‘A cold cut,’ said Mac. The fire service risk analysis is always interpreted using hot to cold as a scale of dangerous to safe. Or time critical and life threatening to no rush and take our time. We work in hot areas. Hot zones. Cutting a live casualty from a crashed vehicle is dangerous, so … Read more
Our humble home in Caniçal clung to the hillside like a stubborn weed. The wind slipped in through the windows uninvited, and when it rained, droplets danced directly onto the worn stone slabs of the floor, marking them like aged skin. Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction The Weight of Salt I … Read more
So I began to ask myself: what can I do? I can write. I know how to capture feeling in words, how to lay bare the human heart. I also have years of experience as a queer activist on the Chinese mainland. Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction Content Advisory: Discussion of atrocities … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Learning To Fly I Buying a Ticket for the Ghost TrainI buy a ticket to ride the ghost train. I don’t know it at firstbut later, when the mobile app promises methe train is approaching, then here, then gonethat the momentary variation of light, that shift in … Read more
And the birds of a feather flocked to her parties each summer. They came early and left late. Days later, neighbors would reminisce about the sangria in the punch bowl, and the music they could dance to, and how no one else’s pretty blossoms grew quite like hers. Those meaningless measuring sticks – he couldn’t … Read more
It was hard to believe that this box, the size of a small dog, contained a person. Most people had no idea that it did. Only Clay could hear the voice. If James and Lisa had shown up, they’d have heard it too. Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction Return Policy He … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Banagher Glen Where rowans grow nearby the downy birch,where Neolithic farmers first arrived,a pristine forest thrives in sunlit beamsand in Glenedra Valley, there’s a church.‘Twas founded by St. Patrick there besidea flowing stream. Sorrel and celandinelimn ancient stone of which the church was made,where spirited, the willow … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry His and her story, with dates An ordinary story, one of manyMy great grandparents, seen dimly. The record slight, and all memory faded. I trace their outlines, learning to love them, though I know that I can never know them. Let me start with you, William, born … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry October Hands My hand, in the dry October air, remembers holding yours, so weak and warmwith age; skin paper thin and fine, delicate with wrinkles, cracked and lined, as though a record needle there could play the rich but scratchy notes of songs gone low and soft … Read more
Before my brother and I began school, my father’s Greek uncle gave my father the 30 acres of land to build a new split-entry three bedroom home in the late 1970s. Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction Beside Island Lake I grew up on Island Lake, a 500 acre lake along the border … Read more