Michigan Quarterly Review

ABOUT

Michigan Quarterly Review was founded in 1962 as the flagship literary journal of the University of Michigan. It publishes an interdisciplinary mix of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and work in translation, and has built a reputation for pairing established names with emerging writers across a wide range of aesthetics. The current issue (65.2, Spring 2026) features poets Mary Jo Bang, Chard deNiord, and Chris Abani alongside fiction by Charles Baxter, reflecting the journal's ongoing pattern of mixing prominent contributors with newer voices and themed folios (the current issue centers on soccer). Beyond the print quarterly, MQR runs a substantial online arm (MQR Online) publishing web-exclusive fiction, poetry, interviews, and reviews on a near-weekly basis, plus an audio component (MQR Sound) and a visiting writers series tied to the university's Helen Zell Writers Program.

The scraped site is primarily a magazine front end rather than a submissions portal, and it does not list current reading periods, fees, or pay rates directly on this page — poets should check MQR's dedicated submissions page (linked from the site) for guidelines, which have historically opened for limited windows during the academic year via Submittable. The journal does pay contributors, consistent with its status as a university-backed, budget-supported quarterly, though exact rates aren't stated here. A free email newsletter is available and explicitly promises alerts on submission openings, new issue releases, and free online stories — a useful way to track the journal's non-continuous reading periods rather than checking the site repeatedly. MQR Online functions as a lower-barrier entry point, publishing standalone web content that isn't necessarily pulled from the print backlog, which is worth targeting separately from the print quarterly.