The Woman Behind the Painter – New Nonfiction by Devora Rogers

Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction The True-Life Story of Mari Carmen Flores Aizpuru, Partner and Lover to Famed Spanish Abstract Painter Bonifacio Alfonso. In 1964, as Spain was thirty years deep under the rule of Francoism, a poor painter came to sit at the table of a well-heeled couple who owned a popular … Read more

The Fabric – New Poetry by John Peter Beck

Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry A thread of birds pulledfrom the shorn field becomesa scarf knit by the wind,intertwining the branches, flowingastride the bare necks of trees then expands to a needlepoint shawlthrown wild within the October aircovering the grey and brown shoulders of low hillsagainst the coming cold then explodes, full as … Read more

The anti ice cream van – New Poetry by Tim Shore

Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry No magic roundabout reverie herethe anti ice cream van haunts the suburbssinging scrap iron, any old iron A tannoy trumpets a thin melodya voice singing with a scrape of scrap metalno magic round about here A Bedford van drives slowly down the streeta hawker sings, walking aheadscrap … Read more

Finisterre – New Novel Extract by Caroline Brothers

Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books 1. Feather She hesitated at the fork. One branch ran inland a little way, then hugged the perimeter of the wheat fields where the harvesters had been and gone, scraping the landscape raw. In a couple of weeks, the diggers and then the fertilising machines … Read more

Slipped Disk – New Nonfiction by Paul W. B. Marsden

Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction A slipped disc, that’s what most people call it. Sounds harmless, like a pulled muscle or a headache. Doctors refer to it as a herniated disc or a prolapsed disc. It still doesn’t sound serious or painful. It’s not like a ‘broken leg’ or a ‘defective … Read more

Long Distance Call – New Nonfiction by Claudia Miriam Reed

Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction Long Distance Call Offerings Gone She smiles the way the kids do when they knock somebody down at recess. “Order anything you want!” she says, opening her arms like the picture where Cinderella gets to be the queen. She winks at me when I order oatmeal … Read more

What We Were Made For – New Fiction by Abigail Corfman

Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction *I found a human.* A deceptively simple sentence. Its words are paltry and weak–too small for the meaning they contain. An equivalently insufficient collection of words: I dropped the bomb. Or: I fell in love. This is why humans invented more words, and spent so … Read more