A major blindspot of mine is literary magazines. I know of the big names like the Paris Review of course, but are any of them actually worth subscibing to? Would apprecaite anyone with any experience with them sharing their thoughts.
Surprised no-one's mentioned n+1 yet. They're aimed at leftist youth and can be very hit-or-miss. When it's good, it's great; otherwise, it's pretentious NYC MfAs acting as though they haven't had life handed to them on a platter. One good thing I will say is that the political op-eds, even when I disagree, are extremely convincing. The aforementioned Granta is great and I also love the London Review.
I've enjoyed what I've read in NOON Annual magazine. Like the name would imply it's an annual literary magazine. They're generally known for having avant garde stuff. It has a good variety between long and short pieces, and there's artwork throughout as well. I've enjoyed the pieces I've read in it.
I like Diagram, it's free online. Guernica and Flash Frog are also good free ones.
Granta is the GOAT. I've never not enjoyed a Granta issue, the submissions (both fiction and nonfiction) are always of the highest quality. Each issue is themes and they're formatted like little books so they look great on a shelf. One of the issues from the late nineties had a long (as in like eighty page lol) article about Dimitri Tsafendas, a half-Mozambican, half-Greek guy who assassinated South African PM Hendrik Verwoerd back in '66. It was incredibly well-researched and deeply heartbreaking
I love the old editions of the Paris Review and the New York Review of Books.
Thanks for the recommendations! Will definitely check out everything that was suggested.