Below is an evolving list of journals, presses and agents that publish spiritual memoirs.
Journals Online Resources Presses Agents Self-Publishing & Marketing
Please contact me if you know of other venues or would like your journal included on this list.
Journals
America: The Jesuit Review (online & in print): “Our flagship magazine is the leading Catholic journal of opinion in the United States. First published in 1909, America magazine is known across the Catholic world for its unique brand of opinion and analysis. From theology and spirituality to politics, international relations, arts and letters, and the economy and social justice, America’s coverage spans the globe. We tell the stories that matter most to the church and the world.”
ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (online & in print) ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies explores the interrelationships among theology, spirituality, and the arts. ARTS has been recognized as the single publication devoted specifically to the role of the arts in theological education and religious studies while also serving clergy, artists, and laity interested in the religion and arts dialogue.
The Believer (in print) The Believer, a five-time National Magazine Award finalist, is a bimonthly literature, arts, and culture magazine. In each issue, readers will find journalism and essays that are frequently very long, book reviews that are not necessarily timely, and interviews that are intimate, frank, and also very long.
Braided Way (online) The Braided Way is a framework to see every faith tradition as a strand, braided into a larger whole of spiritual awareness. The Braided Way allows the ceremonies and practices of multiple faiths to be available without the confinements of cultural dogma.
The Curator (online) explores the meaning and matters of the heart and spirit reflected in cultural objects, experiences, and the arts. They curate writing about art intersecting with humanity. Culture at large, or art, or writing, all are material manifestations of the workings of the inner life and of the spirit of the times (the zeitgeist).
Comment Journal: Public Theology for the Common Good (online & in print) “Serving Christian leaders and culture makers with rooted, fresh ideas for the faithful practice of North American public life.”
Dappled Things (Catholic, in print and online) “Dedicated to providing a space for emerging writers to engage the literary world from a Catholic perspective. The magazine is committed to quality writing that takes advantage of the religious, theological, philosophical, artistic, cultural, and literary heritage of the Catholic Church in order to inform and enrich contemporary literary culture.”
Emergence Magazine (online) “Emergence Magazine is a quarterly online publication with an annual printed edition. Each issue features a theme explored through innovative digital media as well as the written word. It has always been a radical act to share stories during dark times. They are a regenerative space of creation and renewal.”
Fathom Magazine (online) “Fathom is a digital platform that compels people to seek out the depths of Christian faith. They publish a digital magazine, a podcast, and a thing they call currents – basically a running list of curated articles on topics worth investigating.”
Geez Magazine (spirituality, in print and online) “Geez is a quarterly, ad-free magazine for the over-churched, out-churched, un-churched and maybe even the un-churchable. We hope to untangle the narrative of faith from the fundamentalists, pious self-helpers and religio-profiteers. We explore the point at which word, action and image intersect, and then ignite.”
Ginosko Literary Journal (spirituality, social justice, online) “Ginosko (ghin-océ-koe): A word meaning to perceive, understand, realize, come to know; knowledge that has an inception, a progress, an attainment. The recognition of truth from experience.” Accepting short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, social justice, literary insights.
Image Magazine (Literary, interfaith, in print and online) “Image was founded in 1989 to demonstrate the continued vitality and diversity of contemporary art and literature that engage with the religious traditions of Western culture.”
Leaping Clear (online, all mediums) Leaping Clear brings together artists whose work moves us to remember where we are right now—what we often forget in the busyness of our lives. Here we can explore—along with the artists—the perplexities, joys, and inner and outer mysteries of being human. Leaping Clear offers a web space for artists in all media whose work brings together commitment to artistic achievement and meditative or contemplative practice.
Literature and Belief (Journal from Brigham Young University, in print) A semiannual publication of the Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature at Brigham Young University.
Meditation Magazine Aside from being the worlds largest meditation magazine for millennials, Meditation Magazine is a collaborative community of meditators, helping each other along on our personal and collective paths.
Mizna (online) is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than twenty years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.
The Mockingbird (spirituality, online) “The Mockingbird is a nonprofit quarterly published by Mockingbird Ministries, an organization and media platform seeking to connect the Christian faith with the realities of everyday life in fresh and down-to-earth ways. This happens primarily, but not exclusively, via publications, conferences, and online resources from [their] website.”
Notre Dame Magazine (online & in print) features “articles and essays covering a broad range of topics — issues relating to current affairs and societal trends, the arts and sciences, business, technology, family concerns and matters relating to the Catholic church. While the subjects are as broad as those found at any university, the treatment in Notre Dame Magazine is a reflection of the institution in that it is most interested in the moral, spiritual and ethical aspects of these discussions.”
