Bryan Furuness Interview on Fiction Writers Review

9L editor Philip Graham has a fascinating discussion with 9L contributor and long-time good buddy Bryan Furuness over at Fiction Writers Review. If you haven't read Bryan's debut novel The Lost Episodes of Revie Bryson, you need to do so ASAP!

2013 Award Winners Announced!

Ninth Letter is proud to announce the winners of our 2013 Literary Awards!

Poetry winner: R. A. Villanueva, for his poems "Aftermaths" and "Sacrum"

Fiction winner: Caitlin O'Neill, for her story "The Change Over Day"

Creative Nonfiction winner: Jessica Wilbanks, for her essay "On the Far Side of the Fire"

Literature in Translation: Eleanor Goodman, for her translation of excerpts from Shen Wei's A Dictionary of Xinjiang

Other honors accorded by our judges include:

G. C. Waldrep selected "Three Expressions of El Tio" and "Five Characteristics of the Genus Tragelaphus" by Zoey Farber as the Runner Up entry in poetry

Alexis Levitin selected Olga Nikolova's translations of "A Birthday Between Two Seas," "A Formula for Infinity," and "Toast" by Krasimira Zafirova's as the Runner Up entry up in translation

Margot Livesey named "Pinprick" by Christie Heinrichs, "Charcoal" by Rachel Unkefer, and "Here Where the World Is Greening" by Rachel May as Honorable Mentions in fiction.

Many thanks to our judges G. C. Waldrep, Lia Purpura, Alexis Levitin, and Margot Livesey, and to all the terrific authors who submitted work.

Philip Graham interviews Angela Woodward at Fiction Writers Review

Creative Nonfiction Editor Philip Graham interviews Angela Woodward about her novel End of the Fire Cult (Ravenna Press) at Fiction Writers Review. Excerpts from End of the Fire Cult appeared in Ninth Letter's Spring/Summer 2010 issue.

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! 

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. 

Quick Contributor News

Here's a couple updates concerning some of our contributors:

CNF editor, Philip Graham interviews William Gillespie (vol. 7, no. 2) about his novel, Keyhole Factory.

Also, the National Book Critics Circle Awards announced their finalist for 2012 today and we were thrilled to see some 9L contributors on the list: D.A. Powell (vol. 7, no. 2) for Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys, Lucia Perillo (vol. 3, no. 1) for On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths, and Adam Johnson for The Orphan Master's Son (vol. 1, no. 2). Congratulations! Winners will be announced on February 28.

We love sharing good news, so if you're a contributor and have news you'd like for us to share, be sure to contact us at info@ninthletter.com

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!

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

Contributor Round-Up

Hello out there! We have some news for you. Actually a lot of news that we can't wait to share. We have not one, but two new issues coming out soon (print and web editions). There will be more on both of those issues very soon, so stay tuned.

Congratulations to our "Study Question" contest winners, Jacqueline Doyle and J.M. Gamble! Head on over to the main site to read contest judge, Patrick Madden's comments as well as the winning submissions.

Okay, time for an update on what some of contributors have been up to!

Congratulations to all the 2013 NEA Fellows! We're exited and proud that the following poets, who have appeared in Ninth Letter, are on the list:

Traci Brimhall (vol, 7, no. 2)
Lisa Fay Coutley (forthcoming in the web edition)
Ansel Elkins (vol. 8, no. 1)
John Murillo (vol. 4, no 1)
Rachel Richardson (vol. 3, no. 2)
Ryan Teitman (vol. 8, no. 1)
Jake Adam York (vol. 8, no. 1)

Genine Lentine's Poses: An Essay Drawn from the Model, a portion of which appeared in Ninth Letter (vol. 3, no. 1) is now available from Kelly's Grove Press.

The Rumpus reviewed The Lost Episodes of Revie Bryson by Bryan Furuness. You can pre-order the book now. "Man of Steel," which featured Revie appeared in vol. 6, no. 1.  Also, be sure to check out this interview with Bryan about his journey to becoming a writer.

If you haven't already, you should check out Ryan Van Meter's (vol. 8, no.1) essay collection, If You Knew Then What I Know Now, which was a finalist for the 24th Annual Lambda Literary Awards in the Gay Memoir/Biography category.

Keyhole Factory, a novel by William Gillespie (vol. 7, no. 2), was recently released by Soft Skull Press.

Again, congratulations to all!

