The Letter Review Prize Winners October – December 2024

It’s always such an astonishing joy to publish the winning entries of The Letter Review Prize: We spend months with these works before we are able to experience the thrill of sharing them with our community. Today, we release these pieces, and hope they bring to you just as much wonderment as they did to us.

Our sincere thanks are extended to every writer who submitted: Your hard work and bravery are seen by us as we judge these categories, and we thank you for making all this possible. Thank you for entrusting us with your work.

In this round we were particularly impressed by the entrants’ willingness to share work that shows evidence of deep and complex thought: Puzzling at the edges of profoundly felt experience. Creative mediums are suited to asking questions, as much as they are to finding answers. We continue to be astonished by works that move us to laughter, and tears. In this round, works delivered in a confessional tone continued to impress: Writing that seems to be revealing in some way, that feels deeply personal.

To all the writers and readers in our community: Thank you. We hope we can continue to serve you in a meaningful way. Click the winning writer’s name below to read their entry.

Short Fiction

Winners

Shortlist

  • Caroline Wei – Encore
  • Karen Adams – My Only Friend is a Manta Ray
  • David M. Herman – The Upgrade
  • Melis Aker – Fritland
  • John Dunn – Oracle
  • Alessandro Devillart – Terra Firma
  • Finlay McQuade – Carly
  • Oda O’Carroll – Little Wonders
  • Laura Christine Price – A Lucid Dream

Poetry

Winners

Shortlist

  • Annie Dade – Disclaimer
  • Raheem Curry – Dysphoria Integrity
  • C.C.Fuller – Maria’s Bees
  • Partridge Boswell – The Archivist
  • Ana Marta Fortuna – Cradle
  • Alves dos Santos – The Trilogy of Human Depths
  • Eni Iljazi – the human condition
  • Seunghee Kim – Americana
  • Austin Jacobs – The Hopeful
  • Madeline Rosales – And God Steps Away
  • Rozelle Allen – Hope Pushups
  • J. B. Silverman – the result would always be the same
  • Linda-Raven Woods – Icarus Boy
  • Zoe Retzepoglou – Don’t dream of anything but me
  • Anu Oluleye – Cordolium
  • Dr Tamara Kayali Browne – What right have I?
  • Michael Shoemaker – détente & Framed Arch
  • Peter Fray – Elegy for Endangered Species & In the Full Light of the Sun
  • Lucas Carpenter – Mad Minute
  • Dr. Tara Zafft – I Imagine Her
  • Helen Bentley – Ikigai
  • Frank Mozeleski – The Man-of-War
  • Oscar Sanders – I Had Many Jobs In My 63 Years
  • Sean Purdue – As Many

Essays & Nonfiction

Winners

Shortlist

  • Carla Rocavert – The Old Left: What France’s Silk Workers Were Made Of
  • Andres Gil – The Pressure of Silence
  • Jac Roberson – Mileposts
  • Benjamin Hirsch – What Is Read
  • Catherine O’Neill – Payday
  • Daniel Garst – Buying a Scarf: A Brief China Memoir
  • Dylan Neri – Legitimising Notions of Right
  • Dean Nottingham – Who Are You?
  • J. E. Weiner – A Letter to My Day-One Self

Unpublished Books

Winners

Shortlist

  • Tong Ge – The Pinioned Bird
  • Liam Day – Despite All Human Folly
  • Anoop Judge – What They Brought With Them
  • Nathan Alling Long – What We Don’t Wholly Believe
  • Lauren Fischer – Orphanland
  • Emma Kaiser – Homecomer: A Memoir in Essays
  • Caroline O’Donnell – These Ithakas
  • Mark Connelly – Newman’s Choice
  • Doug Emory – Frozen Lake
  • Catherine O’Neill – Zero Balance: Understanding the Invisibility of Gambling as a Family Disease
  • S.L Wibrow – The Theory of Love and Loss
  • Evan Lucas – The Ballad of an Antelope
  • Helene Epstein – Catch Me When I Stumble: 15 Years of Medical Mysteries and a Mother’s Battle to Save Her Son
  • Ciera Horton McElroy – Still Life
  • J. Reid Graham – Jude The Sperm
  • Evelyn Hena – An African Odyssey
  • John Kaufmann – Gil
  • Sheri Taylor-Emery – 139 Moss Lane
  • Audrey Colasanti – Gorgo: The Misfit of Materdei
Click here to Enter The Letter Review Prize fof Short Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Books Now