Menu
Monday, January 8, 2024
New Letters is pleased to announce that Tamas Dobozy’s story “Frank’s Lobby” has won New Letters’ Editor’s Choice Award. Dobozy was awarded $1,000 and his story will be published in an upcoming issue of New Letters.
Tamas Dobozy lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and has published four books of short fiction, When X Equals Marylou, Last Notes and Other Stories, Siege 13: Stories (which won the 2012 Rogers Writers Trust of Canada Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for both the Governor General’s Award: Fiction, and the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award), and most recently, Ghost Geographies: Fictions. Tamas has published over seventy short stories in journals such as One Story, Fiction, Agni, and Granta, won an O Henry Prize in 2011, and the Gold Medal for Fiction at the National Magazine Awards in 2014.
The Editor’s Choice Award is given annually to work that speaks to that year’s particular theme. Submissions for the 2024 Award will open in July.
New Letters is pleased to announce the winners of the New Letters Literary Awards. Winners
received a cash prize of $2,500 and will be published in the Winter/Spring 2024 issue of New Letters. To view a complete list of winners and finalists, click here.
Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry
Winner: S. Erin Batiste, “He Said/He Said”
Final Judge: Cortney Lamar Charleston
Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction
Winner: Summer Hammond, “A Little Slice of the Moon”
Judge: Clancy Martin
Robert Day Award for Fiction
Winner: David Lerner Schwartz, “The Binding Thing”
Judge: Akil Kumarasamy
Friday, January 20, 2023
New Letters is pleased to announce that Nadia Born’s story “Marriage: A Crossword” has won New Letters’ Editor’s Choice Award. Born was awarded $1,000 and her story will be published in an upcoming issue of New Letters.
Nadia Born writes peculiar fiction, both literary and speculative. Her work is featured in Gulf Coast, Water~Stone Review, Jellyfish Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review and elsewhere. She also has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction. Find her online at www.nadiaborn.com.
The Editor’s Choice Award is given annually to work that speaks to that year’s particular theme. Submissions for the 2023 Award will open in May.
Tuesday, November 11, 2022
New Letters is pleased to announce our 2022 Pushcart Prize nominees in the following categories:
Fiction
Mary Rechner, “The Crone,” from New Letters Vol. 88 nos. 3 & 4.
Shane Stricker, “Floating Off,” from New Letters Vol. 88 nos. 3 & 4
Essay
Jesse Lee Kercheval, “The Fox Sister,” from New Letters Vol. 88 nos. 1 & 2
Erin McReynolds, “Motion for Discovery,” from New Letters Vol. 88 nos. 1 & 2
Poetry
Kwame Dawes, “Decubitus in Five Parts,” from New Letters Vol. 88 nos. 3 & 4
Maria Zoccola, “Helen of Troy Reigns Over Chuck E. Cheese,” from New Letters Vol. 88. nos. 3 & 4
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
New Letters is pleased to announce the winners of the New Letters Literary Awards. Winners
received a cash prize of $2,500 and will be published in the Winter/Spring 2023 issue of New Letters. To view a complete list of winners and finalists, click here.
Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry
Winner: Jasmine Ledesma, “The Sleazebag Speaks”
Final Judge: Katie Ford
Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction
Winner: Joyce Dehli, “On Emptiness”
Judge: Dinty W. Moore
Robert Day Award for Fiction
Winner: Devon Ross, “A Visit to Haifa Circa 2018:”
Judge: Alexia Arthurs
Friday, February 18, 2022
New Letters is pleased to announce that Carolina Alvarado Molk has been awarded the New Letters/New Americans Award for her essay “(Un)Documented Nostalgia,” which was published in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue of New Letters. Molk received the distinction of winning the inaugural award and a $1,000 cash prize.
The New Letters/New Americans Award is given annually to a writer whose story, poem, or essay illuminates what it means to become a new American today. “(Un)Documented Nostalgia” goes back and forth between memories of Molk’s earliest years in the Dominican Republic and her first winter in Brooklyn, New York. You can read “(Un)Documented Nostalgia” on our website here.
Molk received a PhD in English from Princeton University. In 2021 she was a finalist in Fiction for the Sustainable Arts Foundation Award. She is an alumna of VONA/Voices and Lit Fest, and is at work on a short story collection titled Root, Rot. She lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.
To be considered for the New Letters/New Americans Award, upload your story, poem, or essay as a general submission to New Letters. There is no fixed deadline and submissions are accepted all year long.
Thursday, February 11, 2022
New Letters is pleased to announce that Jesse Lee Kercheval’s illustrated essay “The Fox Sister” and Erin McReynolds’ essay “Motion for Discovery” have won New Letters’ Editor’s Choice Award. Kercheval and McReynolds were awarded $500 each and will have their works published in an upcoming issue of New Letters.
Jesse Lee Kercheval is a writer, translator, and graphic artist. Her recent books include the poetry collection America that island off the coast of France, winner of the Dorset Prize, and the short story collection Underground Women. Her graphic narratives and illustrated essays have appeared in Waxwing, Sweet Lit, The Quarantine Public Library, On the Seawall, and the New England Review.
Erin McReynolds’ work has appeared in The Sun, Kenyon Review Online, North American Review, Split Lip, and elsewhere, and was included as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2021. She received her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, NC, and lives in Austin, TX, where she is working on a memoir from which “Motion for Discovery” is excerpted.
