Big Other is an award-winning online arts and culture magazine, published since 2009. It features fiction, poetry, nonfiction, art, reviews, essays, interviews, a podcast, and more. Big Other is edited and managed by John Madera.
Big Other has published work by Pulitzer Prize winners Rae Armantrout and Forrest Gander, National Book Award winner Daniel Borzutzky, National Book Award winner and current U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy Samuel R. Delany, American Book Award winner Edwin Torres, Charles Bernstein, Robert Coover, Elaine Equi, Rick Moody, Lance, Olsen, Cole Swensen, and a host of other stellar writers.
Some of the writing published in Big Other has been subsequently anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2023; The Best Small Fictions 2020 and 2021; Best Microfiction 2021, 2023, and 2026; and Wigleaf’s “Top Fifty 2020”; and it has also been subsequently published by Anti-Oedipus Press, Bellevue Literary Press, Black Square Editions, Black Widow Press, BlazeVOX, BOA Editions, Broken Sleep Books, C&R Press, Coffee House Press, Copper Canyon Press, Cornerstone Press, Driftwood Press, Dzanc Books, Ellipsis Press, FC2, FlowerSong Press, Four Way Books, Get Fresh Books, Grey Book Press, Juncture Workshops, Lamar University Press, Madhat Press, Marsh Hawk Press, New Directions, Omnidawn, The Operating System, OR Books, Outpost19, Pelekinesis, Persea Books, Ravenna Press, Rescue Press, Roof Books, Sagging Meniscus Press, Scribner, Sonder Press, Spuyten Duyvil, Sundress Publications, Tinfish Press, Unbound Edition Press, the University of Arizona Press, Vegetarian Alcoholic, Wesleyan University Press, and White Stag Publishing.
Read interviews with Big Other‘s publishing editor John Madera about his tenure editing and publishing the journal: in Heavy Feather Review, Maudlin House, and Volume 1 Brooklyn.
Praise for Big Other and John Madera:
“Big Other [is] one of the very best online innovative arts & culture magazines out there.”
—Lance Olsen, author of Skin Elegies, My Red Heaven, Dreamlives of Debris, Theories of Forgetting, and many others
“These days, I’m really grateful for any periodical that pushes the boundaries on what writing can do, because there are so few of them. Big Other does this and more.
—Rick Moody, author of Garden State, The Ice Storm Purple America, The Diviners, The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven, and many others
“John Madera is passionate about good writing and the ideas that good writing spawns. Moreover, he is a great friend to the writers of literary fiction who are lucky to have merited his attention.”
—Norman Lock, author of Feast Day of the Cannibals, The Wreckage of Eden, Love Among the Particles, and many others
“John Madera’s beautiful project, Big Other, [is] always the source for writing that troubles and views from offside.
—Angela Woodward, author of Natural Wonders, End of the Fire Cult, and more
“John Madera and Big Other are my go-to places to go for when I want to know what is most true and pure in the ways of the literary world. I can’t say I know of anyone else in the world quite like John, or quite like Big Other, and it’s this kind of singularity that I am always on the hunt for, and am pleased always by what I find in John and the things he has curated at Big Other. Where else in the world can a single sentence be praised. Where else to go to do such crucial listening.”
—Peter Markus, author Bob, or Man on Boat, as well as five other books of fiction
“This wonderful institution has been around for a baker’s dozen years. Lucky me! Lucky all of us!”
—Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, About Writing, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, and many more books
“Big Other is a vital source of innovative writing.”
—Andrew Joron, author of many books, including O0, The Absolute Letter, Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems, The Sound Mirror, and Neo-Surrealism; Or, The Sun at Night: Transformations of Surrealism in American Poetry
“If you don’t know Big Other, there is so much to discover, from Samuel R. Delany to Rae Armantrout. Rikki Ducornet to our new U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze.”
—David Naimon, host of the radio show and podcast Between the Covers
“John Madera [is] one of the finest readers and supporters of innovative writing.”
—Eckhard Gerdes, author of How to Read, Marco & Iarlaith, The Chronicles of Michel du Jabot, and many more books
“John Madera is surpassingly generous to other writers.”
—Laurie Stone, author of is author of My Life as an Animal, Starting with Serge, and Laughing in the Dark
“John Madera is one of the greatest champions out there of under-recognized writing.”
