Home

Read the DISQUIET International winning essay by Tylea Richard

Ninth Letter is honored to feature Tylea Richard’s essay “Caribbean Gothic,” which is the Disquiet International Literary Award’s Nonfiction Prize winner for 2025.

“Caribbean Gothic” is set in the city of Miami, which, as Richard observes, “sits at the crossroads of two of the most haunted regions in the world: the American deep south and the Caribbean.” Ghosts, it seems, can immigrate too, across state and national borders, and Richard has the eyes and eerie experience to unmask them.

With empathy and a hard-earned insight that ranges across intertwined cultural and family histories, Tylea Richard introduces us to worlds both visible (which we already knew were there) and invisible (which now we too can finally see).

—Philip Graham, Editor-at-Large

Deadline: June 30

Our lives and communities revolve around food: hungering for it, buying it, preparing it, and eating it, but also growing it, moving it from field to shelf, and disposing of its waste. Just as healthy food promotes human health, healthy food systems promote healthy communities—places and people oriented toward restoration, regeneration, and even rebirth. What would it look like to live in a world where our food systems regenerated not only us, but the planet? What if how we grew and ate our food could sequester carbon, replenish the soil, restore ecosystem biodiversity, and help battle disease?

I-Regen is working toward such a vision and is partnering with Ninth Letter to help us all imagine it. We invite poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction responding to or exploring the subject of “regeneration,” specifically as it relates to food and food systems. What does regeneration in our lives and communities look like, sound like, feel like, taste like? How does its absence harm us? Feel free to think as narrowly or as broadly as you like about the theme—surprises are always delightful and welcome.

Guest Judge: Scott Chaskey is the author of Soil and Spirit (Milkweed 2023)