We are pleased to announce the results of the Ninth Letter Regeneration Award for 2025. The Regeneration Award is a multi-genre contest presented in partnership with I-Regen and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to amplify work thematically connected to the idea of “regeneration,” especially revolving […]
We are pleased to announce the results of the Ninth Letter Literary Awards for 2025. The winners in each genre will be published in our Fall/Winter 2025-26 print issue and on our website. Honorable mentions will be published on our website. Online publication will be concurrent with the release of the print issue. Poetry Winner: […]
Generously sponsored by I-Regen at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Selected for publication by Stephanie Anderson * Correction: “Sundogs” is incorrectly attributed to Ashlen Renner in the print edition. Meghan E. O’Toole is the author of “Sundogs” and the winner of the Regeneration Literary Contest. Introduction Through the lens of childhood, Meghan E. O’Toole’s story […]
Selected for publication by Lena Valencia Hold Hands, Children It is Tuesday, and Georgie thinks, Tuesday is everything. Everything always happens on Tuesdays. Georgie walks after Luca. He has positioned himself behind Luca to watch the breeze lift the tuft of hair on the back of his head. The wind tickles it like the tail […]
Selected for publication by Kristen Millares Young Promiscuous Young Men[1] I am writing this anonymously,[2] with phrases and sentences that[3] I have borrowed from the library,[4] so nobody knows who did it.[5] If you recognize me[6]—no, you don’t.[7] Like many men, I have a ridiculous weakness for[8] cock and can easily kill[9] two or three […]
Selected for publication by Sara Borjas Facing It after Yusef Komunyakaa in response to “La Malinche,” a portrait painted by Alfredo Ramos Martínez of the Aztec girl whose language skills led her to serve Hernán Cortés as interpreter, guide, and later, mistress— I can almost say my name. Am almostsomeone I know. They say I was sold by […]
I warned you that my grandmother wouldn’t like you and that you wouldn’t like her. The first time she saw me wearing a flannel jacket with my hair chopped off, she said oh boy here we go. That’s who we’re dealing with. The man she’s been seeing—he goes by “Hickory Frank”—is soft in ways she […]
If the Sun Exploded, We Wouldn’t Know it for Eight Minutes The summer we found the body, Mark and I got sunburned every day at the green pool at the back of the apartment complex and flipped his skateboard off the curb in the parking lot. We never smelled the salty air from the beach […]
Janiculum Hill, Rome All November, noon didn’t seem like noon:the light too yellow-gold and pressing long shadowson the burnished stones of every square. Even morningfelt late in the day, as if I’d already missed too much.And of course I had—around the city, marble columnshave cracked into boulders as ordinary as umbrella pines.Roads veer the way […]
🙂 When my order of slime comes in the mailI feed each textured batch its own dribble of borax and spring water. The parcel might as well be a newborn left at the door.We play Loving Family and Caregiver. We play Spa Day. I pull their puddy muscles and twist their pliant bodies at anglesthat feel good […]