The Other Journal: An Intersection of Theology & Culture (Literary, in print and online) “The Other Journal is a publication that promotes vibrant discourse at the intersections of theology and culture. It aims to create space for Christian interdisciplinary reflection, exploration, and expression.”
Pensive (online) is a newer journal (they just web published their first issue this fall) from the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service at Northeastern University in Boston. They publish poetry, short prose pieces, and visual art that that deepens the inward life; expresses a range of religious/spiritual/humanist experiences and perspectives; envisions a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world; advances dialogue across difference; and challenges structural oppression in all its forms.
Pilgrimage Magazine (Literary, in print) “Pilgrimage Magazine, founded in 1976, is published three times a year and is based in Pueblo, Colorado. The magazine is dedicated to exploring story, spirit, witness, and place in and beyond the American Southwest.”
Plough Quarterly (Literary, in print and online) “Plough Publishing House, founded in 1920, is an independent publisher of books on faith, society, and the spiritual life. They’re based in Walden, New York with branches in the United Kingdom and Australia. They also publish
The Porch (online) magazine and community is made up of people like this: Someone who…understands and enjoys the fact that a healthy human can love the Muppets and abstract novels, classical music and hip hop, political activism and gift exchange economies, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé, backpacking, sustainable agriculture, jigsaw puzzles, Rumi and Twister, all at the same time… In other words, ‘high’ and ‘low’ types of art and conversation matter less than ‘authentic’ and ‘open’…Someone like you?”
Prairie Schooner (Literary, in print) “A national literary quarterly published with the support of the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Press, Prairie Schooner is home to the best fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews being published today by beginning, mid-career, and established writers.”
Relief Journal (Judeo-Christian, Literary, epub and in print)
River Teeth (online) “Glimpses, glimmers, meditations, moments, reflections, refractions, interrupted shadows, river shimmers, darkened mirrors, keyholes, kaleidoscopes, earring hoops, slabs of cracked granite, cracks where the light gets in. Beautiful things. River Teeth‘s weekly online publication, ‘Beautiful Things,’ features very brief nonfiction that finds beauty in the every day.”
Rock and Sling: A Journal of Witness (Christian, Literary, online). “We seek the highest quality work, work which embraces, wrestles with, argues with, celebrates and brushes up against our ideas of faith, whether it be on the cultural or personal level. An accepted Rock & Sling submission may not even make explicit reference to God or faith, but it will maintain a universal spiritual curiosity. Above all, we desire work which seeks beauty and excellence, in form and in meaning, and explores the boundaries of what we know to be true.”
Ruminate Magazine: Chewing on Life, Faith, and Art (Faith, Literary, in print)
Still Point Arts Quarterly (Art and literary journal, online & in print).
Still Point Arts Quarterly is a truly beautiful and engaging art and literary journal. Produced four times a year, each issue focuses on a theme and features historical and contemporary art, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The Quarterly has been praised for its rich content as well as its splendid layout and design. Intended for artists, nature lovers, seekers, and enthusiasts of all types.
The Sun Magazine (Literary, in print). Celebratory, fierce, unflinching, thoughtful, truthful, dark, darkly funny, tender. A monthly magazine founded in 1974, The Sun publishes an eclectic mix of essays, interviews, fiction, and poetry that addresses the splendor and heartache of being human.
St. Katherine Review (Faith writing, Literary, in print) A publication of St. Katherine College. Our guiding principle at Saint Katherine Review is Inquiry seeking Wisdom. We believe that the writer’s primary purpose is to discover meaning and that the best and most enduring literature rises out of an author’s desire to come to terms—albeit provisional terms—with the inexhaustible truths that animate all things.
Tablet Magazine (online) Tablet is a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture. Launched in June 2009, it’s a project of the not-for-profit Nextbook Inc., which also produces the Jewish Encounters book series, edited by Jonathan Rosen.
Talking Writing (online) Talking Writing is a home for first-person journalism—features told from a personal perspective but underpinned by research and reporting—and other hybrid writing genres like flash essays and memoir. They believe hybrid work, especially nonfiction that combines literary style with journalistic craft, helps promote a diversity of perspectives and the nuanced discussion so often missing in other public forums.
TC Jewfolk (online) is the Twin Cities’ only independent Jewish online media hub devoted to engaging, informing, and connecting the Twin Cities Jewish community. Here at TC Jewfolk, we celebrate all of you and your ability to showcase 10,000 ways to be Jewish. Committed to providing readers with wide-ranging entry points for engaging outwardly in Jewish life locally and reflecting inwardly on Jewish identity without being prescriptive about what it means to be Jewish today.
