WHAT IS EXCERPT?

EXCERPT is a lit art magazine featuring excerpts exclusively from emerging novelists, eight per issue from manuscripts-in-process or novels coming out from independent presses.

We are currently open for submissions for our fourth print issue EXCERPT No. 4. Our only criteria is that our contributors have not published a novel yet from a major press (i.e. the Big Five and their endless imprints). Check out our previous print issues here.

Excerpts should feel complete in arc and momentum... that is to say, somebody should be able to pick up and read it without much need for an explanation of what happened before. A brilliant first chapter, or a standalone chapter from later on in the book. An episode, in TV speak. We don't care if you cut us off at the end, leaving us wanting more. This is a good thing actually. Entertain us. Immerse us in a world, make us laugh, break our hearts, and suspend us in a timeless fictive dream.

What we hope to do at EXCERPT is champion emerging novelists, literary unknowns, the writers working tirelessly on ambitious wild novels in obscurity to grant them more exposure in the literary world, all while supporting the incredible work of independent presses that keep literature alive and vibrant.

Questions / Submissions? Email us editors@excerptmag.com

THE EDITORS

DW Ardern

Editor-in-Chief

DW Ardern is a fictionist, sketch/improv comic, and screenwriter living in Brooklyn, NY with a mischievous rabbit named Hazel and too many books. He was the runner-up for the Nancy D. Hard Grove Editor’s Prize in Fiction 2021 and their work has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and Tin House Summer Workshop. He is the author of Master of Starlight (Stalking Horse Press, 2025) and their stories have appeared in The Fourth River, Quagmire Literary Magazine, Stanchion, Vestal Review, Best Microfiction 2023 anthology, Fictive Dream, Jabberwock Review, Oyster River Pages, and The Offbeat among others.

Twitter: @mythosvsrobot

IG: @dwardern

Jenny Maattala

Managing Editor

Jenny Maattala resides in the Midwest with her husband and four children. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Soul 57, a nonprofit geared towards youth grieving the loss of a close loved one. Jenny is a contributing writer for The Southern Review of Books, Managing Editor at EXCERPT Magazine, and a reader for Salamander Magazine. Jenny’s work has been published in Writer’s Digest.

Instagram: @JennyMaattala

Mara Aguilar-Egan

Fiction Editor

Mara Aguilar-Egan is a writer and editor living outside Asheville, NC. She received her MFA from Queens University, and her fiction and poetry have appeared in the Berkeley Fiction Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Vestal Review, Litbreak Magazine and others. She is the recipient of the Sullivan Writer’s Grant for excellence in Fiction, a finalist for the Narrative Short Story Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize as well as a Best of Net. She has attended Tin House Workshop, Sewanee Writers Conference, and has received support for her time at Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, Disquiet Literary Conference, and the Ragdale Foundation. If you’ve made it this far in the bio, she asks that you wish her luck and fortitude as she enters the trenches of querying her debut novel.