Since 1986, New Letters has offered three prestigious annual literary awards, each with a $1,500 prize and a deadline of May 18, 2007: the New Letters Prize for Poetry, the Dorothy Churchill Cappon Prize for the Essay, and the Alexander Patterson Cappon Prize for Fiction. Past winners and judges are listed on their Web site.
Editor Robert Stewart teaches creative and professional writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is the author of Outside Language: Essays (Helicon Nine Editions, 2003) and the poetry collection Plumbers (BkMk Press, 1988), among other publications. His poetry, feature articles and travel essays have appeared in journals such as Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, and Notre Dame Review, as well as numerous anthologies. He has been editor-in-chief of New Letters since 2002. Read his interview with Missouri poet Walter Bargen (an Honorable Mention winner in our 2005 War Poetry Contest) here.
Q: How would you describe New Letters' mission and aesthetic sensibility, as distinct from those of other literary journals in your region and nationwide?
A: Although I would like to leave that question to readers, critics, and the auspices of history, I don't trust any of them to see the magazine clearly enough. Even in-house readers of manuscripts seem prejudiced toward literary journals; they often will write a comment such as, "great story, wild, but probably not for New Letters."
