COWBOY JAMBOREE MAGAZINE & PRESS
  • CJ MAGAZINE
  • ISSUE 10.2: Tough Women, Gritty Tales
    • "Stupid" by Rebecca Tiger
    • "Rattlesnakes" by Sabrina Hicks
    • "Destination Unknown" by Sarah Holloway
    • "Juniper" by Sarah Holloway
    • "The Stand" by Kathryn Silver-Hajo
    • "On Friday, Good Catholics Eat Fish" by Terena Elizabeth Bell
    • "Bodies in Bags" by Jamie Gallagher
    • "Sun Down" by Amy Marques
    • "Fourteen" by Megan Hanlon
    • "A Stroll" by Natalie Nee
    • "White Biped Form, 1954" by Mary Thorson
    • "Thanks for Stopping" by Tom Andes
    • "Dog Days" by Angela James
    • "26" by Pam Avoledo
    • "To The Men I've Missed" by Katy Goforth
  • Style & Submit
    • About CJ
  • Books
    • Poachers and Pills
    • Poor Birds
    • The Lowest Basin
    • Nothing Good Ever Happens in a Flyover State
    • THE TICKS WILL EAT YOU WHOLE
    • Rolling on the Bottom
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The New Salvation
    • TEXAS WIND
    • Silences, Ohio
    • WHERE DARK THINGS GROW
    • San Diego Stories
    • HONKY
    • The Wild Familiar
    • KUDZU by Clem Flowers
    • IN LINE AT WALMART WITH ALL THE OTHER DAMNED
    • I CAN OUTDANCE JESUS
    • MOTEL
  • Sheldon Lee Compton
    • I AM WAR MR TOLSTOY
    • Her Little Place of Dying
    • The Caretaker
    • On SLC's Brown Bottle
    • Somebody Take Care of Little Walter
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The Orchard Is Full of Sound (excerpt)
    • Dog With a Rabbit's Head
    • By-blow
    • Until the Going Down of the River
    • The Judas Steer
    • Tooling Up
    • DYSPHORIA (excerpt)
  • Interviews, Reviews, & Presses
    • Shelby Hinte's Howling Women
    • Of Fathers & Gods
    • Awakenings Review
    • Jaded by Wilson Koewing
    • Jesse Hilson's The Tattletales
    • Here in the Dark by Meagan Lucas
    • Sophomore Slump by Leigh Chadwick
    • Shadows Slow Dancing in Derelict Room
    • Anthony Koronda's Broken Bottles
    • Scott Blackburn's It Dies With You
    • Donald Ryan's Don Bronco's (Working Title) Shell
    • Jay Gertzman's The Promise of Country Noir
    • Hard Mountain Clay Review
    • Blake Johnson's Prodigal: An American Parable
  • Jobbers
    • Dead Wrestlers
    • The Night Bruiser Came to Town
    • Big Rig by Shaun Jex
    • A Night Out with Big Ricky by Katy Goforth
    • War Eagle by David Barker
    • True Dreams of Wichita by Shaun Jex
    • Doink the Clown Works Birthday Parties by Michael Chin
    • The Ballad of Ethel Bridges by David P. Barker
    • House Show in Badger County High School Gym by Simon Nagel
    • 288 Miles by David P. Barker
    • Corn Dogs by Shaun Jex
    • Getting Ready + Cowboy by Michael Chin
    • American Dream by Robert Libbey
    • Training Partner by A.A. Rubin
    • Finding the von Erichs by Shaun Jex
    • The Making of Big Sandy by Michael Carter
    • Pot Roast from Vance Godbey's by Mark A. Nobles
    • Abdullah the Butcher in Gotham by Mark A. Nobles
    • PWI by Josh Olsen
  • CJ Issues Archive
    • Oh Death!
    • Flood Waters
    • with Alacrity!
    • the Family Strain
    • All We Need of Hell-Harry Crews Tribute
    • My Dog Died-a Larry Brown inspired issue
    • Rural Enterprises
    • Grotesque to Art-in the vein of Donald Ray Pollock
    • Henry Chinaski is a Friend of Mine-the Charles Bukowski issue
    • a Mess of Catfish
    • Prine Primed-incited by John Prine
    • Asquint
    • Buried Child-inspired by Sam Shepard
    • New Fools Are Here to Take Your Place-incited by Breece D'J Pancake
    • THALIA ET ALIA-incited by Larry McMurtry
    • Country & Folk
    • Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
    • ISSUE 9.2: the All Covers Album >
      • Sitting in the Laundromat with A Manual for Cleaning Women
      • Kentucky Folklore
      • Caught in a Trap
      • Are You Sure Merle Done It This Way?
      • Tracking
      • Playing Hooky
      • Evangelina & Hunting Bremmer's Mesa
      • Catty-Corner House
      • Blood on the Creek Bank
      • Skeeter
      • Vivian Davis, American
      • Thyroid
      • Wonderin'
      • Playing Cowboy
      • Old Dog
      • Archipelago
      • Keep YR Eye on the Moon
      • 3 Poems by Justin Carter
      • It Ain't Me
      • Heaven's Gonna Have a Honky-Tonk
    • ISSUE 10.1: A CASE OF KINK >
      • Deadhead
      • Fickster the Fixer
      • Get the Money
      • Shady Acres
      • The Ugly Death of Ferrari McGee
      • Burly Pete Calls It A Day
      • Blame It On The Blue Line
      • The Detective
      • The Tattletales (excerpt)
  • Our Father's Lit: Western Pulp

