The literary magazine for rural LGBTQ+ and POC voices.

Mount Island is a small press and literary magazine dedicated to creating space for rural LGBTQ+ and POC voices to be heard on their own terms and find solidarity in community. Mount Island is by us, for us, and for anybody who wants to see rural America for all it really is.

We publish a quarterly digital magazine, an annual print anthology, and special letterpress projects.

What we’re looking for

Prose and poems that buck the standard. Any genre, whether traditional or invented. Art that liberates vision. Any medium, whatever can be displayed digitally. Interviews, reviews, and articles that follow passion and further connection.

Why it gotta be rural/LGBTQ+/POC?

With our deepening political divides and the rise of emboldened hate groups across the US, cultural critics have pointed the finger at rural America. Even so, the mainstream American imagination believes in a false countryside—one too white, conservative, or just plain quiet for any queer or Black or brown person to feel at home. But we are out here, holding down the countryside. Even as we live in the face of constant erasure, we live creatively, infectiously.

The rural-urban divide widens while America overlooks rural life’s great diversity. Rural America’s queerness and colorfulness are cultural treasures, keys to deep wonder and freedom. The people who make it so should be proud, should say their truths loud and together. So we’re creating space for these voices to be heard on their own terms and find solidarity in community. Mount Island is a magazine by us, of us, and for anybody who wants to see rural America for all it really is.

For more information on our mission as an arts organization, check out:

• This article on the current state of rural-urban discourse by our Editor in Chief
• This interview with our Editor in Chief and Managing Editor