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Radial Symmetry Katherine Larson Yale University Press, March 2011. 96 pages $18.00 This post was written by Tory Adkisson. In her recent collection of poems, Radial Symmetry, Yale Younger Series-winner Katherine Larson examines our culture’s increasingly stark division between scientist and artist, and ultimately makes a strong case for reassessing it. A research scientist herself, Larson…

featherproof books is an indie press founded by Zach Dodson and Jonathan Messinger. They are based in Chicago, and their serious literary chops—recent titles include Patrick Somerville’s The Universe in Miniature in Miniature, Lindsay Hunter’s Daddy’s, Christian TeBordo’s The Awful Possibilities, Blake Butler’s Scorch Atlas, and Amelia Gray’s AM/PM—and genius eye for design have garnered…

Here at Ploughshares, we’ve been lucky enough that the new Poet Laureate of the United States Philip Levine has guest edited our magazine not once, but two times in our forty year history. Today we’re featuring the first issue, published in Winter 1988 and filled with contributions from writers as diverse as Yusef Komunyakaa, Dean…

On this week a year ago, Megan Mayhew Bergman was rereading the work of Donald Hall in her post “Learning the Taste of Stone” while Fan Wu looked at the ever-pertinent issue of e-books versus physical texts. The debate still goes on, but if you have an e-reader, why not use it to read our…

As Though She Were Sleeping Elias Khoury (translated by Humphrey Davies) MacLehose Press, May 2011 368 pages $23.83 This post was written by M. Lynx Qualey. Translator Humphrey Davies has called Elias Khoury’s 2007 novel, As Though She Were Sleeping, “one of the least linear books ever put down on paper.” The comment seems to…

Today’s reader review comes from Daniel DiStefano, who looks at our Charles Baxter issue through the prism of lost youth, adolescent fantasies, and the thought process behind mixtapes.   Ploughshares Fall 1999, guest edited by Charles Baxter. Featuring work by Jill Bossert, Antonya Nelson, and Michael Byers. 233 pages, $10.95. In the fall of 1999,…

Sometimes I daydream about putting together an anthology of my favorite short stories, kind of like a mix tape. Over the course of my blogging duties, I’m going to discuss a few of the stories that—from my experience—aren’t as familiar to readers. My Anthology: “Walking Out” By David Quammen I first encountered this story in…

We the Animals Justin Torres Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 125 pages $18.00 In We the Animals, Justin Torres demonstrates how crafting one tactile sentence after another can transform even the most ugly imaginations, experiences, and memories into a work beautiful to behold. In this debut semi-autobiographical novel, Torres asserts himself as a master of detail and…

Our second “innovators in literature” brings us into the world of Vouched Books, an organization devoted to promoting small press literature. I deeply admire founder Christopher Newgent’s proactive, passionate approach to spreading the word about books, the way he talks about the possibility of “setting up on the main party stretch here in Indy on…