If you're a contributor and have some news to share, be sure to drop us a note at info@ninthletter.com

Now, stay tuned this week for information about both of our upcoming new issues!

Carr Reading Series: U of I Alumni Reading

Tomorrow (Wednesday, October 3), is a big day around here as The Carr Reading Series welcomes back three graduates of the U of I MFA program to celebrate the release of their new books. Here's the line-up:

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram (But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise)
Ted Sanders (No Animals We could Name)
Arley McNeney (The Time We Went Marching)

The reading, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 4:30pm in the Author's Corner on the second floor of the Illini Union Bookstore. Hope to see you there! 

Contributor Round Up

Congratulations to Oliver Bendorf, whose poem "I Promised Her My Hands Wouldn't Get Any Larger," from vol. 9, no. 1, was selected for the 2012 Best New Poets anthology! Congratulations to all the other great poets who made the final fifty as well!

Also, congratulations to Tarfia Faizullah (vol. 7, no. 1) for winning Crab Orchard Series in Poetry's 2012 First Book Award for her collection, Seam.

Roy Kesey (vol. 7, no. 2, vol. 3, no. 2, and vol. 1, no. 2) won Word Riot's Paula Anderson Book Award for his novel, Pacazo. Congrats Roy!

Prairie Lights in Iowa City will host a reading for Natalie Bakopoulos's (vol. 5, no. 1) new novel, The Green Shore, on Wednesday, September 12 at 7pm.

Kyle Minor's second collection, Praying Drunk, will be published by Sarabande Books on February 15, 2014. To ease the wait for the book, you can always reread his novella, "In a Distant Country," which we serialized on ninthletter.com.

The University of Iowa Press has published Detailing Trauma: A Poetic Anatomy by Arianne Zwartjes, which includes her essay, "The Anatomy of Trust or Breaking," from vol. 7, no. 2.

Contributors: we love sharing good news, so be sure to let us know if you have a new book coming out or have readings scheduled or any other news we can pass along to our readers via the blog. Contact us at info@ninthletter.com.

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!

5 (or so) Questions with Amy Sayre-Roberts

It's time for a new edition of 5 (or so) Questions. This time I had the pleasure of corresponding via email with Amy Sayre-Roberts about her amazing story "Whatsoever" from the current issue (vol. 9, no.1). She's one of our favorite people around here, so it's a special treat for me to present our conversation here. Amy has some insightful things to say about Mystery, research, and many other things. Enjoy!


9L: I keep calling "Whatsoever" a history in my head, rather than just a story. It certainly has all the hallmarks of a great story, but the characters, the world they live in are so richly rendered that it takes it takes it to another level of storytelling, where I really felt like you're letting the reader in on some secrets. Was that a goal when you started writing this story? What inspired you to write this particular story?

Amy Sayre-Roberts: Thinking of the story in terms of history certainly speaks to its origin. Two things happened simultaneously that birthed the story, I was researching my parents’ house for an article—their kitchen is what remains of an 1800’s era stagecoach stop— and in the midst of going to the Cass County Historical Society, I found a reference to Whatsoever Circles which were Christian women’s groups who undertook various projects in the community. Around the same time, my father mentioned a cemetery on our property that the previous resident had ploughed under. He said a local historian had been very angry about the dismantling of the gravestones. All that information collided in my brain like a crack of thunder. The characters leapt up and the narrative unraveled quickly. In some places, the narrative arrived so swiftly I had to just write, “and then this happens and then this happens and she’ll say…” and I fleshed the prose out later. The story landed on me fully formed and demanded to be written.

I didn’t start with a goal in mind. I don’t know how to do that. I admire people who can, but I have no talent therein. I get an image or a voice, and away we go, which can mean a tremendous amount of meandering to the final draft. But is there anything better than being in that creative moment? It’s like falling in love.
With that said, I have been writing around the idea of violence against women, and violence against children for a long time. “Whatsoever” was a framework to talk about violence as a historical continuum. Because when a child is abused or a woman is raped, that is not an incident operating in a vacuum, it’s a great and terrible river fed by many streams. I wanted to show the distortion violence creates in a child, and express that from various angles and points of view.  My grandfather, William Wiley, had a saying, “Hunt or sell the gun.”  That’s sort of where I was with writing about sexual violence, I had a ball of fire in my belly and I either had to write it out or shut up about it. So I went into the beautiful madness where art can take you, if you let it.

