About The Missouri Review
Our History
The Missouri Review, founded in 1978, is one of the most highly regarded literary magazines in the United States. For the past five decades, we’ve upheld a reputation for finding and publishing the very best writers first. We are based at the University of Missouri and publish four print issues each year, as well as online-exclusive poetry, prose, and features. Publications are selected from unsolicited submissions sent by writers from around the world.
The Missouri Review maintains an open submission policy; we read year-round, considering thousands of submissions each year. New, emerging, and mid-career writers whose work we have published are anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, Best American Poetry, The O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, Best New Poets, The Best of the Net, The Pushcart Prize, and many more.
We are pleased to be the first to have published the fiction of many emerging writers, including Arabella Saunders, Tim Loc, Jennie Lin, and Susan Ford. Writers whose work first appeared in our pages continue to win major prizes, including the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Award, MacArthur Foundation “Genius” awards, PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and the Pulitzer Prize.
We regularly publish special features, omnibus book reviews, and interviews with a diverse body of writers. In our “History as Literature” series, we published historical documents of literary significance or effect. The “Found Text” series featured previously unpublished work by literary giants of the past, including Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, Marianne Moore, Charlotte Bronte, Jack Kerouac, and William Faulkner.
Our Reputation
“The Missouri Review is, quite simply, one of the best literary journals in the world.” –Robert Olen Butler
“I’ve admired The Missouri Review for years. . . . It’s one of a half-dozen literary magazines I always read.” –Joyce Carol Oates
“When significant contemporary fiction, poetry and interviewing appear in a beautifully designed journal, we have something rare—something called The Missouri Review.” –William Least Heat-Moon
Our Mission
The Missouri Review is a not-for-profit organization made possible in part by the generous support of subscribers and patrons. We help shape the contemporary literary scene by offering the finest work of today’s writers and by discovering the brightest new voices in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Our Literary Publishing Internship
Our mission is aided by one of the most established and sophisticated literary publishing internship programs in the country. Each year, we mentor about 60 undergraduate and graduate interns, many of whom go on to careers in education and publishing, whether literary, mass media, or commercial.
Learn how our interns become master learners in the most powerful, flexible form of learning, and apply to be a Missouri Review intern >
Our Patrons
We would not be able to achieve our cultural and educational mission without the support of individuals and organizations who understand the importance of good writing and good reading to our world. Learn about the patrons who support the work of The Missouri Review, and please consider becoming a patron or making a one-time gift.
Our Staff
Learn about the people who make The Missouri Review.