Thread Literary (online)
Thread is an independent online literary publication featuring short personal essays (Thread) and flash nonfiction (Stitch) that illuminate moments of human experience by established and emerging writers.
Tiferet Journal (online & in print) “Tiferet is a non-sectarian, non-dogmatic publication and community at the nexus of literature and spirituality. We publish high-quality poetry, prose, and art that further meaningful dialogue about what it is to be humane and conscious in today’s often divisive world.”
Tricycle (online) “The Tricycle Foundation is dedicated to making Buddhist teachings and practices broadly available. In 1991 the Foundation launched Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the first magazine intended to present Buddhist perspectives to a Western readership. Our readership includes longtime practitioners, those who are curious about Buddhism or meditation, and those who do not identify as Buddhist but value the teachings of wisdom and compassion that Buddhism has to offer.”
Unity Magazine (digital & print): Unity is “a global, inclusive, spiritual community. We offer practical, uplifting resources to help people of all faiths apply positive spiritual principles to their lives.” Award-winning Unity Magazine® explores spirituality, science, psychology, and metaphysics. Each bimonthly publication discusses positive spiritual principles and how to apply them in your daily life. Its interviews, articles, and essays reflect Unity principles and New Thought teachings as well as broader ideas from other spiritual traditions that dovetail with Unity philosophy.
Universal Table (online & in print) “The aim of Universal Table is to promote tolerance and social trust along many dimensions of life – or those are the words we have been using in our official mission statement. But each time we use them, we realize we are trying to describe something far broader – something that encompasses welcome, difference, surprise and inclusion, truthfulness and authenticity, and an equal place for each of us and what we hold most dear. These are the true goals of Universal Table: Finding the We in Them, the Us in You.”
The Unmooring (online) is a publication exploring critical issues of Christian faith through art & writing to empower & amplify women’s voices. “Our hope is to amplify women’s voices on serious issues of faith, grappling with the complexities of the Christian tradition in our present moment, distilling female reflection and contemplation about what our beliefs mean in an increasingly inequitable world and culture.”
Upper Room (online) is a global ministry dedicated to supporting the spiritual life of Christians seeking to know and experience God more fully. From its beginnings in 1935 as a daily devotional guide, The Upper Room has grown to include publications, programs, prayer support, and other resources to help believers of all ages and denominations move to a deeper level of faith and service.
Venn Magazine (online) “At Venn Magazine, we are captivated by the intersection of faith, culture and our hearts and souls and are compelled to both hear and tell real life stories of these encounters. You won’t find a playbook for how you can be more successful, holy, or wealthy here. Instead, you will find a group who couldn’t look more different – a hopeful evangelist, a survivor of sex trafficking, a mourning son, an energetic twenty-something, a stay at home mom, a European student. We come together to listen and share because we believe real faith – real community – real life – happens in the middle.”
The Wayfarer. The Wayfarer’s mission is to chart the way for change by building and empowering a community of contemplative voices. A wayfarer is a wanderer whose ability to re-imagine the possible provides the compass bearings for those on their way.
The Whirlwind Review (online journal of writing and spirituality edited by Jill Jepson)
Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature (in print). Windhover is dedicated to promoting poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction that considers Christian perspectives and engages spiritual themes.
Journals Online Resources Presses Agents
Online Resources
Here are other online resources to support your spiritual memoir writing and reading.
Again, please contact me if you’d like your site included.The Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research has a new online feature to support faith and writing with book reviews, resources, and publications from Institute participants.
She Writes is the largest online community and content site for women writers at every stage of their writing lives, working in every genre and representing every generation – all around the world. Founded by Kamy Wicoff in 2009, She Writes supports, encourages and educates writers, providing them with a place that is both inspirational and practical.
Writing for Your Life (online) Writing for Your Life is committed to offering many useful resources and services to support spiritual writers. They offer in-person writing conferences and online webinars featuring leading spiritual writers and publishing industry experts. Authors discuss and teach about various aspects of spiritual writing. Industry experts offer advice on how to get published and how to market. They also provide a host of services and resources to support your spiritual writing.
Redbud Writers Guild. Redbud envisions a vibrant and diverse movement of women who create in community and who influence culture and faith. Redbud provides women with needed support and tools to be effective writers and communicators in today’s world such as manuscript and media mentoring and review, networking, writing conferences, blogging opportunities, resources, camaraderie and community. (Make note you have to apply to join the guild first before they’ll consider publishing your work.)
Journals Online Resources Presses Agents
Presses
Here are some small and otherwise hard-to-find presses that are open to writing about faith and spirit.
