Journal – No. 4

Fall/Winter 2005 – Vol. 2, No. 2

Sample Spreads

Contributors

Art

Matthew Yapchaian

Fiction

Brian Evenson, Ismail Kadare (trans. by David Bellos), Alan Rossi, Keith Lee Morris, Will Boast and Mary Austin Speaker, Dana Johnson, H.G.Carrillo, Eleanor Henderson

Nonfiction

Jeremy Huggins, Floyd Skloot, Catherine Jagoe, Jim Kaler, Penny Susan Rose, Lynn Kilpatrick

Poetry

Christopher Cunningham, Claire Bateman, David Kirby, T.R. Hummer, David Wyatt, Henry Israeli, Joanna Goodman, Sharmila Voorakkara, Ben Lyle Bedard (Booklet), Sarah Maclay, Matthew Gavin Frank, Shirley Stephenson, Stefi Weisburd, Tim Kahl

Editor's Note

The opening pages of this, our fourth issue and the culmination of two volumes of Ninth Letter, seem the perfect place for me to indulge in a little self-congratulations on behalf of the magazine. We have been fortunate to publish many extraordinary works of prose and poetry by emerging and established writers, including the following award-winners:

"A Taste of Dust," a short story by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, published in our Spring/Summer 2004 issue (our premiere), which was selected by Michael Chabon for The Best American Short Stories 2005

"Terra Firma" by Amy Lingafelter and "Traveler," by Janice N. Harrington, poems appearing in our Fall/Winter 2004, each of which received a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council

Ismail Kadare, author of the novel The Successor from which "The Autopsy" in this issue is excerpted, was awarded the inaugural Man-Booker International Prize for achievement in fiction.

Congratulations to these writers, and my personal thanks to the editorial staff of Ninth Letter for striving and succeeding in finding the best writing imaginable to appear in our pages.

And congratulations and thanks, too, to our fine design team, who took home not a few accolades themselves in the past year for their work on this journal. The premiere issue of Ninth Letter won two gold medals in the 2004 Annual Design Competition of the University & College Designers Association, for Cover Design and for Magazine Design as a Complete Unit. The journal was also a winner in the Type Directors Club's annual competition for the best work in typography and type design, and will appear in Typography 26, forthcoming from HarperCollins at the end of 2005. And our companion website, www.ninthletter.com, was a finalist in the art section of the 2005 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. Kudos to all the artists and designers who toil and slave for Ninth Letter.

And thanks to you, readers, for hanging with us. Turn the page and see what other delights are in store.

— Jodee Stanley

Awards

HOW Magazine's International Design 2006

Editorial Merit award for design

Print Magazine Regional Design Annual 2006

Pushcart Prize 2006

For Sharmila Voorakkara?s poem "The Eternal Immigrant"

Credits

Editor

Jodee Stanley

Creative Nonfiction Editor

Steve Davenport

Fiction Editor

Philip Graham

Poetry Editor

Michael Madonick

Art Editors

Joseph Squier and Nan Goggin

Art Director

Jennifer Gunji-Ballsrud

Photo Editor

Tirzah Rose

Designers

Aditya Bhargava, Patrick Doran, Angela Egan, Fabiola Elias, Daniel Goscha, Mark Hauge, Joohyun Kang, Katelyn Kappel, Jennifer Mahanay, Jeffrey Merrick, Kacey Morrow, Katie Quinn, Annette Rotz, Nikita Sorokin

Photographers

Cristen Leifheit, Jennifer Mahanay, Tirzah Rose

Assistant Editors

Laura Bandy, Kristen Davidson, Patrick Lane, Jacqueline May, Robert McCarthy, Harmony Neal, Anne Owen, Rick Pierce, Ben Stephens, Rebecca Weber

Editorial Assistants

Christine Bryant, Laura Koritz, Paul Riegel, Ted Sanders, Leslie Singleton, Erin Elizabeth Smith

Illustrations

Erich Hehn, Linus Gog, Emma Ott, Jessica Rubennacker