Ninth Letter

ABOUT

Ninth Letter launched in 2004 out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Creative Writing Program, a joint venture with the School of Art and Design that set out to treat the literary journal as a visual object as much as a text container — early issues were known for unusual trim sizes, foldouts, and typographic experimentation that made each print run distinct. It publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and hybrid/visual work, and has built a reputation among MFA-adjacent writers as a journal that takes design and contributor pairing (writer with visual artist) as seriously as the writing itself. The magazine also runs an online arm (Ninth Letter Online) for web-specific features, and administers annual literary awards in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction alongside affiliations like the Disquiet International Literary Prize, which it has featured winners from.