Every year at the open of the annual AWP Conference, we publish our gender statistics, taking a cue from VIDA’s important work. While we don’t collect demographic information on any of our writers, we publish the gender statistics of those whose gender identities we can find documented elsewhere (their work, their social media profiles, etc.)…
Last year, we announced our gender statistics following the release of the 2014 VIDA Count. We’re keeping with the tradition this year, and are happy to announce our count for 2015. The gender identity, race, sexuality, and disability disparities in the publishing industry are concerning, and we hope that making the Ploughshares demographic data transparent helps to emphasize…
VIDA released its much-awaited 2014 Count last night, contributing important data to a conversation that seems to have been getting louder over the past couple of months. The gender disparity in the world of literature is far-reaching, with every facet of publishing coming, quite rightly, under scrutiny. We at Ploughshares take this issue very seriously…
Bright Shards of Someplace ElseMonica McFawnUniversity of Georgia Press, September 2014176 pages$24.95 Buy: book Every writer has faced the age-old question, “What makes a story?” History has provided us with plenty of satisfactory answers—in the excitement found in novelty or the resonance found in the ordinary. Monica McFawn’s short story collection Bright Shards of Someplace…
Zoologies: On Animals And The Human SpiritAlison Hawthorne DemingMilkweed Editions, October 2014272 pages$18.00 As children, many of us felt instinctually connected to and curious about animals. Maybe we even found solace in imagining our personal dinosaur counterparts. Alison Hawthorne Deming’s book Zoologies: On Animals And The Human Spirit reawakened that in me. In this collection…
Like a BeggarEllen BassCopper Canyon Press, March 201470 pages$16.00 Buy: book Exquisitely wrought in language and imagery, Ellen Bass’s third collection meditates on sequencing images. Her poems open in one place and close elsewhere. She signals this with titles that point toward the firsts and lasts, such as “The Beginning of the End” and “The Morning…
Dismembering the American Dream: The Life and Fiction of Richard YatesKate Charlton-JonesUniversity of Alabama Press, August 2014279 pages$49.95 Buy: book | ebook An English professor, a former colleague of mine, once admitted to me that he wasn’t much of a fan of the novelist about whom he had spent his entire career writing. I’m sure…
Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern MedicineCristin O’Keefe AptowiczGotham Books, September 2014372 pages$27.50 As a schoolchild in North Philadelphia, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz went on class trips to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, which housed a collection of medical artifacts and oddities, many of which had been amassed…
The Literary Boroughs series will explore little-known and well-known literary communities across the country and world and show that while literary culture can exist online without regard to geographic location, it also continues to thrive locally. Posts are by no means exhaustive. The series originally ran on our blog from May 2012 until April 2013. Please enjoy the 57th post on…
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