Literary Magazines in Pakistan Accepting Submissions
If you write poetry, short fiction or essays, a literary magazine is very often the right first destination for your work, long before a full-length book makes sense. A magazine gives you a real publication credit, an editor's judgement on your writing, and something concrete to put in an author bio. It also asks for far less than a book does: one strong piece rather than eighty thousand words.
The difficulty is finding out where to send it. Pakistan's literary magazine landscape is thinly documented, several well-known titles have quietly stopped publishing, and lists floating around online are years out of date. This guide covers what is actually open to Pakistani writers, starting with the magazines we publish ourselves.
The TWS magazines
TWS Publications publishes five literary magazines, each built around a distinct theme rather than a general call for "good writing." That matters more than it sounds. A themed issue tells you exactly what an editor is looking for, which makes submitting far less of a guessing game than sending work into a general slush pile.
All are published in print and digital editions, and every contributor receives a copy of the issue, promotion across our channels, and retains full copyright in their own work. We take only a limited licence to publish the piece within the magazine.
Kya Ham Azaad Hain?
Freedom, belonging, and what independence actually means: memory, identity, and our connections to home. Quarterly.
Sanctuary
Women's voices: empowerment, identity, resilience. Quarterly, and one of the most consistently oversubscribed calls we run.
The Quiet Room
Mental health, healing, and the things that usually go unspoken. Quarterly. Writers who have found no obvious home for their most personal work often find it here.
Log Kya Kahenge?
Resistance, non-conformity, and defying societal expectation. Quarterly, and exactly as pointed as the title suggests.
The TWS Review
Our annual, curated collection: the best of the year, compiled by editorial selection rather than through an open contributor call. It works differently from the four above, and it is the one to aspire to rather than apply for.
How submitting to a TWS magazine works
The process is deliberately simple, and identical across the four open-call titles.
- Send a sample. Poetry up to 40 lines, or prose up to 3,000 words. Word document or PDF. Open to writers resident in Pakistan, of any age and background. One sample per writer, and previously published work is accepted.
- Editorial review. Our team reads every submission. If you have not heard back within a week of the deadline, your sample was not selected on that occasion. We say this plainly so nobody is left refreshing an inbox for a month.
- Confirm your place. Selected contributors confirm with the contributor fee, which is set out on each magazine's page.
- Send your final pieces. Within a week, you submit two finished pieces plus a short bio. Images and graphics are welcome, and our team handles layout and placement.
- Publication. The issue appears in print and digital editions. You receive your copy, and your work is promoted across our channels.
You can submit a magazine sample here, or read the magazine publishing process in full. Deadlines move with each edition, so check the individual magazine page for the current one.
How a magazine differs from an anthology
These two get confused constantly, and choosing the wrong one wastes a submission.
A magazine is a themed periodical issue, published on a recurring cycle in print and digital, carrying work by many contributors alongside editorial content. Your piece appears in an edition.
An anthology is a standalone book: one titled collection, co-authored by many writers, printed and sold as a book with your name among its authors. Co-authors vote on the title and cover, and everyone receives copies and certificates. It is closer to being a published author of a book than a magazine contribution is.
Neither is better. If your piece is a self-contained poem or story and you want it in print reasonably quickly, a magazine is the natural fit. If you want a book on your shelf with your name in it, look at our anthologies and our guide to anthology publishing for first-time authors.
Other outlets for Pakistani writers
We would rather point you to everything that exists than pretend we are the only option. A few caveats: this landscape changes quickly, several titles that appear in older lists have stopped publishing, and you should always check a magazine's own page before submitting.
The Aleph Review is Pakistan's best-known English-language literary anthology. Its print submissions are typically closed, but its website accepts short fiction, essays, one-act plays and poetry by email. It wants genuinely unpublished work, and anything posted to a blog or social media counts as published. It does not pay contributors.
Pakistani Literature, the English-language journal of the Pakistan Academy of Letters, publishes original creative writing in English, translations from Pakistani languages, and critical essays. It issues periodic open calls, so it is worth watching rather than submitting to speculatively.
Urdu digests remain the largest publishing route for Urdu-language fiction in the country by a wide margin. Khawateen, Shuaa, Kiran, Suspense, Sarguzasht, Jasoosi, Aanchal and Pakeeza are all still publishing monthly. The complication is that none of them publishes formal submission guidelines, so approaches are made directly and conventions are learned by reading the digest closely first.
Urdu literary magazines, the "little magazines", still exist, though many print only a few hundred copies and appear irregularly. Titles including Funoon, Mukalma, Qaumi Zaban and Akhbar-i-Urdu have been active in recent years. Verify current status before submitting. This is the most volatile corner of the landscape.
One correction worth making, because it costs Pakistani writers submissions: several magazines that appear at the top of searches for "South Asian literary magazine" are based in India and operate on different eligibility rules. Read the fine print before you spend a submission on one.
What actually gets selected
Having read a great many submissions, the patterns are consistent.
Answer the theme. The single most common reason a good piece is declined is that it was written for no particular home and sent everywhere. A themed issue is a question. Answer it.
Open properly. An editor reading a hundred submissions forms an impression in the first few lines. Begin where the piece actually begins, not with two paragraphs clearing your throat.
Respect the limits. Forty lines means forty lines. Going over does not read as ambition. It reads as not having read the guidelines.
Proofread before sending. You are asking to be published. Typos in a 40-line poem are a choice. Our self-editing checklist covers what to look for.
Write a usable bio. You will be asked for one, and most writers freeze at this stage, particularly if they have not been published before. We have written a guide to writing an author bio when you have no publications yet.
Expect to be declined sometimes. Every published writer has a rejection history. It is not a verdict on your writing. It is arithmetic about the number of pages in an issue.
Where to start
If you have a poem or a short piece finished, pick the TWS magazine whose theme it genuinely fits and send it in. If you would rather work towards a book, look at our anthologies or the TWS Literary Excellence Award.
And if what you have is a full manuscript rather than a single piece, that is a different route entirely. Submit it for a free review and we will tell you honestly what it is ready for.