What Kind of Writing and Art Appears in Image Journal?
Image Journal publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and visual art that is "informed by or grappling with religious faith and spiritual questions." The quarterly was founded in 1989 and describes itself as "a forum for the best writing and artwork" in that space. If you want to know whether a particular piece of your own reading taste—or your own submission—fits, the short answer is: work that takes faith and spiritual questions seriously as subject matter, without requiring a devotional or doctrinal stance.
The four main categories
The journal's content falls into recognizable sections, visible in the table of contents of a recent issue (Issue 129):
| Category | Example from Issue 129 |
|---|---|
| Fiction | "Glass Blowers" by Thea Swanson |
| Fiction in translation | Work from Miral al-Tahawy |
| Poetry | Poems by Lawrence Joseph, Li-Young Lee, and Allison Seay |
| Visual art | "In the Studio" featuring Eileen Ryan |
| Essays | "An Object Arrived" by Lia Purpura |
| Culture criticism | "On Karen Russell's The Antidote" by Amy Bornman |
So the range is wider than "religious writing" in a narrow sense. A single issue can move from translated short fiction to a critical essay on a contemporary novel to an artist's studio notes.
What "grappling with faith" actually looks like
The mission statement is the clearest guide to editorial range: Image curates work that "grapple[s] with the mystery of being human" by exploring "religious faith and spiritual questions." Two things follow from that wording.
First, the posture is exploratory rather than confessional. The journal's own description of a recent issue includes "Art that troubles worship as spectacle" and a conversation with George Saunders "on afterlives and whether we can change"—framings that invite doubt, argument, and ambiguity, not just affirmation.
Second, the faith dimension can be indirect. A photo-essay on "the glances photojournalists don't intend to capture," an essay on controlled prairie burns, or art that "collaborates with non-humans" all appear alongside explicitly religious material. The connecting thread is sustained attention to meaning, not a required topic.
Contributors and range
Named contributors across recent issues include:
- George Saunders (conversation on afterlives)
- Li-Young Lee, Lawrence Joseph, and Allison Seay (poetry)
- Eileen Ryan (visual art; also the cover artist for Issue 129)
- Miral al-Tahawy (fiction in translation)
- Lia Purpura (essay)
- Molly McCully Brown, KC McGinnis, Robert M Geraci, Marcus Clarke, Amy Bornman, Thea Swanson, Daniel DeVaughn, Kyle Abbott Smith
The presence of a translated Arabic-language fiction writer, a former Marine writing on "making a life after the Marines," and a critic on a mainstream literary novel indicates the journal is not confined to one tradition, denomination, or genre.
How to judge fit
If you are deciding whether to read or submit:
- Reads like literary fiction, poetry, and personal essay with spiritual or religious questions as a live concern—not genre fiction, not devotional instruction, not academic theology.
- Visual art is presented with artist context ("In the Studio"), so documentary, installation, and conceptual work all appear.
- Translation and cultural criticism are regular features, so work in conversation with other texts and traditions fits.
For current issue contents and submission or subscription details, the journal's own site is the authoritative source; the subscribe page is at imagejournal.org/subscribe.