Skip to main content

Pushcart Rankings


PUBLISHED: December 9, 2008

Cliff Garstang has done his annual yeoman’s work of compiling his annual ranking of literary magazines based on the number of Pushcart Prizes awarded to each since 2000, using scores calculated by compiling awards and special mentions. Cliff considers only fiction here, leaving poetry and nonfiction rankings for others to calculate. The top ten, with their scores:

  1. Ploughshares (118)
  2. Zoetrope: All Story (75)
  3. Conjunctions (71)
  4. Paris Review (67)
  5. Southern Review (67)
  6. Threepenny Review (58)
  7. Tin House (56)
  8. Georgia Review (52)
  9. Ontario Review (49)
  10. New England Review (46)

Of course, Ploughshares and Zoetrope: All-Story both publish enormous amounts of fiction, which gives them the advantage in sheer bulk. (VQR, incidentally, ranks at #22, with a score of 24, putting us just below StoryQuarterly and just above Mississippi Review.) Cliff notes the highlights from this year’s compilation:

Paris Review dropped a spot, Ontario … dropped a few. New England climbed a couple of spots, reaching the top-ten, which pushed Epoch and TriQuarterly out. There was more movement toward the bottom of the list, where we have ten or so magazines appearing for the first time, thanks to their Special Mentions.

Recommended Reading