We are pleased to announce the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology!
The anthology considers work that has been published online and nominated by journals and self-published writers and artists. As online work continues to push the boundaries of accessibility and quality, this year’s nominations—all published between July 1st, 2023 and June 30th, 2024—presented an especially competitive field. It was no small task for our judges to find what they felt were the most representative of contemporary writing in online setting.
This year’s Fiction selected by judge Ben Tanzer includes Meg Cass’s “Griefworms” from Blackbird, Jessica Klimesh’s “Too Good To Be True” from Gooseberry Pie Lit Magazine, Joshua Jones Lofflin’s “In the Waiting Room” from COMP: an interdisciplinary journal, Rebecca Nakaba’s “Umeboshi” from khōréō, and Siamak Vossoughi’s “Orange” from Pithead Chapel.
Poetry selected by judge Ruben Quesada includes Bruce Bond’s “Lunette 3” from Another Chicago Magazine, Brenda Cárdenas’s “Mercy” from SWIMM Every Day, jason b. crawford’s “Untitled 1975–86” from West Trade Review, Cass Donish’s “Loving After Loss” from COMP: an interdisciplinary journal, Gary Dop’s “On Dys•coffering Dyslexia at 44” North American Review, James Allen Hall’s “Inheritance At Corresponding Periods Of Life, At Corresponding Seasons Of The Year, As Limited By Sex” from The Adroit Journal, Janice N. Harrington’s “PEMBROKE TOWNSHIP, ILLINOIS, SPRING 2022” from swamp pink, Kai Ihns’ “Prayer to the Antibiotic” from Annulet, Fady Joudah’s “Hablando de Vallejo y Darwish” from The Rumpus, Raymond Luczak’s “First A-S-L Sign Me | My First ASL Sign” from Tab Journal, Jennifer Martelli’s “Blur” from Nonbinary Review, Remi Recchia’s “Against Burial” from Bellingham Review, and Diane Suess’s “Little Fugue with Jean Seberg and Tupperware” from Under a Warm Green Linden.
Nonfiction selected by judge Jen Soriano includes Arthur Asseraf’s “My Time Machine” from Granta, Danielle Batalion Ola’s “I Had Better Tell You Where I Am” from swamp pink, Viktoriia Grivina’s “What to Do with All the Russian Books” from Fiery Scribe Review, Abdaljawad Omar’s “Crosshairs” from Rusted Radishes, and Carly Stone’s “The Impressionists” from American Literary Review.
In addition, this year’s Cover Art is Jennifer S. Lange’s “Sticks and Stones” from Peatsmoke Journal. Other selected Art includes Kathleen Frank’s “Frank Along the Cumbres and Toltec” from Gone Lawn and Cesar Piedras’ “El Ritual” from Blackbird.
All of these selections are available on bestofthenetanthology.com, as is the list of this year’s finalists.
In addition, nominations for online work published between July 1st, 2024 and June 30th, 2025 are open for submission. You may submit your nominations for the 2026 issue of the anthology here.
Thank you to everyone who nominated work for this anthology and to the editorial staff who helped make this project possible.