Lastly, I would say that I adore older women. I worship at the altar of grandmothers.  To me, women over 70 are luminous and fierce individuals. No one has the equal amounts of mercy and steel as women in their eighties.  But older women often disappear in American society; they are poetry in a cult of personality and crap magazines. In my mind, overlooking these women, their intellect and experience is a fatal mistake. I hope the sisters in “Whatsoever” remind folks of that.

9L: Did you ever consider writing the story from the twins’ point of view or did Dickie feel just right given how quickly it came to you?

ASR: Dickie was always the main point of view. Life through his lens was unfamiliar territory to me and I wanted to see the whole picture his voice would paint. Though I did cut about 5 pages from the original draft that dealt more with the twins. Mostly back story. This story is part of a collection of inter-connected tales, and I do have some notes on them as children in the first person.

9L: Flannery O'Connor said something great in her essay about writers of the Grotesque, saying, such writers are more interested in the possible rather than the probable. While "Whatsoever" is certainly very grounded, there is also this sense, at least to me, that at the end of the day the possible would win out over the probable. I guess I mean to say that Mystery is very important to the story. What were the challenges, if any, in walking that line of keeping this sense of the possible/mystery, while also keeping it down to Earth?

ASR: I think you have to follow the logic of a good ghost story.  Never tell the mundane or gory facts of why there is hand hanging from the car door, just show the hand and let the imagination do the heavy lifting. The great challenge for me is always in not telling too much. I culled pages of back story that was essential to have written because the knowledge imbued the piece with a sense of history, but the reader can feel that weight without reading every word. Between what you write and what a reader can imagine is the terrain of Mystery.

It’s sort of like a whistler in the dark. We have one in our neighborhood. It was chilling the first time I heard him. So lonesome and strange having just woke from a dead sleep, and my mind was already forming a picture of the street and the dark figure the sound was emanating from. (In all fairness, he is actually just a nice man who can’t sleep and whistles as he walks, but until you know that, it’s creepy).  My point is that I tried to allow the reader a structured landscape to let loose their own imagination, then all the previous details can become devils. With "Whatsoever," I wanted to privilege the power of the unexplained.

9L: You said that you were researching your parents’ house when you found out the information that would spark "Whatsoever," so how much research did you end up doing for this story? I'm curious if you try to do as much research as possible before starting a story/project or do you research as you go? Any tips for not being dragged down into a research abyss?

ASR: I probably spent two or three days digging around in libraries, talking to people, and walking and driving the old stage coach road. I was entering into a relationship with the information because “Whatsoever” is just one story in a collection I am working on where all the research for each story feeds the other pieces as well. As soon as I had the basic details the voices started talking. Combing through local histories, newspapers, and documents grounded the story and set the tone and context. And my father is like a walking dictionary of local history and folklore, he remembers everything he has ever been told or read so talking out an idea with him is helpful.

I’ve never felt the threat of too much research or a research abyss, and I hope other writer’s don’t either. Research to me is like opening a gift. I guess I still love the Nancy Drew aspect of unraveling a mystery.  I think a writer needs to do just enough research to get the characters talking and then their language becomes the story’s landscape.

Facts are a great springboard for the imagination. I think of facts as a spark and the story you write is the fire that results, an entity all its own that both consumes and transforms the point of origin.  But the balance between research and the actual writing is intuitive. When you have researched enough, the characters start to speak. If they get quiet, you might want to go back over your notes and see what you missed. Or better yet, ask the character what you are missing. They’ll tell you. Characters are just like people, they love to talk. I believe you have to get really intimate with your characters: lay down with them, follow them through the dark places, get up under their skin, that’s where the secrets are, and that is where you find what makes them choose. And ultimately, we are what we choose.  

9L: What's the last thing you read that you really loved and couldn't wait to tell people about?

ASR: Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories by Melinda Moustakis. Brilliant. From page one, I could not put that book down. I recommend you stop what you are doing right now and get a copy. An amazing read: lyric, dark, sometimes funny, and features Malamutes in at least one story. That is an irresistible combination for me.

Thank you very much to Amy for taking the time to answer my questions. I had a blast discussing this story with her. To read "Whatsoever" and all the other wonderful fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in vol. 9, no. 1, pick up a copy in our webstore.