Broadleaf Books. Broadleaf Books is the new adult nonfiction imprint of 1517 Media. Our books inspire transformation in readers and their communities to foster a more open, just, and compassionate world
Daybreak Press. Daybreak Press was established in 2014 and is the publishing arm of Rabata, an international organization dedicated to promoting positive cultural change and the revival of the female voice in scholarship. Our books include Daybreak Press publications, a specially curated collection of recommended books, unique Muslim lifestyle gifts, and Islamic textbooks in both English and Arabic.
Homebound Publications. We are an award-winning independent publisher founded in 2011 striving to ensure that the mainstream is not the only stream. It is our intention to preserve contemplative storytelling. We publish full-length introspective works of creative non-fiction, literary fiction, and poetry.
Orison Books. Orison Books seeks to publish spiritually-engaged poetry, fiction, and non-fiction of exceptional literary merit. In our view, spiritual writing has little to do with subject matter. Rather, the kind of work we seek to publish has a transcendent aesthetic effect on the reader, and reading it can itself be a spiritual experience. Such work is not merely about spiritual contemplation, but itself leads the reader into profound contemplation. It is not merely about the sublime, but itself has a sublime effect on the reader. It is not merely about the mystery of being, but itself heightens the reader’s sense of the mystery underlying the fabric of our daily lives.
Shanti Arts Publishing. “The work we do at Shanti Arts—and have done since its founding in 2011—is driven by a passion for nature, for art, for beauty, for significance. We are delighted to work with similarly passionate artists and writers all over the world.”
She Writes Press. She Writes Press is unique in the world of publishing because we’re neither traditional publishing, nor are we self-publishing. As an independent publisher, we bill ourselves as a “third way” for authors, and we proudly occupy a much-needed alternative in a rapidly changing publishing landscape. She Writes Press was the first hybrid imprint to win 2019 Independent Publisher of the Year by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group. We are a mission-driven, female-run company with a strong vision, passion, and work ethic.
Journals Online Resources Presses Agents
Agents
Agents who represent both memoir and books on spirituality. Gratitude to Marijke McCandless for compiling this information.
Jessica Alvarez (BookEnds Literary)
Meredith Bernstein Literary Agency
David Black (David Black Literary Agency)
Sheree Bykofsky (Sheree Bykifsky Associates, Inc.)
Kimberly Cameron (Kimberly Cameron & Associates)
Michael Carr (Veritas Literary)
William Clark (William Clark Associates)
Jennifer DeChiara and Roseanne Wells (Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency)
Lisa DiMona (Writers House)
Priya Doraswamy (Lotus Lane Literary)
Ethan Ellenberg (Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency)
Chris Ferebee (Christopher Ferebee)
Sarah Jane Freymann (Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency)
Marc Gerard (Europa Content)
Kathryn Green (Kathryn Green Literary Agency)
Steven Harris (CSG Literary Partners LLC)
Tawny Johnson (Illuminate Agency)
Lisa Leshne (The Leshne Agency)
James A. Levine and Stephanie Rostan (Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency)
Carol Mann and Joanne Wyckoff (Carol Mann Agency)
Mel Parker (Mel Parker Books, LLC)
Suhail Mathur (The Book Bakers Literary Consultancy – New Delhi, IN)
Larissa Meo Pienkowski (Jill Ginberg Literary Management)
Jeff Ourvan (Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency)
Victoria Sanders (Victoria Sanders & Associates)
Dennis Schleicher (Talcott Notch Literary Services)
Wendy Sherman (Wendy Sherman Associates)
Bonnie Solow (Solow Literary Enterprises)
Kari Stuart and Laura Blake Peterson (Curtis Brown UK)
Stephanie Tade (Stephanie Tade Agency)
Meg Thompson (Thompson Literary Agency)
David Vigliano (Vigliano Associates)
Frank Weimann and Erin Niumata) (Folio Literary Management)
Sally Wofford-Girard (Union Literary)
Journals Online Resources Presses Agents
Self-Publishing & Marketing
Resources for self-publishing and marketing.
The Mae Fellowship. Publishing support for debut women and nonbinary authors.
Oyster River Pages. ORP is interested in publishing voices that speak to what it means to be alive in this world.]
Shanti Arts Marketing and Promotion resources
Wildhouse Publications exists to bring transformative spiritual insights to people for whom traditional resources may not fit. Maybe these folk are spiritual but not religious. Maybe they are spiritual atheists and agnostics. Maybe they are on the margins of a religious community. Maybe they fit traditional religion just fine but are hungry for more. Books from Wildhouse Publications evoke the spiritual depths of ordinary life for people on a spiritual journey, bringing life-changing inspiration and practical advice for putting inspiration into action.
Wright for Writers. Beth Wright ushers writers through development, editing, and production of self-published books with utmost professionality. I highly recommend her services.