Announcement: Submission Dates

Our regular submission period will end this Thursday, February 28, at 5pm. New electronic submissions will not be accepted after that time. All mailed submissions, if you're into that, must be postmarked by that date. Check out our submission guidelines for a last minute refresher.

However, we will begin accepting submissions for our first ever Literary Awards on March 1! We have four categories: Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Literature in Translation. The winner of each category wins $1,000 as well as publication in our Fall/Winter 2013-14 (vol. 10, no. 2) issue. Details on entry fees, judges, and submission information can be found on our contest page.

We look forward to reading your work! 

A 9L Valentine

Feeling sentimental today so how about this, Valentines? Today only, get your choice of any back issue of Ninth Letter, volumes 1-8, FOR FREE!! That's right, that's how much we love you!

Just send an email to info@ninthletter.com with VALENTINE LOVE in the subject line, and let us know which issue you'd like and your mailing address. (Vol. 2 no. 2 is sold out; everything else in our archive is available.) 

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Big News: 2013 Literary Awards

We are very happy to announce our first annual Literary Awards competition! We'll begin accepting entries in March, so get to work on putting your submission together. There will be four categories: Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Literature in Translation. The winner for each category will receive $1,000 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2013-14 issue (vol. 10, no. 2).

The entry fee is $17 for one submission to one category. All entrants receive a one-year subscription to Ninth Letter. For more information on the contest, including who will be judging each category (hint: they're incredible) and formatting, etc., vist the contest page. 

Of course, we'll have more information as the contest entry period draws closer. 

AWP 13: 3 for 1 Subscription Returns

AWP is right around the corner. Lurking, some might say. Seriously, we always look forward to AWP araound here, which is why I can't wait to start telling you about some of the great things we have planned for this year. I'm happy to announce that once again Ninth Letter will be teaming up with our friends at Cincinnati Review and Mid-American Review to offer the 3 for 1 subscription deal! It's tradition now. 3 terrific magazines for the price of 1. Can't beat it. I'll have more details about it as we get closer to AWP.

Also, keep an eye out for an announcement concerning something else we're putting together. I can't say too much yet, but I will give you a hint: trilogy.

That's all the information I can release at the moment. I'll be sure to keep you informed, so keep checking back for more details. 

The Web Edition is Here (Updated)

Well, this is just too exciting for words, but I think I'll manage. Our first ever web edition is now online!  It's everything you love about Ninth Letter (excellent writing and beautiful imagery) right on your computer screen. The web edition features the talent of creative writing students from across the country. We have fiction. We have poetry. You should not waste any more time and read the issue right now!

Update: bonus features for the new web edition are now available. Enjoy!

New (Print) Issue Preview: Piaf and Roadkill

Yesterday we gave you a preview of our upcoming web edition and now it's time for a sneak peek at some of the content from our soon to be released print edition (vol. 9, no. 2).  Here is an excerpt from Edward Kelsey Moore's essay, "Piaf and Roadkill." Enjoy!

I got out of the car, opened the hood, and leaned in to get a good look. That was when I saw the dead animal. It was twisted around the fan and entwined with the fan belt. Its face was pointed up toward mine.
     I don’t recall running after I slammed shut the hood, but I must have because I was half a block away from the car, hopping from foot to foot when I clamped a trembling hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t hear myself shrieking. I hadn’t run far, but I had put enough distance between myself and my car that I could now see the hind end of an animal hanging from behind the grill onto the street below.
     I made the first of several increasingly strange phone calls then. I called my partner at work. Peter is usually a calming and comforting influence, and he has a knack for helping me see humor in even the worst situation. Squeaky-voiced and barely able to speak, I told him that I had just found some unfortunate creature wrapped around the front of my engine and that, when I came face to face with it, I had reacted by running, screaming and leaping up and down like a cartoon housewife who had just seen a mouse. He responded, “And you’re wearing that fuzzy, pink sweater, aren’t you?”
     That was the worst thing he could have said. From the moment I slapped my hand over my screaming mouth, a little voice I thought I had banished years earlier had started badgering me that a manly plan for dealing with this problem existed, and that I was uniquely unable to put it into action. I had thought that, after a lengthy and fitful coming-out process, I’d put to bed the fear that I routinely failed at even pretending to be a real man. But as soon as I slammed shut the hood of my car, I had been aware that the revulsion I felt was keeping company with shame. That harshly critical little voice was wide awake, and it wanted my attention.