The Editor’s Choice Award is given annually to a manuscript that crosses the boundaries of genre or form or defies easy categorization. Submissions for the 2022 Award will open in May. Guidelines can be found here.
(Photos, Left: Jesse Lee Kercheval; Right: Erin McReynolds)
Monday, November 15, 2021
New Letters is pleased to announce our 2021 Pushcart Prize nominees in the following categories:
Fiction
Shubha Sunder, “Dragon Girl,” from New Letters Vol. 87 nos. 3 & 4.
Tamas Dobozy, “Operative O,” from New Letters Vol. 87 nos. 3 & 4
Essay
Elizabeth Robinson, “Indigent,” from New Letters Vol. 87 nos. 1 & 2
Amy Day Wilkinson, “My Comey,” from New Letters Vol. 87 nos. 3 & 4
Poetry
Rebecca Foust, “And For a Time We Lived,” from New Letters Vol. 87 nos. 1 & 2
Teresa Ott, “Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge Melancholy,” from New Letters Vol. 87. nos. 3 & 4
Friday, October 1, 2021
New Letters is pleased to announce the winners of the New Letters Literary Awards. Winners
received a cash prize of $2,500 and will be published in the Winter/Spring 2022 issue of New Letters. To view a complete list of winners and finalists, click here.
Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry
Winner: R.J. Lambert, “Habits of Creature”
Final Judge: Kaveh Akbar
Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction
Winner: Rachel Coonce, “Will I Bounce?”
Judge: Paul Lisicky
Robert Day Award for Fiction
Winner: Richard Hermes, “Here, Where We Can Be Honest”
Judge: Emily Nemens
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
New Letters is pleased to announce that Elizabeth Robinson’s hybrid text “Indigent” has won New Letters’ Editor’s Choice Award. Robinson was awarded $1,000 and publication in an upcoming issue of New Letters.
Robinson is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Rumor (Free Verse Editions, 2018). She has been a winner of the National Poetry Series and the Fence Modern Poets Prize. Her creative nonfiction and essays have appeared in Scoundrel Time, Conjunctions, and Brevity. She lives in Oakland, California.
The Editor’s Choice Award is given annually to a manuscript that crosses the boundaries of genre or form or defies easy categorization. Submissions for the 2021 Award will open in June. Guidelines can be found here.
Monday, November 23, 2020
New Letters is pleased to announce our 2020 Pushcart Prize nominees in the following categories:
Fiction
Aisha Ginwalla, “White Guavas,” from New Letters Vol. 86 no 4.
Rebecca Townely, “Family Portrait,” from New Letters Vol. 86 no. 4
Essay
Terrance Manning Jr., “Break Down Easy,” from New Letters Vol. 86 nos. 1 & 2
Dan Musgrave, “Secondhand,” from New Letters Vol. 86 no. 4
Poetry
Liane Strauss, “Listen More, Talk Less,” from New Letters Vol. 86 no. 4
Ines P. Rivera Prosdocimi, “How To Swallow a River,” from New Letters Vol. 86 no. 4
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
New Letters is pleased to announce the winners of the New Letters Literary Awards. Winners
received a cash prize of $2,500 and will be published in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue of New Letters. To view a complete list of winners and finalists, click here.
Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry
Winner: Mark Wagenaar, “Late Song: Time”
Final Judge: Brian Teare
Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction
Winner: Rebecca Young, “Joan”
Judge: Heather Sellers
Robert Day Award for Fiction
Winner: Jacob R. Weber, “Lobu Hoteru”
Judge: Alexia Arthurs
Friday, June 5, 2020
New Letters, New Letters on the Air, and our affiliate publisher, BkMk Press, stand
in solidarity with our black writers, readers, listeners, friends, and community.
We have long made it our mission “to discover, publish, and promote the best and
most exciting literary writing, wherever it might be found.” Implicit in this
statement is our commitment to inclusion—to searching far and wide for a
diversity of voices. But following the national unrest after the tragic deaths of
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and many others,
we must now be more explicit in our mission. We wish to state unequivocally our
commitment to amplifying the voices of those who have long been marginalized,
ignored, and silenced as a result of systemic racism in our country.
At a time when many of us are asking ourselves what we can do—from protesting,
to voting, to supporting black businesses and organizations—our staff is mindful
of the ways in which literature can aid in this movement for justice and equity. We
find ourselves turning to our New Letters on the Air audio archives to hear the
voices of Gwendolyn Brooks, Glenn North, Terrance Hayes, Etheridge Knight,
Marcus Jackson, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, Patricia Smith, DaMaris Hill,
Anthony Grooms, Isabel Wilkerson, Anna Deavere Smith, Marcus Wicker, Nikky
Finney, Jericho Brown, Mbembe, Stanley Banks, Stephanie Powell Watts, Claudia
Rankine, and so many more who comment on race, activism, and the power of art.
These programs are free to the public and available to stream on our website:
newletters.org. It is our hope that the voices of these poets, novelists, essayists, and
artists will inspire, educate, and ignite a passion for change and equality within our
community and around the world.
New Letters, 5101 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110
Copyright New Letters 2023,
University of Missouri-Kansas City