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Featured Writer #113: Katherine Vaz


 

 

Read an excerpt from Katherine Vaz's new novel Above the Salt plus an exclusive interview with the author.

 

Above the Salt (Flatiron Books/Macmillan, 2023) is based on the true story of the converts to Presbyterianism on the Portuguese island of Madeira who were violently driven into the sea. John Alves grew up in jail with his mother, Serafina, condemned to die for heresy (and later granted a reprieve). The following excerpt covers John’s passage from Trinidad to New York to the haven of Jacksonville and Springfield, Illinois, where he and his fellow exiles were adopted. John will court a fellow Madeiran, Mary Freitas, at the Lincoln household before betrayals and the Civil War upend the rest of their lives. Read the full excerpt and interview here!


 

An Interview with Anders Carlson-Wee


 

 

Tyler Robert Sheldon talks with Anders Carlson-Wee about Disease of Kings (October 2023). 

Read more...


 

Order Latest in Print: Spring/Summer 2023

Staff

Editor: Matthew Minicucci

Editorial Assistants: Olivia Arredondo, Jagruti Daya, William Doeckel, Megan Donofrio, Jack Geist, Heather Gernenz, Elizabeth Ho, Ava Holz, Raymond Johnson, Muriel Kenfield-Kelleher, Grace Kwon, Sarah Lullo, Caitlin Manganelli, John Milas, Kaitlyn Nelson

 

Contributors

Brock Jones is currently pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah. His poems have been published in the Iowa Review, Lunch Ticket, Sugar House Review, and Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, among others. He currently lives in Utah with his wife and daughter. Read "Rogue Memories" and "Arkansas"

Peter Kispert is the incoming editor-in-chief of The Indiana Review and a regular blogger for Ploughshares. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, Slice Magazine, Tin House, and as a Kindle Single. He has worked with Electric Literature and Narrative Magazine. Read "Puncture"

Peter LaBerge is the author of the chapbook Hook (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). His work appears in Beloit Poetry Journal, Redivider, Copper Nickel, Best New Poets 2014, DIAGRAM, and Indiana Review, among others. He lives in Philadelphia, where he is a student at the University of Pennsylvania and the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of The Adroit Journal. Read "Invocation" and "The Lakeswept"

Kathryne Lim is an MFA student in Poetry at the University of New Mexico where she also teaches Composition and Creative Writing. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Santa Fe Literary Review, In Posse Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Chaparral. Read "Bone Tower of Gangnam District"

Ellene Glenn Moore lives in sunny Miami, where she is a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow in Poetry at Florida International University. She is a 2014/15 Artist in Residence at the Studios of Key West. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Caliban, Chautauqua, Jai-Alai Magazine, Barn Owl Review, and others. Find her at elleneglennmoore.com. Read "1989"

A singer and guitar player, Ephraim Scott Sommers has performed music in cafes, bars, flatbed trailers, festivals and strip clubs on three different continents. Recent poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, Cream City Review, Harpur Palate, The Journal, TriQuarterly, Verse Daily and elsewhere. New work is also forthcoming in American Poetry Journal and North American Review. Ephraim is currently teaching creative writing while a PhD candidate at Western Michigan University. Please visit: www.reverbnation.com/ephraimscottsommers Read "Cryin' Bryan"

Lindsay Tigue has work published in Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, Indiana Review, Passages North, CutBank, and Rattle, among others. She was a 2013 Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writer’s Conference and won the 2012 Indiana Review 1/2 K Prize. She is a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University and is currently a PhD candidate in English/Creative Writing at the University of Georgia in Athens. Read "Abandoned Places"

Caleb True's fiction is in or forthcoming in The Sonora Review, Night Train, The Madison Review, Whiskey Island, and elsewhere. He holds an MA in history and lives on the East Coast where he likes to run and cook. Find him online at Calebtrue.tumblr.com. Read "Dervish"

Bryan Washington is a senior at the University of Houston. Read "Jack"

Shelley Whitaker is an undergraduate student at Hollins University. She was the recipient of the 2013 Adroit Prize for Poetry, and her poetry has appeared in Punchnel's and Verse Daily. She serves as a poetry editor for The Adroit Journal. Read "My Future as a Ghost"

Jenny Xie is the recipient of the Devil's Lake 2014 Driftless Prize in Fiction and a finalist in Narrative's 2014 30 Below Story Contest. Her writing appears in The Monarch Review, Riddle Fence, Bound Off, and Front Porch Journal, among others. She lives in Baltimore, where she is an MFA candidate at Johns Hopkins University. Read "The Director"

 

 

Featured Writer #112: Michele Morano


Fuori di Testa

A crush starts in the back of the throat, at the edge of a swallow, attraction meeting a hint of repulsion like a wave rolling forward even as it pulls back, like “uh-oh” and “here we go again,” again being the operative word. Crushes are iterative: with each new one, you’ve been here before, never mind that you’re forty, then fifty, then fifty-five years old and happily partnered; the crushes keep coming on people you know and people you don’t. Read more...


 

2023 Regeneration Contest Winners


 

Ninth Letter is excited to announce the winner, honorable mention, and finalist of our 2023 Regeneration Literary Contest. Special thanks to contest sponsor, the Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, and to our guest judge Dr. Craig Santos Perez. The winning story will be published in print and online in December 2023, and the honorable mention essay will appear online. Thank you to all of our submitters, finalists, and readers.  

 

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