(a Press 53 Online Publication)
READ our current ISSUE
issue 269, JAN-APR 2025
About Prime Number Magazine
Since July 17, 2010, Prime Number Magazine has been featuring distinctive poetry and short fiction from writers around the world. Beginning January 2025 began accepting submissions for Flash Nonfiction with editor (and award-winning flash nonfiction author) Shuly Xóchitl Cawood.
Our name, Prime Number Magazine, is inspired by our publisher, Press 53—fifty-three being a prime number (a number that is not divisible without remainder by any other numbers except one and the number itself). In celebration of this uniqueness, our first issue was Issue 2, the first prime number, and we continued onward with Issue 3, Issue 5, Issue 7 and so on.
Prime Number Magazine began as a quarterly (four times a year) publication. On January 1, 2023, Prime Number Magazine began publishing every quadrimester (three time a year). Our publication is only online and is free to everyone around the world.
In 2018, Prime Number Magazine earned its first Pushcart Prize for “Brace Yourself,” by Leslie Jill Patterson, which also won the 2017 Prime Number Magazine Award for Short Fiction, judged by David Jauss.
Each issue of Prime Number Magazine features:
Winners of our free, monthly 53-Word Story Contest
Poetry and Short Fiction selected by our Guest Editors from our general submissions (open the first two months of each quadrimester: Jan-Feb; May-Jun; Sept-Oct)
Introductions and a call for submissions to our upcoming Guest Editors
The annual September edition of Prime Number Magazine features the winners of our Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction, that are open for entries January through March each year, and the winners of our two free contests: the monthly 53-Word Story Contest and the “Prime 53 Poem” Summer Challenge.
Prime Number Magazine is home to distinctive poetry, short fiction, and now flash nonfiction from writers around the world!
prime number
: any integer other than 0 or ± 1 that is not divisible without remainder by any other integers except ± 1 and ± the integer itself (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary)
In literature: poetry and prose that is distinctive and unique (Prime Number Magazine)
Prime Number Magazine is a Press 53 publication, founded by Clifford Garstang and Kevin Morgan Watson on July 1, 2010, beginning with Issue 2 and continuing in prime numbers.