The Hunger is a journal of visceral writing that publishes fiction, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid work, and visual art in a yearly issue, appearing in the Spring. The Hunger Press is home to the Tiny Fork Chapbook Series and holds a yearly chapbook contest in the Summer.
The Hunger began in Summer of 2017 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, as the project of two friends who met in an MFA program and became one another’s “ideal reader” through a mutual attraction to emotionally eviscerating writing. As writers themselves, they noticed a void in the literary magazine market for the kind of work they are inspired to write and read: writing that guts you, that makes you howl with its honesty, that leaves you bloodied, raw, and hungering for more. The Hunger is looking for the lyrical, the strange, the uncomfortable, the vulnerable, the mangled monsters inside.
We strive to create a writing community that is founded on principles of inclusion and diversity, and gives a platform to a wide range of voices. We encourage all people, regardless of race, gender identity, faith, sexual orientation, or political affiliation to submit.
For more on the kind of work the magazine is seeking, read our interview with literary blogger Trish Hopkinson and visit our Submission Guidelines.
The Editors
Lena Ziegler
is the author of MASH (The A3 Press, 2019). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine, Indiana Review, Literary Orphans, Duende, Dream Pop Press, Red Earth Review, Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Review, Gambling the Aisle and others. Her novel Him & Her was a finalist in the 2018 Autumn House Press Fiction contest. She holds an MFA from Western Kentucky University and a PhD from Bowling Green State University, where she wrote a dissertation blending memoir and qualitative community-based research on sexual violence. You can find her online at www.lenaziegler.com
Erin Slaughter
is the author of A Manual for How to Love Us (Harper Perennial, 2023), The Sorrow Festival (CLASH Books, 2022) and I Will Tell This Story to the Sun Until You Remember That You Are the Sun (New Rivers Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature, CRAFT, Slice, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Originally from north Texas, she holds an MFA from Western Kentucky University, and is a PhD candidate at Florida State University. Find her online at erin-slaughter.com
Editorial Assistant
Sarah Olive
is a screenwriting student in Western Kentucky University’s MFA class of 2023. As an undergraduate, she placed third in the Goldenrod Poetry Festival 2020, won the Jim Wayne and Mary Ellen Miller Poetry Award, and worked as an editor for Zephyrus literary magazine. As a graduate student, her poem “Women’s History Month” placed third in the 2021 Gender and Women’s Studies writing contest. Originally from Louisville, KY, Sarah currently lives in Bowling Green, KY, where she teaches Introduction to College Writing, writes feature film scripts, and occasionally fosters kittens.