Style & Submit

Cowboy Jamboree Magazine and Cowboy Jamboree Press are currently closed to all submissions.
Buy Custom CJ Swag!

[Purpose, Style & Tastes]

It's in the title.


COWBOY [kou-boi] (def.)
1.  American plains animal herder who tends cows 
2.  one who is reckless or ignores risk, i.e. "cowboy attitude"
3.  tradesman with questionable or atypical practices, i.e. "cowboy plumbing"
4.  fast or careless driver on the highway, i.e. "slow down, cowboy"
5.  slang for "outlaw"

JAMBOREE  [jam-buh-ree] (def.)
1.  a large celebration or party, typically boisterous
2.  a carousel of noisy merrymaking


PLEASE NOTE: COWBOY JAMBOREE IS LBTQ+ INCLUSIVE; WE SUPPORT WOMEN'S RIGHTS; WE ARE POC INCLUSIVE; WE ARE SENSITIVE TO MENTAL HEALTH INCLUSIVITY.

If your fiction, creative nonfiction, vignette, flash, or photography jazzes with the above, we're probably gonna dig it.  Not everything we accept for publication looks the same.  That said, words that describe stories we tend to like might include rural, hardscrabbled, rough-hewn, pulpy, noirish... and, of course, GRITTY.

In short, we're a Grit-Lit magazine focused on the rural working class and gritty realism. We are not a traditional western magazine.  Western stories we accept tend to stray from archetypes of females as damsels and cowboy gunslingin' heroes. We're generally not interested in historical western characters, no matter how fictionalized.  We like stories that blend working class and literary language to explore characters and places that find themselves on the hardscrabble rather than heroic side of life.  

In other words, our cowboys are more likely to jump off a '71 Ford Maverick than ride into a dusty town on a black steed.


Some grit lit and rural authors we love and that inspire us are:  Larry Brown, Harry Crews, Donald Ray Pollock, Willy Vlautin, Denis Johnson, Barry Hannah, Brad Watson, Breece D'J Pancake, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Dorothy Allison, Bobbie Ann Mason, Wiley Cash, Erika T. Wurth, and Sheldon Lee Compton.  Beyond that, "classic" authors we dig vary and are certainly not contained to the following list, but these are some :  Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, Sam Shepard, Charles Portis, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike, Raymond Carver, Jim Harrison, & Elmore Leonard. 

We've always got a soft spot for country western, folk, Americana or rural music.  If that finds its way into a piece, we're likely to be bias readers (don't mean we'll take it, just, you know, it'll tickle our fancy).  Terry Allen, Townes van Zandt, Hank Williams, Mississippi John Hurt, the Carter Family, Nanci Griffith, the Flatlanders, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl King, Old Crow Medicine Show, Johnny Cash, Dom Flemons, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Dwight Yoakam, Justin Townes Earle, John Prine, Charley Crockett, Colter Wall, Tom Waits, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride and Bob Dylan reign supreme here.


[Submitting to Us]


Cowboy Jamboree Magazine is currently closed to subs.


