Tint Journal is an award-winning online literary journal with an explicit focus on writers who write creatively in English as their second or non-native language (ESL).
By choosing English — the world's most spoken second language and number one lingua franca — as their means of communication, these writers provide their English reading audience with an immediate take on their values, ideas, and beliefs. They bridge borders and blend cultures without the third party of the translator and offer the purest and deepest understandings of their fiction and nonfiction worlds. While a mapping of the width and depth of these translingual and transnational transgressions undertaken by ESL writers is a challenging endeavor, our interactive world map is a first attempt to make it visually graspable for writers published in Tint Journal.*
Since the magazine's founding in 2018 and its first issue in February 2019, Tint Journal has been active as a platform for emerging and established ESL writers which encourages them to stand behind their non-native English backgrounds. A literary voice informed by more than one language has a uniquely modifying quality that enriches stories and poems alike, and consequently readers’ responses to these texts. We think that this quality has been ignored — even shamed — for too long. Through the innovative, tinted lenses of ESL writers, Tint strives to shine a light on the ways that authors all over the globe can contribute to what we know as literature in English.
“I think that we, the ESL writers, come to English with very fresh eyes and ears. I am careful and precious with each and every word; and sometimes that means I have to work even harder than native English speakers. But it can pay off in a great way.” — Kseniya Melnik, author of Snow in May
In its biannual literary issues, Tint Journal showcases original fiction and nonfiction as well as poetry by ESL writers. Going beyond Tint's 10th publication, every Fall issue of the magazine has been themed, while our Spring issues are open to any subject matter which does not violate our values of acceptance and inclusivity. The journal further features audio recordings of the writers reading their work.
Additionally, the magazine's In Conversation section provides room for discussions about writing in English as a second language, and about ESL books and their authors. English writers of any kind are invited to contribute interviews with and profiles of ESL writers, as well as reviews of published work by ESL writers.
Please see our open calls and review our submission guidelines before handing in a piece.
We nominate for Best of the Net, best microfiction, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and the Pushcart Prize.
* While we understand that the redrawing of national boundaries and language groups has to be seen critically, we want to give our readers, submitters, and other interestees a most accessible way to the world represented in our digital pages. Our published writers are free to state multiple nationalities as the places they'd like to be associated with, or poetically recreate these places in their biographies.
Pushcart Prize 2025 (Nadir Jabur, “The Uber Men” in Tint Spring ‘24)
Pushcart Prize L anthology, special mention (Sahil Mehta, “The Silent World of Jordi Soto” in Tint Fall ‘24)
Best Microfiction (Saumya Sawant, "Dead Girl Summer" in Tint Fall ‘23)
KUNSTRAUM STEIERMARK-Scholarship 2023 (EiC Lisa Schantl)
Short-listed for the Amateo Award 2021
Ö1 Reparatur der Zukunft Award 2020
Finalist for the European Youth Award 2019
“Tint acknowledges and highlights the native and other languages that inform a text. This openness, fraternity, acceptance and celebration of our human diversity are what publishing needs to deliver art and stories that matter — and indeed, it is what the world needs now more than ever.” — Juhea Kim, author and Tinted Trails guest editor
“This journal has a compelling mission, one that I haven’t seen before in a literary magazine. By opening a space for ESL writers’ creative voices, Tint Journal will expose readers to a rich, culturally diverse world.” — Janis Hubschman, writer and professor
“Tint Journal provides a valuable, indeed a necessary, reminder of the contribution that non-native speakers of English make to the language, suffusing it with new cultural hues, new shades of meaning. The writing in these pages testifies to the fact that foreignness is not a taint, but a tint, without which our world would be hopelessly dull.” — Boris Dralyuk, executive editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, translator and author
“I am thrilled to see Tint in motion. As a writing instructor as well as a member of several writing communities, I’ve read and listened to hundreds of pieces written by ESL writers. Because of this, my appreciation for storytelling, culture and language has deepened and widened. That we now have a journal devoted to showcasing these texts is exhilarating and the timing is perfect.” — Kathy Curto, writer, professor and teaching artist
Read more about the founding and the vision of Tint Journal online at:
The Nonconformist Magazine (English)
The Montclarion (English)
Tell Tell Poetry (English)
Podcast "We Should Talk" (English)
Plato's Caves online (English)
International Writers Collective (English)
Six Questions For... (English)
Radio Helsinki — Tinted Trails (English)
Working on Gallery (English)
Zhagaram Literary Magazine (English)
Radio Helsinki — Sterrrn Festival (German)
Kultur*Europa*Journal (German)
Litrobona (German)
Ö1 Reparatur der Zukunft (German)
Creative Austria (German)
ORF Steiermark (German)
Futter (German)
Alumni Uni Graz (German)
We want to thank all our supporters and believers deeply for their trust in our mission! Special thanks goes to the Los Angeles Review of Books, the City of Graz, Land Steiermark, and dedicated scholars from the University of Graz.
Supported by:
