Madras Mag

The Madras Mag is an independent online literary magazine based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in southern India. Published in English from the website madrasmag.in, it describes itself with the tagline "New. Indie. Literary." and explains that its name is a tribute to the coastal South Indian city from which it works — Madras being the former name of Chennai. Unlike a city magazine, however, it is not confined to Chennai subjects or Chennai writers. Its own invitation to contributors is to send their best work no matter which part of the world they are in, and the fiction, poetry and non-fiction it carries come from writers in India and abroad. What defines the magazine is not geography but a literary brief: original fiction, poetry, narrative non-fiction, columns and book reviews, published free to read on the web.

An independent literary magazine from Chennai

Independence is central to the way The Madras Mag presents itself. It is not the literary page of a newspaper group and not the journal of an institution or university. It is a small, editor-led venture run from an address in T. Nagar, Chennai — the magazine lists its reach address as 17/5, Krishna Street, T. Nagar, Chennai 17. From that base it operates entirely online, organising its output in issues that group new fiction, poems, non-fiction and columns together on its homepage. Its current-issue pages show the model clearly: a handful of stories, a set of poems by several poets, a non-fiction piece and a column, refreshed as new selections are published. The magazine's international listings underline the same identity — its about page records that it is listed at Poets & Writers, Duotrope and NewPages, the directories through which literary magazines announce themselves to submitting writers around the world.

Founder and editor: Krupa Ge

The Madras Mag was founded and is edited by Krupa Ge, a writer and journalist from Madras. According to the magazine's own account, she worked for leading national dailies, writing and editing, for eight years before starting The Madras Mag. Her short fiction had appeared in a range of literary outlets before and alongside the magazine, including Open Road Review, the Sahitya Akademi's journal Indian Literature, Desi Writers Lounge's Papercuts, Reading Hour, Purple Pig Lit and Blink-Ink, among other online and print publications. That background — a professional newsroom career combined with a presence in India's little-magazine and online literary scene — shaped the venture she built: a magazine run to professional editorial standards but deliberately open to newcomers.

Ge's own later books grew out of the same Chennai literary world. She is the author of Rivers Remember, a narrative non-fiction book published by Context in 2019, and of the novel What We Know About Her, published by Context in 2021. The Madras Mag nevertheless remains an editor's magazine in the classic sense: submissions are read centrally, selected work is edited with the author, and the magazine's taste — literary fiction, poetry and reflective non-fiction in English — reflects a single editorial hand rather than a large masthead of departments.

What the magazine publishes

The core of The Madras Mag is short fiction. Its submission guidelines invite a story or a narrative non-fiction piece of under 10,000 words, in any genre, provided the work is previously unpublished. Around that core it publishes poetry — its issue pages routinely carry two or three poems from a single poet alongside work by others — as well as columns and book reviews. The magazine accepts books for review and also accepts submissions of book reviews, which its guidelines put at ideally under 2,000 words. The mix visible in its published issues is consistent: literary short stories sit beside personal essays, travel and reflective non-fiction, poems and an opinion or cultural column.

Examples drawn from its issue pages show the breadth of the table of contents. One recent homepage grouping carried the fiction pieces "The Last Photograph" by Ronald P. Wolff and "Not you" by Brian Burmeister, the non-fiction piece "Dinuguan in Captain Cook" by Rain Wright, three poems by George Freek, two poems by Yuan Changming, two poems by Dr. William Miller and a column, "Child's play," by Swaroop Mami. Earlier issue pages list similar combinations from writers such as Jessica Lynn, Lauren Renz, Sara Karim, William C. Blome and Anusha Srinivasan, mixing Indian names with contributors from elsewhere — a practical demonstration of the magazine's stated policy of reading work from anywhere in the world.

