Poets & Writers Literary Agents, Magazines & Grants Scraper

Scrape the complete Poets & Writers directory: literary agents, literary magazines, small presses, and writing contests/grants. Exports structured JSON records with genres, submission guidelines, reading periods, deadlines, and prize amounts.

What it scrapes

Record type	Source listing	Fields
literary_agent	/literary_agents	name, agency, genres, representative authors, submission guidelines, email, website
literary_magazine	/literary_magazines	publication name, editorial focus, genres, reading period, payment terms, circulation, format
small_press	/small_presses	publication name, editorial focus, genres, reading period, reading fee, simultaneous submissions
grant_award	/writing_contests	award name, sponsor, prize amount, deadline, entry fee, eligibility

All records include source_url (the canonical pw.org URL) and record_type.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
recordTypes	array	all 4 types	Which record types to scrape. Options: literary_agent, literary_magazine, small_press, grant_award
maxItems	integer	(none)	Maximum records to collect across all types. Omit to scrape everything.

Example input

{
  "recordTypes": ["literary_agent", "grant_award"],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Output

One dataset item per record. All fields are optional — absent values are omitted rather than set to null.

Literary agent example

{
  "record_type": "literary_agent",
  "name": "Laurie Abkemeier",
  "agency": "DeFiore and Company",
  "genres_represented": "General Nonfiction, Narrative Nonfiction, Health and Medicine",
  "submission_guidelines": "Query by e-mail only...",
  "accepts_email_queries": "Yes",
  "website": "https://defliterary.com",
  "source_url": "https://www.pw.org/literary_agents/laurie_abkemeier"
}

Grant/award example

{
  "record_type": "grant_award",
  "award_name": "New Writers Awards",
  "sponsor": "Great Lakes Colleges Association",
  "prize_amount": "$500 and campus visits",
  "deadline": "February",
  "entry_fee": "None",
  "eligibility": "First book of fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction",
  "source_url": "https://www.pw.org/writing_contests/new_writers_awards"
}

Coverage

Poets & Writers maintains one of the most comprehensive databases of literary market information in the United States:

• ~230 literary agents
• ~155 literary magazines
• ~235 small presses
• ~45 writing contests and grants

Full crawl typically completes in 15-30 minutes depending on the record types selected.

Notes

• No account or API key required — all data is publicly accessible on pw.org.
• Respectful crawling — the actor uses low concurrency to avoid overloading pw.org's servers.
• Data reflects the current state of the pw.org directory at the time of the run. Agents, submission windows, and deadlines change frequently — re-run regularly for up-to-date results.