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Silver Sparrow Tayari Jones Algonquin Books, May 2011 $19.95 352 pages This post was written by Margaret LaFleur. Reading Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones’s latest novel, is much like playing a child’s memory card game. The cards are placed face down in front of you, and each turn you flip two over trying to find a…

Matt Bell is an editor at Dzanc Books, where his duties include running the literary magazine The Collagist. He’s the author of How They Were Found (2010) and Cataclysm Baby (2012), as well as three chapbooks, Wolf Parts, The Collectors, and How the Broken Lead the Blind. This fall he will be teaching writing at…

When I told a friend my idea for these posts, she said, “That’s great. Post 1: beer. Post 2: scotch.” This rather snarky answer actually reinforced one of my goals for these admittedly egotistical pieces: All writers have their crutches and vices, and while alcohol is often one of them, there are others. I swear….

Zazen Vanessa Veselka Red Lemonade, May 2011 $15.95 257 pages This post was written by Caitlin O’Neil. With the anniversary of the September 11 attacks just a few days past, Zazen isn’t the comforting book you might be seeking. But it is a book that could not have been written in an earlier time because…

It’s once again time for another free Ploughshares contest, and this week we’re featuring our Winter 1983 issue, guest edited by Raymond Carver and featuring work by Mona Simpson, Tim O’Brien, Jay McInerney, and Tobias Wolff.   For anyone unfamiliar with the contest, the rules are simple: comment in the space below about why you…

Coeur de Lion Ariana Reines Fence Books, September 2011 $15.95 128 pages Coeur de lion (“lion-heart”) is the brand of cheese pictured in the frontispiece to Ariana Reines’s second book of poetry. More famously, it’s the cognomen of Richard I of England, who also turns up, on page 65.  Wealthy, handsome, vain, an aspiring but…

Melissa Broder is the author of two poetry collections, Meat Heart (Publishing Genius, 2012) and When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother (Ampersand Books, 2010). She edits La Petite Zine and curates the Polestar Poetry Series. By day, she is a publicity manager at Penguin. I was excited to speak with Melissa because, in addition…

When I told a friend my idea for these posts, she said, “That’s great. Post 1: beer. Post 2: scotch.” This rather snarky answer actually reinforced one of my goals for these admittedly egotistical pieces: all writers have their crutches and vices, and while alcohol is often one of them, there are others. I swear….

Collected Poems A.S.J. Tessimond Bloodaxe Books, November 2010 256 pages $24.95 Wallace Stevens wrote that “The poem must resist the intelligence / Almost successfully.” That mischievous “almost,” of course, can be interpreted in many ways, and poets have always had different attitudes about how much of a fight verses should put up before they begin…