We will let you know as soon as vol. 9, no. 2 is available, so you can pick up a copy to read the full version of "Piaf and Roadkill" as well as all the other great essays, stories, and poems in the issue.

Coming in December! Our First Complete Online Issue

This year at Ninth Letter we have put together an online feature dedicated to showcasing the best student work from creative writing programs across the country. This special winter issue will only be available on our website and will feature work by eighteen outstanding emerging writers:

J. Scott Brownlee (New York University)

Matthew Burnside (Iowa Writers' Workshop)

Portia Elan (University of Victoria, BC)

Lisa Fay Coutley (University of Utah)

Samantha Deal (University of North Carolina, Wilmington)

Andy Hobin (Virginia Tech)

Nathan Logan (University of North Texas)

Gerardo Mena (Goddard College)

Katie Jean Moulton (Indiana University)

Beatrice Mora (Sarah Lawrence)

Brianna Noll (University of Illinois-Chicago)

Eric Paul (Fairleigh Dickinson University)

Ron Paul Salutsky (Florida State)

Cara Stoddard (University of Idaho)

Christine Stroud (Chatham University)

M. Thompson (New York University)

Laura Usselman (Virginia Tech)

Heath Wilcock (Arizona State)

Stay tuned to our blog, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook so you can be among the first to know when this fantastic issue goes live!

                                                Faith is like a wholly undeserved hangover,

a stubbornly dry ballpoint, like realizing partway through an episode of Law & Order

that you already saw the second half, in a motel outside Tempe,

your whole naked body goose pimpled under the air conditioner;

it's like/it's like a bridesmaid dress, faith is.

             
    --from "A Simile Is a Suspension Bridge," Portia Elan

Study Questions Contest!

From Philip Graham, our Nonfiction Editor:

Ninth Letter is proud to sponsor our first online essay contest with the publication of Robin Hemley’s essay, “Study Questions for the Essay at Hand: A Speculative Essay.” Hemley’s essay seems to be going through an identity crisis, asserting and contradicting itself in an attempt to understand its own existence, as it throws eighteen questions out to a silent world. Plaintive, aggressive, wistful, quizzical and coy, this essay needs your help, needs its questions answered.

So, here’s Ninth Letter’s proposal, gentle reader. Respond to the eighteen questions of Hemley’s essay--interrogate it, argue with it, hold its hand, whisper to it, whatever you wish.

Patrick Madden, the sterling author of the essay collection Quotidiana (and founder of a website of the same name, which serves as an indispensible compendium of 383 public-domain essays: essays.quotidiana.org), will serve as our discerning judge. The deadline for all entries is October 15, 2012. We’ll republish Robin Hemley’s essay with the winner’s responses on the Ninth Letter website, and throw in a year’s subscription to our magazine to boot. And who knows, maybe we’ll have more than one winner. Hemley’s essay seems to need a lot of advice and council . . .


Email your entries (up to 2000 words) to us at editor@ninthletter.com with subject line "Study Questions" by October 15!

Special Online Edition

To all of you out there who are currently enrolled in a creative writing program, graduate or undergraduate, we are inviting you to submit your fiction or poetry for a special online only edition that will be published on ninthletter.com in Winter 2012-13. If your work is chosen for the special edition, you will receive a 2-year subscription to Ninth Letter as well as an entry fee waiver for our upcoming 2013 writing contest! How awesome is that?!

Submissions for this edition are now open and will close on November 1.  Unlike our regular submissions, we will not be accepting snail mail submissions for this special edition. For more information, including submission guidelines, and to submit, click over to our Submittable page.

Please be sure to spread the word. We look forward to reading your work!

Submissions Open!

The title of this post says it all: our reading period is now open! Of course, this means we want to see your best fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Are you up to the challenge? Surely you are. However, before sending off your work, be sure to take a refresher on our submission guidelines.

Okay. All set? Good. Now you're ready to head on over to our submission manager. We also still accept snail mail submissions, if you're so inclined (our mailing address can be found on the submission guidelines page). Let's see anything else? Yes. Please note that we've made a change to the length of our reading period. Submissions will now only be open until February 28, 2013 instead of April 30, 2013, so don't wait too long to submit. We look forward to reading your work.