A commitment to debut writers

The feature that most distinguishes The Madras Mag in its own description is a standing commitment to new voices. The magazine states that it publishes at least one debut author each month and that it is committed to finding and promoting new literary voices. Alongside that, it publishes established writers, and its about page adds a mentoring dimension: established writers published in the magazine will, occasionally, offer help and advice to amateurs in the form of editing, criticism and suggestions on the site. For an emerging Indian writer in English — a field in which print literary magazines are few and newspaper book pages have limited space — a free-to-read online magazine that guarantees space to debut authors each month is a meaningful point of entry, and it explains the magazine's following among submitting writers rather than general readers alone.

How submissions work

The Madras Mag's submission system is set out in unusual detail, and it tells a reader a great deal about how the magazine operates. Submissions are made by email, with a brief biography and a declaration that the work is the writer's own. Only previously unpublished stories are accepted. A story sent in before the 10th of a month is considered for publication the following month; later submissions roll over to the month after that. The magazine asks for UK spelling, warns that it edits selected stories with the author, and notes that it may disregard work that has not been proofread. There is no reading fee and no charge of any kind to contributors.

Two further policies stand out. First, the magazine does not ask writers for any copyright transfer; it asks only for a non-exclusive, perpetual licence to publish the story, in written and audio-book form, on madrasmag.in — terms considerably more favourable to authors than the rights grabs common in commercial publishing. Second, at present it offers no payment to contributors, something it states plainly while expressing the hope of getting there in time. Its content, correspondingly, is available to readers for free.

Audio and accessibility

An unusual part of the submission offer is audio publication. Selected stories may be published in both written and audio-book formats: the story is read by a professional, recorded and uploaded on the site, particularly to make the magazine easy for visually challenged readers to use. The magazine also invites writers, once a story has been selected, to volunteer to read their own story for the recording. In an Indian literary landscape where audio editions of short fiction are still uncommon, this was a distinctive part of the magazine's model — literature presented simultaneously as text on a page and as listening, widening the audience for a short story beyond those who read it on screen.

Beyond the magazine: events and publishing

The Madras Mag has never described itself as only a website. Its about page records that it also curates literary events and organises book launches in Chennai, and that it has been in the process of setting up an independent publishing house. That ambition took concrete form in a call for manuscript submissions for its new publishing venture, seeking novellas and novel-length works across genres in English, as well as completed non-fiction. Either the writer or the work was required to have an Indian connection, previous publication was not necessary, and the venture stated that it was looking for fresh Indian voices displaying depth — the same editorial priority as the magazine itself. The call set practical terms: complete works only, no first chapters or pitches; fiction and non-fiction only, with poetry collections not accepted; short story collections considered at a minimum of 17,000 words; and writers with at least one published book could also send shorter works of at least 7,500 words.

Editing and services for writers

Alongside publishing, the magazine offers professional services to writers. Its services page lists line-editing and overall editing for works across genres, from standalone short stories to collections, novellas, novels, non-fiction and poetry. It also runs a critiquing programme offering rounded advice on a work as a whole, constructive guidance intended to help a writer grow, and an outsider's perspective delivered, in its words, in a safe space. Marketing services complete the offer, ranging from banner advertisements for a book to logistical support for a book launch, with writers invited to ask for a personalised marketing plan. These services place The Madras Mag within a small economy of independent literary support in India — editing, mentoring and publicity for writers who are outside, or entering, mainstream commercial publishing.

Place in Indian literary publishing

The Madras Mag belongs to the generation of Indian literary magazines that moved online when print economics made independent literary publishing difficult. Its significance is modest in scale but specific in kind. It kept a Chennai address and a Madras name while reading submissions globally; it guaranteed monthly space to debut authors at a time when new Indian writers in English had few magazine outlets; it paired publication with mentoring from established writers, with events and book launches in its home city, and with an attempt to grow from a magazine into an independent publishing house. For readers, it remains what its homepage promises — a free, regularly refreshed selection of new fiction, poetry, non-fiction and columns. For writers, it has functioned as something rarer: an open door, with published terms, no fee, no copyright transfer and an editor whose own career began in the same literary ecosystem the magazine set out to widen.