Attention writers of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction: Ninth Letter, the arts and literacy project produced by the Creative Writing Program and School of Art + Design at University of Illinois, is taking submissions for their upcoming Summer online journal. From the website:
The theme for this issue is Origins. We all come from home, and our associations with those spaces range from the warm and secure to the distant or fearful. Then, as we grow, leave or stay, and move into the world around us, we see our homes from new or distant vantages. Localities grow and evolve, or wilt in a changing global economy. When our cities and homesteads don’t look the way we remember them, have we left those people and places behind, or were we bypassed in their rush into the future?
How do our origins transmogrify our explorations of the world? How does both a sense of belonging and detachment – to people, places, things, and the past – inform the decisions we make in our local but also our highly connected lives? Send us stories that explore and acknowledge the places and the people they leave behind – and those they always return to. Send poems that see history – both the memorable and the ugly – in locality, but also poems of disconnect and evolving place. Send nonfiction that responds to the quick constancy of global news, and its oft-invoked fear and uncertainty. But also send the essays that dissect their worlds and challenge worn nostalgias of home. Above all, send us your work that edifies, discovers, or disavows its origins.
You can find all of the guidelines for submitting here.