Back Issue Sale

Hey blog readers! Did you know that for the rest of July, you can get any back issue of Ninth Letter for just $5.95? Yes, ANY back issue for $5.95. This includes the fall/winter 11-12 issue, the one with guy decked out in his finest glittery jacket and includes work from Monica Berlin, Joe B. Sills, and Jill Osler. Other back issues feature the work of Jensen Beach, Matt Bell, Anna Carson Dewitt, Cathy Day, Angie Estes, George Singleton, Natalie Bakopoulos, Dan Chaon, and many more. You can order issues going all the way back through to our very first issue. Take a look through our archives to see all the terrific fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction that awaits you.

To take advantage of this deal, just visit our webstore and select the $5.95 sample copy option, then in the instructions box list the volume/issue number you want to purchase.

New Issue: vol 9, no. 1

The new spring/summer 12 (vol. 9, no.1) issue is here! Head on over to the current issue page to check out the table of contents as well as sample spreads. While you're there you can check out information about Ninth Letter, vol. 9, no. 1.5. Yes. 1.5. It's our first chapbook made up of seven stories and five real architectural and landscape proposals for cities around the world. The special issue, called Man-Made Lands, will be out later this month.


Now let's get back to vol. 9, no.1. Once again our editorial staff have found some riveting fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. To give you an idea of what they've chosen, here are a few quick excerpts, just a sentence or two, from some of the pieces you'll see in the new issue.

"A few Halloween pranksters caught in the act of throwing eggs had sworn she was the kind of midnight mother able to suck the breath straight from a body quicker than a cat suffocates a baby." -- from "Whatsoever" by Amy Sayre-Roberts (fiction).

"When we bought our first Ginsu--the knife that was 'more clever than a cleaver' and 'could destroy even the most challenging chicken'--it was the 1980s, a decade when Madonna became both Blessed Mother and Material Girl. The Reagan administration was flexing its muscles before a world sized mirror. And Americans were hungry for stuff." -- from "As Seen on TV" by Anna Vodicka (nonfiction).

"I am a bride of the one true word, the veiled surrender, sister of the right
agenda, the humble but stained pane of glass, the obedient class, your confessed
skin shrinking, defender of the Good Friday cross I kiss, the sacred heart
hung on the peeling wall, your dogmatic stickler." -- from "How will You Believe what I Say?" by Josh Kalscheur (poetry).

To order a copy of the new issue, head on over to our webstore. Have you liked us on Facebook? If not, now is a good time to do so since we're offering an exclusive deal to our fans on Facebook until Sunday.

Submissions Closing

Dear all writers, if you've been waiting to send a story, poem or essay our way, today is your last day to do so as our reading period is closing for the summer. You'll have until 9pm (CST) to submit via our submission manager. If you're mailing work to us, it must be postmarked with today's date (April 30). Don't delay. Here's a quick refresher on our guidelines if you need them. Make sure to send us your best stuff in the next few hours. Thanks!

Also stay tuned for information on our next issue, vol. 9, no. 1! 

9L @ AWP 2012

AWP 2012 week is finally here! There's so much good stuff going on this year that I don't know if I have time to tell you all about it/attend all the cool events. But here are some highlights that you should pencil in on your schedule.

Ninth Letter will of course be at the bookfair, so be sure to stop by table O24 to say hi, check out the new issue, and pick up some rockin' swag. This year's t-shirt may feature a certain cast member from Welcome Back, Kotter that also figures into one the essays in the new issue.

We'll have the following on-site deals:

1. A 3-for-1 subscription with Mid-American Review and The Cincinnati Review, where you will get a 1-year subscription to all three magazines for $33.

2. A 1-year subscription to Ninth Letter for $17 (reg. price $21.95), which also comes with a free t-shirt.

3. Copies of the current issue will be $9 (reg. price $14.95).

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We'll also be teaming up with our partners in crime, Mid-American Review and The Cincinnati Review for the Monster Mags of the Midwest, Part II reading. Here are the details:

When: Wednesday, February 29 at 7pm

Where: Murphy's Bleachers (across from Wrigley Field)

Readers: Mary Biddinger (vol. 5, no. 1), Brock Clarke (vol 4, no. 1), Matthew Gavin Frank (most recently vol. 8, no. 1), Michael Robins, Laura Van den Berg, and Keith Lee Morris (most recently vol. 5, no. 2)

The reading is free and open to the public. I'll also be live blogging from the event. Follow us on Twitter (@ninthletter) to get updates about AWP throughout the week.

