easily add a submission to your list of tracked submissions. A list of your submissions is stored in in your profile page. Alternatively, you can click "Track!" directly from a search, and add a magazine directly to your list of submissions without favoriting it. Your submissions can be sorted by status, title of the work, magazine, submission date, and response date. You may also filter out submissions that have already been resolved. Finally, all this information can be updated with just a couple of clicks.
3. More easily find new magazines. Rather than searching for a new magazine based on its "stats", you can go to your favorite magazine's listing on litmags and see a list of other users who have favorited the magazine. Click on another user's name to see a list of other magazines that user likes. If they like your favorite, maybe you will appreciate other mags that they enjoy. Once the database gets populated, you will also be able to see a list of magazines that have many common fans.

What's the difference between this and an email list? Most people are protective of their email inboxes. Litmags allows users to get the news they want in a consistent and easily sortable format. Users can sort the list to show only updates from their favorite magazines, or updates from all magazines. They can also sort by type of news. If they are looking for contests, they can see all contest updates in chronological order. If they want to go to a reading, they can see the readings that their favorite magazines are affiliated with. Additionally, broadcasts allow magazines to provide outbound links to additional information about their updates.

Here are a couple of brief definitions of the way I define some of the more vague subgenre tags:
visual poetry: poetry that uses the visual space of the page in order to add meaning. Searching for this tag will lead the searcher to mags that publish more experimental poetry.
mixed-genre: anything that mixes some of the listed genres to the point that it cannot be placed distinctly into any one category (graphic fiction, semi-fictional works, etc)

Literary Movements

These are more difficult to define. On the literary end of things, it's useful to start by defining things from the perspective of conventionality.

most conventional <-------------------------> most unconventional

literary realism -> unconventional literary/fabulism -> surreal/magical realism -> experimental/pomo

I have these tags all in a line as if there is some kind of progression to them, as if they connect neatly. They don't. However, to get anywhere, this site must make simplifications. As you move right across this list, these "literary movements" move away from the belief that there is such a thing as a concrete, single reality that all people perceive the same way, and towards the idea that literature must create its own reality. The more to the right you move, the more aggressively the literary movement deviates from convention in order to establish its unique reality. "Experimental/pomo" (in the context of this site) means literature that actively works not only to innovate with language, but to deconstruct the techniques and styles that literature is founded upon. Experimental works break basic rules in an attempt to recreate the truth or the "fable" that shared human experience is based upon.

To get a better sense of what I mean, see these links: Sven Birkerts, editor of AGNI, describing what I would call "unconventional literary/fabulism", Art and Pop Culture wiki on literary realism, Art and Pop Culture wiki on magical realism, Wikipedia article on experimental literature

The remaining tags are not as difficult to define, and I will only touch on some of them.
minimalism: work that attempts to step out of the way of the reader. Instead of extended description or insight into something, minimalists use suggestion. As a result, readers are allowed to more actively engage in the story. Each word takes more weight.
confessional/emotional vs. satire/social commentary: Confessional poetry, according to Wikipedia, "trafficks in intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about illness, sexuality, and despondence." Few poets today would identify their work as confessionalist, but the word is useful in that much work is still focused on the interior. It doesn't necessarily have to have the "unflattering details," but this tag is meant to indicate that a mag values work that has a deeper focus on the interior, on emotions and personal issues, on exposing the drama within individual lives. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but the "satire/social commentary" tag makes a good contrast in that pieces that engage in social commentary build drama between people and institutions.

If you're confused about a tag or feel that my definitions are lacking or wrong, contact me. I am not a literary critic, so my authority on this stuff is limited.

When a magazine is added to the directory, the enterer is allotted 20 points to spread between all subgenres, and then another 20 points to allot under all literary movements. Let's say you searched for a subgenre of "short story" and a literary movement of "speculative". Litmags will then check the values that each magazine has for speculative and short story and will order your search results with the magazine that values these two things most coming first.

The specific number is arrived at like this:
If you search only by literary movement or only by subgenre, the search engine will take the points assigned to each magazine and divide them by 20 (the most possible points assigned). So if a magazine assigns 6 points to speculative, and you search for speculative, that magazine will get a percentage of 30% (6/20 * 100). If you have two search parameters, it will add them both, then divide by 40. So if you search for short story and speculative, and a magazine gave all 20 points to short story and 3 points to speculative, then you would see a percentage of 57.5 ((20+3)/40).

1. You may promote litmags.org by linking to us. If you are a literary magazine that is listed on this site, linking to us will increase our Google rank, which will then increase your Google rank. You may use this badge to link to us if you like:
   
   You are welcome to use it any way you see fit. To add this button and have it link to the litmags.org homepage, paste this code into your site's code:
   <a href="http://www.litmags.org/"><img src="http://www.litmags.org/promo/linktolitmags.jpg"></a>

   To add a direct link to your listing on litmags.org, replace the section marked YOUR MAG'S LISTING URL HERE with the URL of your mag's listing. To find this URL, search for your mag, then click 'view/add comments' on the listing. This is the URL you are looking for. Once you have done this, you may paste the code into your site's code whereever you would like it to appear.
   <a href="YOUR MAG'S LISTING URL HERE"><img src="http://www.litmags.org/promo/linktolitmags.jpg"></a>

2. You may help by sending us a message if you see any errors in listings.
3. You may submit a new magazine. Many major mags are not yet listed. If you are a regular reader of a magazine that isn't yet listed, submit it! Here's an incomplete list of the major mags that are not yet listed: Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, New Letters, and The Yale Review.
4. You may comment on magazines that you have experience with. What kind of reader would enjoy reading this mag? What do you like about the mag? What don't you like? Tags are helpful, but they can't replace well expressed thoughts. What kind of work does this magazine really publish? Are there any magazines that a person who enjoys this magazine might also enjoy?

1. In regard to search, look for options to weigh things such as "good mag!" votes and circulation into searches. The result would be, for example, that a mag that didn't match your other search qualifications quite as well but had a higher (or lower if you chose) circulation would appear higher in the search results.
2. Reviews: This site attempts to quantify literature, which is inherently difficult (some would say impossible) to quantify. Once the site gets a little bit more populated, I think it would be nice to feature unbiased reviews of randomly chosen magazines on the front page.
3. Your ideas. Send them to me.