Presented in partnership with I-Regen and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Our lives and communities revolve around food: hungering for it, buying it, preparing it, and eating it, but also growing it, moving it from field to shelf, and disposing of its waste. Just as healthy food promotes human health, healthy food systems promote healthy communities—places and people oriented toward restoration, regeneration, and even rebirth. What would it look like to live in a world where our food systems regenerated not only us, but the planet? What if how we grew and ate our food could sequester carbon, replenish the soil, restore ecosystem biodiversity, and help battle disease?
I-Regen is working toward such a vision and is partnering with Ninth Letter to help us all imagine it. We invite poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction responding to or exploring the subject of “regeneration,” specifically as it relates to food and food systems. What does regeneration in our lives and communities look like, sound like, feel like, taste like? How does its absence harm us? Feel free to think as narrowly or as broadly as you like about the theme—surprises are always delightful and welcome.
2024 Guest Judge
Stephanie Anderson holds an MFA from Florida Atlantic University, where for six years she taught literature, creative writing, and composition. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, TriQuarterly, Flyway, Hotel Amerika, Terrain.org, The Chronicle Review, Sweet and others. Her second book on regenerative agriculture, From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture, is forthcoming with The New Press in 2024. Stephanie is the 2020 winner of the Margolis Award for social justice journalism, and she serves as a series editor for University of Nebraska Press’ forthcoming Our Regenerative Future book series. Her debut nonfiction book, One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture, won a 2020 Nautilus Award and 2019 Midwest Book Award.
Stephanie Anderson won the inaugural grand prize for the Regeneration Literary Contest for her essay “Disturbance,” which you can read alongside other contest winners and honorable mentions on our Contest Winners page.
Contest Details
Submissions will be accepted from May 1, 2024-June 30, 2024. Winner and finalists will be announced in the fall. Prize: $1,000 and publication in the Fall/Winter 2023-24 print edition of Ninth Letter (with the opportunity to also publish excerpts or full work on ninthletter.com) and two contributors copies. You can read previous Regeneration contest winners for free here.
Submission Fee: $7 submission fee. Contest entrants will have the option to purchase a copy of the Fall/Winter 2024 issue at a discounted price at the time of submission.
General Guidelines: Submissions are read anonymously, so neither the author’s name nor any identifying information should appear on the manuscript itself. If the author’s name appears in the poem, story, or essay, please replace with [Author’s Name] to maintain anonymity. Acceptable file formats are .pdf, .doc, .docx. If you have questions or need clarification, please email ninthletter9@gmail.com.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your submission immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. For flash and poetry, please send a message via Submittable if withdrawing select pieces but not the entire manuscript. Due to logistical and labor considerations, neither refunds nor replacement submissions will be offered for withdrawn manuscripts. You will still receive the complimentary one-year subscription even if you have to withdraw your submission.
Prose (fiction, creative nonfiction): Please submit one piece of no more than 8,000 words. You may also submit up to three pieces of flash-fiction or flash-nonfiction as long as the total word count of the submission is no more than 8,000 words.
Poetry: Please submit up to 5 poems in a single file of no more than 8 pages.
Theme Explanation: We invite poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction responding to or exploring the subject of regeneration, specifically as it relates to food and food systems. What does regeneration in our lives and communities look like, sound like, feel like, taste like? How does its absence harm us? Feel free to think as narrowly or as broadly as you like about the theme—surprises are always delightful and welcome. Please include a brief note that explains your work’s connection to the theme of “regeneration.”
Eligibility: Writers affiliated with Ninth Letter or the UIUC Creative Writing Department within the last 4 years are not eligible to submit. Any writers with a close, personal connection with the judge that could signify a conflict of interest are not eligible to submit. Regeneration Contest winners within the last 4 years are not eligible to submit.
Submit your entry here.
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