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My original plan was to post info about the readings, signings, and panels that our contributors will be on, but there are just too many to list here. I'm going to try to make it to a bunch of them and will post pictures and information from them on the blog.

I will be roaming the bookfair and will be at the Ninth Letter table (O24) from time to time, so I may be asking you a quick question or two with the answers posted here on the blog.

AWP is going to be a lot of fun! See you there!

New Issue! New Issue!

The new Fall/Winter 11-12 (vol. 8, no. 2) issue is here! Follow the links below to check out more about it:

• Go here to see the cover, sample spreads, and the contributor list.
• For an extended preview, watch video supplements from the design team in the Audio/Visual Feature section.
• Listen to Assistant Editors Sara Gelston and Max Somers read selected poems from the issue by Roger Reeves and Laura Lee Washburn.
• To order a copy, head over to the webstore.

Subscribers and contributors should expect to see copies in their mailboxes soon. We hope everyone enjoys the issue as much as we do.

Sneak Peek #2

For the second in a series of sneak peeks at the new issue (vol. 8, no. 2), which will be available soon, I bring you an excerpt of Logan Adams' story, "Tethers." The story does many things amazingly well. However, one of my favorite things about it is how well worn the characters feel in their lives. Combine this deft characterization with Noir elements and you have one hell of a read. Here is the first paragraph. Enjoy.

Tethers

Under the midday prairie sun, heat washed over my brother and me. We sat on one of the hills that ran like puckers in an untucked sheet across the ranch land dirt and shimmering waves of Indian grass. Andrew slumped against a fence post no longer strung with barbed wire. I stood and licked the salt on my lips, deciding what to do with him. Two beveled holes--one on each side of his calf--had yellowed and the surrounding skin was swollen, tight and blue. A thin stream of dried blood ran down to his sock like a seam--as if you could peel it away to find the stitching that held him together. Andrew's tongue lolled in his mouth, dry and white, and he complained about how tired he was--as if he'd never been more ready to sleep, to crawl under the hills and pull them to his neck and close his eyes. But from this hill we could see a house, its cottonwood windbreak, and the highway. He asked me to go on and get help. We'd come from New Orleans by boxcar, a ride we hopped the night our mother died, and now he wanted to go back there, where the city would put him in a group home. He was choosing it over living on the road with me. I felt like I was in one of those moments where you get the urge to swerve into oncoming headlights or launch yourself off an apartment building's roof. And so why not? No one knew we were in South Dakota and sometimes you just have to yank the wheel.

To read "Tethers," pick up a copy of the Fall/Winter 11-12 issue (vol. 8, no. 2). Sign up for a subscription and it will be mailed to you as soon as it is available. How nice would that be? Head on over to the webstore to sign up!

Winter Break Reminder

Just a reminder that our online submission manager will be temporarily closed to new submissions during winter break. This is to give us a chance to catch up on the backlog. New work can be submitted through today until about 9pm (central time). During the break, current submitters will be able to access their accounts and snail mail submissions will still be accepted. The submission manager will reopen on January 16.

Have a great holiday!

Sneak Peek #1

Here's a sneak peek at the back cover and contributor list for the new issue (vol. 8, no. 2), which will be out in January. Enjoy!

Winter Break

Please note that we will be closing our online submission manager next Thursday, December 15, and it will remained closed for the duration of the U of I's winter break. This is just give us a chance to catch up on reading submissions we already have. Never fear, the submission manager will be back online in January.

In the meantime, be sure to check the blog for submission manager reminders, news regarding our next issue, and contributor updates.

Hope everyone out there is having a great holiday season.

October Special

Happy October everyone! This is one of our favorite months around here, so to celebrate we're offering a two-year subscription for the price of one! To get in on this month long deal, pick the one-year subscription in the webstore and enter OCT241 in the Special Instructions box.

Also, you'll want to be sure to head over to the main site to check out the new Featured Artist - Jensen Beach. Jensen's story, "Water Festival" is featured in our currentspring/summer 2011 issue (vol. 8, no. 1). In the Featured Artist section you can read an interview with Jensen and 9L staffer, Laura Adamczyk, about mixing fiction and nonfiction. You'll also find a pdf of "Water Festival". Enjoy!

As always, thanks for reading!