—David Hollander, author of L.I.E. and Anthropica
“John Madera is a tireless champion of literary writers and their books.”
—Dawn Raffel, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, Carrying the Body, Further Adventures in the Restless Universe, and In the Year of Long Division
“John Madera [is] an editor with a keen eye for detail and opportunity…”
—Davis Schneiderman, Director, Lake Forest College Press / &NOW Books
“On social media and off it, John Madera’s among the most tireless literary advocates we have.”
—Joe Milazzo, author of Crepuscule w/ Nellie, The Habiliments, and Of All Places in This Place of All Places
“John Madera’s heart is as big as his critical acumen is sharp.”
—Brendan Lorber, author of If This Is Paradise Why Are We Still Driving
“Big Other [is] a great big, extra smart, totally eclectic, beautiful part of the literary internet.”
—Laura Cronk, author of Ghost Hour and Having Been an Accomplice
“Writers who have the opportunity to work with John will consider themselves most fortunate.”
—Matthew Binder, author of High in the Streets and The Absolved
“John Madera is a true literary citizen and an amazing advocate for small press literature. He […] is a personable and generous human being, is an insightful reader, and is committed to the continued importance of innovative writing, in all its forms.”
—Janice Lee, author of Imagine a Death
“John Madera, for me, is that most valuable member of any literary community: a conversation starter—a gifted reader who loves literature, and for whom reading is an art, a practice.”
—Harold Abramowitz, author of Blind Spot
“Preserving art in all its forms, especially literary art, is at the core of Big Other editor John Madera’s mission. Following Big Other means food for thought every day!”
—Jane Ciabattari, author of Stealing the Fire
“John Madera is a ray of light. His heartfelt passion for, and deep knowledge of, literature and all its vast potential is extraordinary. Thoughtful, analytic and practical, he keeps great company. His vast network of writers and publishers reconnects me with favorite books/writers and introduces me to new ones. What a Good Man He Is.”
—Lynn Crawford, author of Shankus & Kitto: A Saga, Fortification Resort, and Simply Separate People, Two
“A space of rare unadulterated creation—if only the rest of the internet were made in the image of Big Other.”
—Christopher Vaughan
“When my cowardly first publisher dumped me, and I was down on my luck, two men picked me up and dusted me off. The first was Ryan W. Bradley, who published two of my books at Artistically Declined. The second was the founder of Big Other and its eternally renewable source of energy, John Madera, who actually found reviewers for those books, which meant that they were read. That’s all any writer really wants. But I don’t want to imply that Big Other is good only because it was good for me. Novels and stories and essays don’t have to be social melodramas with characters you are encouraged to love because you can relate to them and characters you are encouraged to hate because they’re cartoon people—but they are incontrovertibly social. We are who we are and write what we write because of the people around us; that we are independent geniuses succeeding on our own terms is pop-culture bullshit. Big Other is an emphatically social endeavor. It’s a community not of yards and cars and apartment doors and media platforms and dogma, but of minds and and ideas and work. And where else can you celebrate Wallace Stevens these days? The man was a Taft Republican for Christ’s sake!”
—Gary Amdahl, author of The Daredevils, Across My Big Brass Bed, I Am Death, and more
“A great and urgently needed literary periodical and a wonderful artist/editor at its head.”
—James W. Fuerst, author of Huge, Distress Cries of Animals, and New World Postcolonial:The Political Thought of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
“Big Other takes big beautiful risks! Although this journal, created, curated, and edited entirely by Madera, touts the publication of experimental literature, I’d say that what’s significant is just how good the work is. Many wonderful pieces have appeared in Big Other, including the literary progeny of Pulitzer Prize winners such as Rae Armantrout and Forrest Gander; National Book Award winners such as Daniel Borzutzky and Arthur Sze; American Book award winner Edwin Torres; science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany; the legendary Robert Coover and the celebrated Elaine Equi; the dazzling Edie Meidav; and many more, including many emerging writers. Big Other also publishes cool special-themed folios such as the Puerto Rican Writers Folio: A Hauntology, in which a story of mine appeared back in 2022. I was very impressed with just how carefully John edited my story and the graphic he used for it, which was absolutely perfect and helped the story find readership.”
—Lyn Di Iorio, author of Outside the Bones and Killing Spanish: Literary Essays on Ambivalent U.S. Latino/a Identity
