I mentioned The First Line Literary Journal in a previous post:
The First Line Literary Journal is really fun. I love seeing what kinds of stories other writers come up with all from the same, first line. From romance, to adventure, to emotional, to quirky. Funny, uplifting to sad, dystopian. They all originated from that same, first line.
Talk about creative amazingness!
Well, this is The First Line’s accomplice: The Last Line.
The creators of The First Line, on their about page, explained that they became curious of what would happen if they flipped the prompt from a first line to a last line. That’s it and it stuck. The Last Line comes out with an issue once a year.
The last line for the 2026 edition, which is due October 1, reads: It was after midnight when we finally made it home.
Already, ideas are hitting and every single one is different. That what is so great about The First Line Literary Journal: their first lines really do stir the creative works.
The details:
The Last Line accepts fiction only.
For Fiction:
- All fiction stories have to have the last line at the end of the story, that’s pretty much the point of the literary journal.
- They recommend stories to be between 300 and 5,000 words, though they will accept submissions if they are outside of this range. However, whenever someone gives you a word count range, your chances of being accepted are much higher if you stay inside those numbers.
- Any genre is accepted
For more information and details as to what they want, check out their submissions page HERE
To purchase previous issues for The Last Line Literary Journal to get a better idea of what stories they accept, here is their MAIN PAGE. A PDF version of older issues can be as low as 2 dollars. I do highly recommend purchasing one copy for reference, as with any magazine/journal you are wanting to submit to.
The Last Line Literary Journal does ask that you provide a 2-3 sentence bio with your submission. They prefer submissions to be sent as email attachments in MS Word or Word Perfect formats (NO PDFs), with your name, contact info, and the short bio included in the attachment. When you’re ready, you can find their email address to send your submissions to on their submissions page HERE
Now, go forth and have fun!