Man-Made Lands

Our first special edition fiction chapbook, Man-Made Lands, guest edited by Scott Geiger, is now available! Man-Made Lands includes stories from: Joe Alterio, Seth Fried, Luther Magnussen, Micaela Morrissette, Ben Stroud, and Will Wiles; and proposals from Bjarke Ingels Group, Family with Office of Playlab, Steven Holl, and Keita Takahashi. "A Tale of Disapperance" is a commissioned collaboration between author Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer. We're very excited for everyone to see the work in this special edition.

Columbia University's Studio-X will host a launch party for Man-Made Lands and Ninth Letter's Volume 9, Issue 1 in New York City tonight, Wednesday, May 23 at 7pm. "There's No One There," Joe Alterio's illustrated tale commissioned for the project will be installed on exhibit. Scott Geiger will host a conversation with Alterio, Seth Fried, Family, and Office of Playlab. If you're in NYC, this is an event not to be missed!

Studio-X is located at 180 Varick Street, 16th Floor. New York City, NY


Visit our webstore to order a copy. Man-Made Lands is $7.95, or you can get a free copy of it when order the current issue (vol. 9, no. 1). That's two times the awesomeness!

Also be sure to check out the new A/V feature on the main site, Two-Handed Prose Drawings, which creates drawings based on the work in the current issue (vol. 9, no. 1).

Contributor Round-Up

First up, here are some new books, which are currently available unless otherwise noted, from contributors:

Punchline by Nick Courtwright (vol. 4, no.2). Check out the HTML Giant review of Punchline.

Cataclysm Baby by Matt Bell (vol. 7, no. 2). Keep up to date on Matt's reading schedule at the events page on his website.

The Green Shore by Natalie Bakopoulos (vol. 5, no. 1) will be out June 5. Be sure to check out this video of Natalie talking about the novel.

Paradise, Indiana by Bruce Snider (vol. 6, no. 1). Here is an interview with Bruce discussing the book.

For Out of the Heart Proceed by Jensen Beach (vol. 8, no.1). There will be a release party for the book on Saturday, May 19 at 7:00pm at Quality Bar here in Champaign. Jensen will be reading with, among others, U of I MFA graduate, Ted Sanders. Ted's story collection, No Animals We could Name, will be out in July.


Congratulations to Ben Stroud, who is featured in our upcoming special edition chapbook, Man-Made Lands, for winning the 2012 Bakeless Prize in Fiction for this collection Byzantium.

Don't forget our spring/summer 12 (vol. 9, no. 1) issue is now available. Head on over to our webstore to order a copy.

If you're a contributor have news you would like to share with us, email me at info@ninthletter.com. Have a great weekend!

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.

Contributor Round-Up

Some of our contributors have new books, so be sure to check them out:

Stephan Clark (vol. 6, no. 2 and vol. 4, no. 1), Vladimir's Mustache
Brendan Constantine (vol. 6, no. 1), Calamity Joe
Mark Wagenaar (vol. 7, no. 1), Voodoo Inverso
F. Daniel Rzicznek's (vol. 6, no. 1) chapbook, Vine River Hermitage, is available from Cooper Dillon Books (the brain child of former 9L staffer, Adam Deutsch).

Also, Seth Fried (vol. 6, no. 1 and vol. 3, no. 2) now has a monthly column on the Tin House blog called Das Kolumne. Read it here.

I'm sure there was some news that slipped through my fingers, so I need your help to make sure that doesn't happen. If you're a contributor and have some news to share, email me at info@ninthletter.com.

Have a great weekend!

Chicago Stories

To kick off our AWP 2012 coverage, we are proud to present a few excerpts from Michael Czyzniejewski's (vol. 7, no. 2) Chicago Stories: 40 Dramatic Fictions in our Featured Writer section on the main site. The book is just out from Curbside Splendor and will be on sale at AWP this week. If you can't make it to Chicago this week, you can purchase the book directly from Curbside Splendor. Enjoy!

And if you're going to be in Chicago tonight, don't forget to come to the Monster Mags of the Midwest, Part II reading. Details are in the post below. Hope to see you there!

In a Distant Country, Part VI

We all knew this day would come and it is finally here, the sixth letter of Kyle Minor's "In a Distant Country" has been posted, which means we have reached the end of the serialization. We hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as we have.

In a Distant Country, Part V

The fifth letter in our serialization of Kyle Minor's "In a Distant Country" is now available. This means we're at that exciting part of the reading experience where we can't wait to see the conclusion and sad that such a great experience will end soon (next week is the last letter). Anyways, let's stay in the present and enjoy this new installment.