Yes, maybe relationships are not, after all, just consolations for those who can’t have greatness. Maybe she isn’t asexual. What, if not love, is this hot prickling that begins, as she imagines Dheer’s reply, just where her breastbone ends? Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction Odd Couples: Mr. Polyamorous and Dr. Asexual … Read more
Albert was no ordinary squirrel; he was more like a surrogate child to me, a hairy one who didn’t require a college fund. I had found him at a particularly dark time, right after my first miscarriage and long before the twins came along, at the foot of a giant sequoia. A tiny, shivering ball … Read more
It’s not just the sacrifice of time, it’s that I want to do these things on my own (Or with your mother). I want to prove to myself that I can accomplish the lofty goals I set for myself, but when you get here, I must transfer my love and passion onto the development of … Read more
“You don’t have to do everything together,” she said. “He can do music on his own, and you have your poetry, and then you can come together in the evening–“ “And, what, watch Netflix?” I interrupted her. “No, we can make this work, I know it. Because when it does work, it’s glorious.” Winner of … Read more
And I had done it, I had created something genuine, something good, and I thought I’d succeeded and made something lasting and done something cool with my life: I owned a nightclub in Austin. Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books The Marfa Deal I It was the spring of 2021 and already … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books Earthen Wares Nondescript, earthen wares of our bones, red letterbox, a fakir’s tombstone.Pilgrim’s chakras swirl red to white grindstone. Faint footsteps, the echoes of lived homes.Faint scents of cloves, saffron, unpack new home. Gods of time march in hallways, stroke our skins.Will passage of time bare … Read more
“Are those…” Yes. They were. No doubt. Those were stars. A dusty scattering like a setting scene in Star Trek, shifting slowly, rotating to the right. New stars came into view. I sucked in a breath to tell Charon she needed to explain this when a new, brighter light illuminated the left side of the … Read more
Later conspiracies flourished saying that enthusiasm to see it and the experience of seeing the work was changing it gradually, was even recreating it – the work itself – making later viewings different from earlier ones. Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction ┤ -TOTL – (pr: TAWT’L) “The cradle rocks above an … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Upon Stealing Smithsonian Folkways from Franklin Library, Summer 1974 My plans for sainthood were falling apart anyway.I’d started thinking about giving —wrong— a try.Some secret sort of violence. Crime.What I meant to do was steal something.Anything. This would be a start. There were records in the town … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry A Recording of a Recording Damen is a mulit-award-winning Australian poet. In 2024, his prizes include the Fingal Poetry Competition, the Ware Open Poets Competition and the Ros Spencer Poetry Prize. Damen’s poems have been published in the Marrow, Florida Review and the London Magazine among other … Read more