Joyland Magazine

Joyland is a literary magazine that embraces the idea that fiction transcends borders, supported by local communities. We curate stories from various regions, ensuring our editors collaborate with authors from diverse places across North America, including major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, as well as areas often overlooked in mainstream media. Our ten regional sections showcase a rich tapestry of voices from across the country, creating a welcoming space for all writers. Since our inception in 2008, we have proudly published works by notable authors such as New York Times bestseller Roxane Gay, 5 Under 35 honoree Zinzi Clemmons, Pulitzer finalist Lydia Millet, PEN/Faulkner finalist Amelia Gray, and Giller Prize nominees Marina Endicott and Lynn Coady. We have also featured Plimpton Prize winner Ottessa Moshfegh, Guggenheim Fellows Lynne Tillman and Terese Svoboda, Lambda Award winner Zoe Whittall, and Believer Book Award winners Tamara Faith Berger and Sesshu Foster. Many of our stories have been recognized as Notables in Best American Short Stories and have appeared in the Journey Prize Anthology. We are proud to be the first platform for many talented emerging writers. Additionally, we publish Retro, our biannual anthology that compiles the finest pieces from Joyland in a printed format.

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Flaco’s North Wood Inlay

Aug 29, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Rainer Diana Hamilton |Jo Barchi

A self-portrait of Rembrandt, a hand-colored print of a courtesan as the immortal Tekkai, and a wooden meditation chair stood in the Central Park Loch. They were each alone, still a few yards apart, and here to admire Flaco, the recently escaped eurasian eagle-owl. The painter’s likeness, looking left and right for an audience, decided to test the courtesan’s interest in being alone together. “He proved them all wrong,” she said of the beautiful raptor.
Take Me to Kirkland

Aug 28, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Sarah Anderson |Michelle Lyn King

When Chloe called me in the car that Wednesday on the way to Costco, my boyfriend Damian and I were arguing about whether or not we would be willing to swallow a goldfish for money. “You have no concept of how the real world works,” he said. “That’s pretty fucking pejorative,” I was saying, as my phone lit up with that stupid picture of Chloe’s stupid face, filtered to have giant eyes and little deer ears and white deer freckles on the forehead.
On True Crime | JOYLAND

Aug 5, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Myriam Gurba

My dad threw out his mom’s long-neglected magazine collection after it began to squeak. Mice had invaded the pulp, causing it to teem with newborn rodents. In her dementia, my grandma Hope had forgotten about the cardboard boxes stacked in the back of her garage. The collection spoiled by the mice had been one of Hope’s prized possessions, a bilingual true crime archive that took her half a century to build. During my twenties, I started to build a similar collection.
Best, Anders | JOYLAND

Jul 31, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Jessica Poon |Michelle Lyn King

It’s not the most significant detail, but I thought Anders was married, or marriage-adjacently cohabitating with a ceramicist when I slid into his DMs. I was twenty-nine, and pathetically afraid that I would never be considered nubile again. Anders was a friend of a friend of a friend of an acquaintance, something benignly distant like that, and he was a hobbyist photographer— the most tolerable kind—who’d recently had an exhibition for his photographs of ears.
The Knife Mandate

Jul 24, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Richard Chiem

I am a gold medal hopeful, battle worn, battle angel. I am a calm nervous system. I am the man you thought you loved back when. I am a knight with no queen, I am a queen with no knight. I have seen you abandon me in a heartbeat without looking back and I would still do anything for you. In what would be known as the knife mandate, the city sends everyone a single knife in the mail in a blue envelope. Even small children receive a knife in the mail with no limits to each household.
Year of the Rat | JOYLAND

Jul 23, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | S.M. Sukardi |Kyle Lucia Wu

There comes a time in a girl’s life when she will dance with her father. We know this because all the girls before us promise us so. They tell us about the suits and ruffled dresses; the curls and drugstore makeup. The glitter packed into eyelid-creases and sewn into gowns; the heirloom jewelry winking off wrists. If this is true—that is, if justice exists, if promises are carried through—then there must be something that excludes us. We must not be girls. Yes, I think that’s right.
Amsterdam | JOYLAND

Jul 16, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Kyle Lucia Wu

For the past two days, Mildred Wong hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d awoken that morning in Amsterdam, her body consumed—by aches, fever, an unfamiliar weakness. She’d briefly—or it seemed briefly—been dreaming. This is how the dream always ends: her mother’s voice. The Japanese soldiers, coming for them. And they have to be quiet. But they must go as well. They are in a hurry. And then they are discovered, soldiers, already descending upon them, one after the next.
Small Green Shoots

Jul 11, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Aarti Monteiro |Kyle Lucia Wu

The girl’s smile was much less awkward in person than it had been in the photo. In real life the sides of her mouth rose naturally and her face relaxed. Shilpa had seen the picture a month before Sunil said he was bringing home a girlfriend. She hadn’t meant to snoop, but social media was the only way to know what was going on in her son’s life these days.
The Hamptons | JOYLAND

Jul 10, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Marne Litfin |Michelle Lyn King

Oh, I’m ready. A little afraid, sure, but who isn’t? I don’t expect it to hurt. I’ve been near the end three times before, and it’s always the same. Always calm, the same calm. Anxiety is for the well. When death is truly close, it feels like a blanket. A good sleep. I’m sure, in your line of work, you hear that sort of thing all the time, but it’s true. Sometimes I think it’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been able to relax. The first time was a fall on a family ski trip when I was fourteen.
You Could Hear Splinters

Jul 3, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Christie Louie |Kyle Lucia Wu

The night before her grandmother moves in, Holly soaks her tongue in vinegar. It floats in the clear liquid: pink, bumpy, unzipped at the frenulum. The fissures on her tongue are magnified by the glass it swims in, and when Holly holds the highball to her eye, she sees everything else bigger: the toilet bowl, the mottled brown tiles, the water-stained taps that are labeled backwards. Online, it said ten minutes in acid would make a tongue soft enough to re-mold.