Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry homesick there was this inexplicable feeling while i was therethat i now recall and cravelike someone asphyxiated, gasping for airin fact, i’m not sure i’ve been able to breathesince i left a cotton sweatshirt with mismatched patchesa september breeze, cool but comfortingthat fills my car as … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction Babies don’t stop being sick on holidays. Jen shifted in her seat at the breakroom table. Ten straight hours on her feet and yet somehow she’d found the one chair that made sitting just as uncomfortable. She scrolled through photos on Instagram, only stopping to … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction Features Gun Violence The children, they wept. The sterile white collection room and stern uniforms of the phlebotomists always elicited this reaction. Mr. Brenner frowned. They only needed a few drops of blood and a scan of their hand for biometric matching. It didn’t need … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction The same week I get myself kicked out of high school for putting the youngest Smoll brother in the hospital, Chardelle starts going scatty in the brain. The Randy Codd Fair comes to town and me and her are spinning upside down in the Orbiter. … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books Chapter One: A Morning Shift Leadville Colorado, June 29, 1893 From where Frances Byrne stood, Mount Massive was an inch tall. With her eyes narrowed, her fingers pinched to measure it, she plucked the beast mountain out of its range and set it in … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books ‘The First God stepped forward and in his footprint our universe began. As the print reflects its maker, in time, his impression filled our universe with new gods, and turned the inanimate into life, and brought man and animal up from the soil. Into this … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction Chapter 1: Twenty Years I wanted to be back on the deck by the water’s edge, sitting there watching the flaming sun cast mirrors on the water – watch it disappear leaving us quiet in the vapor of dusk. Where was I? How many years had … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction I squint at the contents of my closet in the dim morning light. What does one wear to their boyfriend’s intervention? I’ve thought about this intermittently all week, and yet here I am, morning of, and I still don’t know. Bright colours don’t seem appropriate, and … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Nonfiction This is a personal essay about grief and friendship written in 26 paragraphs. Each paragraph begins with a letter corresponding to the alphabet, which reflects both the fragmentation and continuity of grief. The format is inspired by Ruth E. Dickey’s “Alphabet Soup Kitchen,” an essay published … Read more
Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry A strapping young stockman lay dying,as strapping young stockman will,and, although he knew he was close to death,his face it was smiling still.For weeks he’d been mustering cattle,steering them by the stars.But, because he’d been at the bottle,he confused fair Venus for Mars.The reins lay slack … Read more