RUNNR Magazine
Join PocketMFA’s growing Substack audience to read new work by emerging writers, get in depth interviews with working professionals, learn about exciting calls for submission, and submit your own work for publication and prizes.
RUNNR A PocketMFA Magazine
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About RUNNR
RUNNR is a weekly literary magazine celebrating bold, emerging voices across genres. Founded in 2024 and relaunched on Substack in 2025, RUNNR is a project of PocketMFA, publishing new work that engages with the complexities, joy, and labor of the writing craft.
Every eight weeks, we release a new themed issue—a curated conversation across fiction, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid work, essays, and interviews. Each issue is shaped by the voices of emerging writers and guided by the editorial vision of PocketMFA’s faculty and students.
Each issue includes the RUNNR Prize, based on that issue’s theme, which awards four $250 prizes for outstanding new writing in Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Hybrid & Flash. Winners are selected by guest judges, as well as PocketMFA’s faculty and students, and are published in the magazine.
At RUNNR, we’re fostering a creative ecosystem where writers grow, experiment, and connect. Join us.
Reach out to us at editor (at) pocketmfa.com.
Share Your Work for Publication
We have two categories of submission:
1) General Submissions (Free to Submit & Always Open)
2) Themed Issue Challenge ($10 Submission Fee with Bi-monthly Deadlines)
Every week we publish new work from our general submissions.
Every issue, we publish four winners from our Themed Issue Challenge, with a prize of $250 for each piece.
We accept the following genres of writing: Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Hybrid & Flash.
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Nicholas Mayo
Founder & Editor, Alumni of the Winter 2024 PocketMFA Cohort with Mentor Grant Chemidlin
Nicholas Mayo lives in upstate NY with his dog, Hilde. He is editor of the literary magazine RUNNR and a reader for Frontier Poetry and Barely South Review. His poems have been published by ionosphere, Down in the Dirt Magazine, and Abstract: Contemporary Expressions, and his artwork has been published in Burningword Literary and Modern Renaissance. Nicholas was mentored by Grant Chemidlin during the Winter 2024 cohort at PocketMFA.
Joshua Roark
Founder & Faculty Advisor
Joshua Roark works as the main faculty for Antioch University Los Angeles’ Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing, as well as an infrequent Poetry Mentor for their MFA program. He completed his own MFA in Poetry with Antioch’s low-residency program in 2017. After founding Frontier Poetry in that same year, Joshua went on to become the Editorial Director of Discover New Art and helped launch several more literary magazines and platforms, publishing many books by incredible artists, serving writers of every genre and style.
Joshua Roark’s book of sonnets about teaching middle school as a Teach for America teacher, Put One Hand Up, Lean Back, was published by Unsolicited Press. His manuscript Glorywork is on submission.
In addition to his poetry, Joshua is a screenwriter and film producer in Los Angeles. Most recently, Joshua produced Dead Deer High, a feature film based on his original screenplay about a high school teacher and his team of misfit slam poets going to the national championships. The film was directed by his wife, Jo Rochelle, his frequent collaborator. The film is currently in post-production and will premiere in 2025.