Harvard Review publishes new poetry, essays, fiction, drama, criticism, book reviews, and interviews. From its beginnings, the journal has been committed to showcasing the work of emerging writers alongside established voices—or, as we like to think of it, publishing writers who will be famous next to writers who already are.

Over the years we have published a number of important writers at an early stage of their careers, including Nam Le, Mary Ruefle, Jhumpa Lahiri, Carl Phillips, David Foster Wallace, and Miranda July. Some of the authors we debuted include Paul Harding, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2010; Ben Shattuck, whose first published story was selected for PEN America’s Best Debut Short Stories in 2017; and Moira McCavana, whose debut story was published in the O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology in 2018.

Editorially, we are interested in literary technique and agnostic when it comes to subject matter. We take each piece on its merits and seek a diversity of voices. We look for evidence of control, polish, deliberateness, authority, and for work that strikes us as realizing its own ambitions, whatever those may be. Physically the magazine draws on the aesthetic of the 1960s Black Sparrow Press, foregrounding typography and employing only abstract elements. We print on a textured uncoated stock for a tactile feel and design our covers in thematically related pairs. Our cover designs, by Alex Camlin, have been repeatedly honored in PRINT magazine’s Regional Design Annual.

Contributors to Harvard Review are regularly selected for Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best American Travel Writing, PEN America Best Debut Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, Best New Poets, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.