The Best Bite Out of the Big Apple

Start spreading the news, Ninth Letter is coming to AWP!

You can find us at table #418 American Hall II. We will have the current issue of the magazine for sale, back issues, a goodie with purchase, and friendly & knowledgeable graduate students to answer your questions. Our editor, Jodee Stanley, will also be in the house. Could you ask for anything more?

Get your literature on and come see us at AWP/NYC.

MFA Alumna Publishes Collection

Congratulations to UIUC creative writing alumna Kim Chinquee who recently published a collection of flash fiction, Oh Baby. Ravenna Press describes the book as follows:

A wonderful debut collection of prose poems and flash fictions, short short stories of beautiful precisions and understated passions. While the bricks with which Chinquee constructs her fictions—failed or failing relationships, childhood friendships, the intricacies of family life—are not uncommon, the architecture she creates with them is rare indeed: stories now full of light, now somber, now opening the reader’s eyes to an utterly new space.

Errata

Our current issue came back from the printer with a couple of rather serious errors, I'm sorry to say. Travis Kurowski's essay "Basquiat and Six Uses of Space" and Frankie Drayus's poem "Dear Mr. Denby (Film Collage)" both appeared incorrectly in our pages. Visit the current issue's web page to find correct versions of these pieces.

We can't express enough how sorry we are for these errors.

We also printed the URL for Travis's new literary magazine review, Luna Park Review, incorrectly in our Contributors' Notes, and we're sorry for that, too. Luna Park launches next week and you should bookmark it--it will be your favorite new site for all things literary.

Music Feature Update, part deux

Are you planning to submit poetry for our upcoming music feature? Take note: we've imposed a new deadline on submissions. March 15 (postmark date) will be the last day we accept submissions for this feature. Regular submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction will continue to be read through the end of our reading period, which is April 30.

Carr Reading Series for Spring 2008

In keeping with their tradition of excellence, the Carr Reading Series once again brings amazing poets and fiction writers to campus this semester. Be sure to save these dates on your calendar to hear featured artists (Mark Costello, Mariko Nagai, Patrick Rosal, and David Foster Wallace) read and discuss their work.

All readings are held at the Illini Union Bookstore Author's Corner, 2nd floor.

Never Too Old for Great Books

I don't know about you, but a number of my favorite books count among the imaginative tales I read as a child. On that note, check out the 2008 Newbery and Caldecott Award winners either for the child in your life or the one that's still in all of us.

An Author Remembered

We mourn the passing of essayist Arthur Saltzman, who died suddenly in his home on January 8, 2008. Saltzman, a professor at Missouri Southern State University, was the author of 10 books, most recently Solve for X (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2007), a collection of essays, and his essay "Squaring the Circle" is forthcoming in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of 9L.

from Series A

Click over here to experience last month's Series A reading in Hyde Park, Chicago featuring poetry & creative nonfiction by Ninth Letter's own Juan Manuel Sanchez and Steve Davenport.

You can check their schedule, right here, for upcoming events, including the appearance of contributor Adam Clay, on April 22nd, 2008

Happy New Year!