About

The Third Shore is a quarterly bilingual (Chinese / English) literary journal, independently edited. We publish fiction, poetry, essays, dispatches from elsewhere, and the writing that refuses any of those names.

We started this magazine because the writing we read had grown too feed-shaped — fast, hot, correct, consumable. We wanted another kind: slow, cool, not necessarily correct, the kind that takes an evening to read through.

Each issue is anchored by a single word. The word is not a brief; it is a gravitational center — pieces drift toward it, but no writer is asked to write it. Shore, The Overachiever, Shame, Carnival, Prism are the words of the first five issues.

We believe the real border of Chinese writing right now is the body — the female body named by the state, the male body as digestive tract, the child’s body as metamorphosis, the diseased body as object of moral regimen, the displaced body as carrier of cultural prejudice. The writing on that border is the writing we want to publish.

We publish　writing that has paid careful attention. Cross-form pairings — an essay meets a poem; the micro meets the macro. Pieces that hold Chinese and English at parity — neither language a concession to the other.

We don’t publish　self-help, healing, how-to. Hot takes on current events. Overseas-Chinese-intellectual lifestyle. Comment threads, and the cadence of social engagement.

Submissions and letters　Submissions are not currently open.