Subnivean never flees from chilling poems, penetrating stories, words that whip our perspectives around. Housed at the State University of New York at Oswego, where 4x more snow falls on our city than Manhattan, we’ve learned to persist. When winter comes, we reject migration. We use the cold itself as insulation.
ISSUE
Marge Piercy. Dan Rivas. Paige Blair. J.M. Braun. Alayna Powell. Abubakar Auwal. Sara R. Burnett. EJ Green. B. Fulton Jennes. George Goetz. Madeline Rosales. Jaime Gill. Neha Rayamajhi. Michael Loyd Gray. Laura Leigh Morris. Ace Chu.
SUBNIVEAN AWARDS 2026
FINAL JUDGES
POETRY
CHEN
CHEN
Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017), both published by BOA Editions. His latest chapbook is Explodingly Yours (Ghost City Press, 2023). His honors include two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. He lives in Rochester, NY and teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch.
“I hope to one day write something as beautiful as Sailor Moon’s catchphrase, 'In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!' Though my abolitionist politics would revise that to: 'In the name of the moon, let’s fight for nonpunitive forms of justice!'”
― Chen Chen
2026 Subnivean Awards
Final Judge in Poetry
FICTION
MEGAN
MAYHEW-BERGMAN
Megan Mayhew-Bergman is the author of three books, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, and How Strange a Season, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and in the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022 list, and was longlisted for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize, The Story Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. She was awarded the Garrett Award for Fiction and the Phil Reed Environmental Writing Award for Journalism, and has written columns on climate change and the natural world for The Guardian and The Paris Review. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011 and 2015, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She serves as Director of Middlebury College’s Creative Writing Program and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.
"I always have a short story in progress. I try not to read rejection letters twice."
― Megan Mayhew-Bergman
2026 Subnivean Awards
Final Judge in Fiction
SUBNIVEAN
EPISODE 7:
WAR
Get ready to be read to like a baby at bedtime. In Episode 7, Subnivean presents a boy trying to figure out his neighbor's disappearance and a mom trying to figure out her boy. Stories by George Goetz and Laura Leigh Morris. Special thanks to voice actors Michael Daniel Vodzogbe and Larissa Wolfer—and to our audio team: hosts Robert Ferrara and Larissa Wolfer, editor Ryan Joyce and producer/editor Soma Mei Sheng Frazier.
LAURA LEIGH
MORRIS
GEORGE
GOETZ
WATCH
I DON'T GO TO
CHURCH ANYMORE
by
PAIGE
BLAIR
"Holding hands around the table
asking, asking, asking—"
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Paige Blair, a sophomore at Cazenovia High School, was named winner of the 2023-24 Subnivean New Writers’ Award competition. Read her poem here.
"Paige Blair's poems tell us she no longer goes to church. Yet this divine young writer is earning her own following: get in now, readers, before the pews are packed too full."
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— Subnivean
I Don't Go to Church Anymore, by Paige Blair
NEWS & EVENTS
HAPPY 2026!
Subnivean hopes your new year is off to a smooth start. To ring it in, we're pleased to share a few updates:
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This year's global Subnivean Awards competition is now open! The Subnivean Awards offer writers the chance to have their work blurbed by one of our 2026 final judges—Chen Chen and Megan Mayhew-Bergman. Finalists and winners will be published in the May issue, and winners will receive $150 each. Learn more about the contest.
Beyond reaching every continent but Antarctica in our first five years—get with the program, penguins—Subnivean has now reached readers in 159 countries. Heeeey, our one Lithuanian reader, we see you! We have also received manuscripts submitted by writers in 68 countries:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Swaziland, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and all 50 United States as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
With growth comes change. Our founding editor, Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, has announced that she is handing over the reins in order to focus on her second novel, Eat Bitter, Anastasia, forthcoming from Macmillan. "It's been a joy to create and nurture Subnivean in collaboration with many talented authors and SUNY Oswego students," Frazier said. "Now, it's time to switch it up, and our readers around the globe are in for a treat: award-winning poet Albert Abonado has stepped up as Editor. I couldn't leave the publication in more capable hands!" For more about Abonado, visit his website.
U.S. POET LAUREATE EMERITUS JUAN FELIPE HERRERA & DANIEL HANDLER:
Literary Legends in Conversation
What do U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler have in common? Hint: it's not fave ice cream flavors!
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Subnivean. Catch these heavyweight authors in conversation, and get read to like a baby at bedtime by last year's Subnivean Awards finalists and winners: poets Artemisio Romero y Carver, Moni Brar, Alicia Rebecca Myers and Lauren Holguin; fiction writers Avtar Singh, Melissa Brown and Zach Swiss.
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"...and if I went all out, I would probably have pistachio in there."
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— Jf Herrera
SNICKET, WHITE & SINCLAIR:
Literary Legends in Conversation
What do U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler have in common? Hint: it's not fave ice cream flavors!
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Subnivean. Catch these heavyweight authors in conversation, and get read to like a baby at bedtime by last year's Subnivean Awards finalists and winners: poets Artemisio Romero y Carver, Moni Brar, Alicia Rebecca Myers and Lauren Holguin; fiction writers Avtar Singh, Melissa Brown and Zach Swiss.
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"I would recommend, like, a bottle of Jim Beam ... before Googling yourself."
— Daniel Handler
2021 FIRECRACKER AWARDS
— Subnivean announced as a finalist
MONDAY
May 10, 2021
If you feel the ground shaking beneath you today, that's the result of much barefoot jumping up and down by Subnivean's international community.
Why barefoot? Because this nod from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) rocks our socks off!
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Regardless of which deserving publication earns the top
Magazine: Best Debut prize at the June 23, 7pm EST awards ceremony, Subnivean is honored to be among the Firecracker Awards finalists. We urge you to join us at this free, virtual event and check out the other finalist publications, as well: more good reading for your commute, lunch break or bedtime...