Fiction
Babak Lakghomi, “Fukimo”
David Hoon Kim, “Crow the aesthète”
Samantha Edmonds, “The Adventures of Earthgirl and Starboy”
Maggie Cooper, “The Smell Museum”
Amy Stuber, “More Fun in the New World”
Kenneth Calhoun, “Our Adams”
Nonfiction
Victorya Chase, “Times I’ve Lost My Brother”
Mason Andrew Hamberlin, “A Boy’s Blue”
Jenny Tinghui Zhang, “Party Trick Chinese”
Jacob Little, “On Harmony, On Contagion”
Emily Pittinos, “Gone”
Kerry Folan, “Buffalo Bill’s Defunct”
Poetry
Cassandra J. Bruner, “The Intercession”
Jacob Block, “And Then the Strings Come In”
Sarah Edwards, “Emily”
Lisa Russ Spaar, “Peripheral Vision Madrigal,” “Debussy Madrigal,” “Vin Blank Madrigal”
Sam Zafris, “To Have Everything & Need Nothing”
Adam Meisner, “Fourteen Translations for a Line from Barthes’ Incidents“
L. A. Johnson, “In a Dream, the Scar Is Repaired”
Emma Bolden, “Dateline: Internal Affairs”
Marianne Chan, “In My Twenties, I Walked Slow”
Molly Bess Rector, “Abecedarian on Beauty as Disguise,” “I have too much jewelry”
Dujie Tahat, “salat on the first day of school”
Christos Kalli, “Directions to the Night”
A. R. Zarif, “january”
Parker O’Connor, “Adulthood”
Geri Doran, “The Bird Hide,” “The Needles”
Special Features
2018 Illinois Emerging Writer Award Winners
Donna O’Shaughnesy, “In the Kitchen They Danced” (first place)
Emma Morris, “MS 57947” (second place)
Laura Bandy, “Knockout” (third place)
Ninth Letter 2019 Literary Award Winners
Stephanie Wong Ken, “Beating Heart” (fiction)
John Sibley Williams, “Dark Tourist” and “The Drowning House” (poetry)
Maddie Norris, “Still Hearts” (creative nonfiction
Where We’re At
Elizabeth Pearl, “The Inbetween”
Cole Piedimonte, “The Things We Elegize”
Staff
Editor: Jodee Stanley
Creative Nonfiction Editor: Ted Sanders
Poetry Editor: Michael Madonick
Art Director: Natalie F. Smith
Designers: Nicole Dowling, Pascale Grant, Sebastien Johnson, Charlotte Peloquin, Tia Reika Smith, Andrea Worthington
Assistant Editors: Kyle Callert, Katrina Gaffney Liz Howey
Editorial Assistants: K. James D’Agostino, Aumaine Gruich, Amelia Hawkins, Sebastián Maldonado-Vélez, Benjamin Miller, Nicholas Molbert, Jason Nafziger, Emmilea O’Toole, Elizabeth Pearl, Cole Piedimonte, Kent Quaney, Erich Slimak, Justin Smith, Jessica Tanck
Editor-at-Large: Philip Graham
Advisory Board: Amy Sayre Baptista, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Traci Brimhall, James Brunton, Lindsey Drager, Matthew Minicucci, Marcus Wicker
Special thanks to Kristen Arnett, Anna Leahy, and R. A. Villanueva for serving as our 2019 Literary Award guest judges.
Support at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
College of Fine and Applied Arts
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Department of English
Office of the Provost
School of Art + Design
Individual Sponsors
Capital
Anonymous
Patron
Delysa Burnier
Richard Connor
Alma Gottlieb & Philip Graham
Sarah Knox, M.D.
John Hall, M.D.
Friend
Anonymous
Rev. Charles Matz.
Ninth Letter is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council.
