10 Best Named Journals

A journal’s name is hugely important. Ralph’s Literary Rag will likely get less reads that it deserves regardless of the quality of the writing inside. No journals with Review in the title were included as that is overdone. Instead we chose the odd and beautiful monikers for some great lit journals both print and web-based.

Honorable Mention:

Denver Syntax, Memorious, Spooky Boyfriend, Caketrain

10. Riddle Fence

There is a mystical sense about this name, conjuring the image of a place where one must answer riddles in order to gain entrance. What lies on the other side? I’m wildly curious.

9. Drunken Boat

Could be interpreted as simply a party boat or more interestingly could be a boat that likes to get wasted. I imagine a burping skiff, zigzagging through the ocean telling other boats inappropriate details about his life.

8.Bust Down the Door and Eat all the Chickens

The absurdist journal sums itself up quite succinctly. It’s about wildness, bizarreness and it’s exciting. The journal’s name is a command. Go forth into the darkness, into the odd corners of the mind.

7. Inch

An impressively apt name for a journal of very short fiction.

6. Burntdistrict

This sounds like a place where people write sad things using ash as a pencil. I want to read them.

5. Dinosaur Bees

Either the bees or really old or gigantic. Either way, it’s beautiful. Seeing dinosaur bees outside my window would certainly inspire some good writing.

4. Whiskey Island Magazine

You know a ton of writers live on Whiskey Island. It’d be a place where intellectual debate would devolve into fist fights, where tall tales were the norm and the best cure for island fever and a hangover would be to write, write, write.

3. Umbrella Factory

Things are being made here. Big things, beautiful things as the rain pours down, as the wind blows.

2. Robot Melon

People love fruit. People love robots. A genius combination of unexpected words creates a slobbering-inducing surreal image.

1. Thieves Jargon

The secret language that thieves speak in the shadows is most certainly poetic and dark and gorgeous. There is an air of secretiveness with this name, making me long to read what they scribbling on their scrolls.