Cowboy Jamboree Press is currently closed to any and all submissions except for I FEEL JUST LIKE A DOGWOOD (see below). ​
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  • CJ MAGAZINE
  • ISSUE 10.2: Tough Women, Gritty Tales
    • "Stupid" by Rebecca Tiger
    • "Rattlesnakes" by Sabrina Hicks
    • "Destination Unknown" by Sarah Holloway
    • "Juniper" by Sarah Holloway
    • "The Stand" by Kathryn Silver-Hajo
    • "On Friday, Good Catholics Eat Fish" by Terena Elizabeth Bell
    • "Bodies in Bags" by Jamie Gallagher
    • "Sun Down" by Amy Marques
    • "Fourteen" by Megan Hanlon
    • "A Stroll" by Natalie Nee
    • "White Biped Form, 1954" by Mary Thorson
    • "Thanks for Stopping" by Tom Andes
    • "Dog Days" by Angela James
    • "26" by Pam Avoledo
    • "To The Men I've Missed" by Katy Goforth
  • Style & Submit
    • About CJ
  • Books
    • Poachers and Pills
    • Poor Birds
    • The Lowest Basin
    • Nothing Good Ever Happens in a Flyover State
    • THE TICKS WILL EAT YOU WHOLE
    • Rolling on the Bottom
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The New Salvation
    • TEXAS WIND
    • Silences, Ohio
    • WHERE DARK THINGS GROW
    • San Diego Stories
    • HONKY
    • The Wild Familiar
    • KUDZU by Clem Flowers
    • IN LINE AT WALMART WITH ALL THE OTHER DAMNED
    • I CAN OUTDANCE JESUS
    • MOTEL
  • Sheldon Lee Compton
    • I AM WAR MR TOLSTOY
    • Her Little Place of Dying
    • The Caretaker
    • On SLC's Brown Bottle
    • Somebody Take Care of Little Walter
    • Oblivion Angels
    • The Orchard Is Full of Sound (excerpt)
    • Dog With a Rabbit's Head
    • By-blow
    • Until the Going Down of the River
    • The Judas Steer
    • Tooling Up
    • DYSPHORIA (excerpt)
  • Interviews, Reviews, & Presses
    • Shelby Hinte's Howling Women
    • Of Fathers & Gods
    • Awakenings Review
    • Jaded by Wilson Koewing
    • Jesse Hilson's The Tattletales
    • Here in the Dark by Meagan Lucas
    • Sophomore Slump by Leigh Chadwick
    • Shadows Slow Dancing in Derelict Room
    • Anthony Koronda's Broken Bottles
    • Scott Blackburn's It Dies With You
    • Donald Ryan's Don Bronco's (Working Title) Shell
    • Jay Gertzman's The Promise of Country Noir
    • Hard Mountain Clay Review
    • Blake Johnson's Prodigal: An American Parable
  • Jobbers
    • Dead Wrestlers
    • The Night Bruiser Came to Town
    • Big Rig by Shaun Jex
    • A Night Out with Big Ricky by Katy Goforth
    • War Eagle by David Barker
    • True Dreams of Wichita by Shaun Jex
    • Doink the Clown Works Birthday Parties by Michael Chin
    • The Ballad of Ethel Bridges by David P. Barker
    • House Show in Badger County High School Gym by Simon Nagel
    • 288 Miles by David P. Barker
    • Corn Dogs by Shaun Jex
    • Getting Ready + Cowboy by Michael Chin
    • American Dream by Robert Libbey
    • Training Partner by A.A. Rubin
    • Finding the von Erichs by Shaun Jex
    • The Making of Big Sandy by Michael Carter
    • Pot Roast from Vance Godbey's by Mark A. Nobles
    • Abdullah the Butcher in Gotham by Mark A. Nobles
    • PWI by Josh Olsen
  • CJ Issues Archive
    • Oh Death!
    • Flood Waters
    • with Alacrity!
    • the Family Strain
    • All We Need of Hell-Harry Crews Tribute
    • My Dog Died-a Larry Brown inspired issue
    • Rural Enterprises
    • Grotesque to Art-in the vein of Donald Ray Pollock
    • Henry Chinaski is a Friend of Mine-the Charles Bukowski issue
    • a Mess of Catfish
    • Prine Primed-incited by John Prine
    • Asquint
    • Buried Child-inspired by Sam Shepard
    • New Fools Are Here to Take Your Place-incited by Breece D'J Pancake
    • THALIA ET ALIA-incited by Larry McMurtry
    • Country & Folk
    • Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
    • ISSUE 9.2: the All Covers Album >
      • Sitting in the Laundromat with A Manual for Cleaning Women
      • Kentucky Folklore
      • Caught in a Trap
      • Are You Sure Merle Done It This Way?
      • Tracking
      • Playing Hooky
      • Evangelina & Hunting Bremmer's Mesa
      • Catty-Corner House
      • Blood on the Creek Bank
      • Skeeter
      • Vivian Davis, American
      • Thyroid
      • Wonderin'
      • Playing Cowboy
      • Old Dog
      • Archipelago
      • Keep YR Eye on the Moon
      • 3 Poems by Justin Carter
      • It Ain't Me
      • Heaven's Gonna Have a Honky-Tonk
    • ISSUE 10.1: A CASE OF KINK >
      • Deadhead
      • Fickster the Fixer
      • Get the Money
      • Shady Acres
      • The Ugly Death of Ferrari McGee
      • Burly Pete Calls It A Day
      • Blame It On The Blue Line
      • The Detective
      • The Tattletales (excerpt)
  • Our Father's Lit: Western Pulp