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I came to Kate Braverman through her story “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta,” which appears in the collection Squandering the Blue and was chosen for the Best American Short Stories in 1991. In 1991 I was still in college, which is to say a tiny, evangelical college in a tiny, Protestant evangelical town in…

Diana’s e-mail that Ploughshares was interested in blogs about summer reading was a happy occasion, and not only because it preempted that sometimes-desperate scrabble for appropriate blog topics, as in (because I also teach grammar and usage) “Brian!  Would anybody read it if I blogged about the semi-colon versus the colon?”  (Answer:  look of pity.) …

It’s time for the second round of our fabulous Ploughshares sweepstakes! This week we’ll be giving away a copy of our Winter 1995/96 issue, guest edited by Tim O’Brien and Mark Strand, and featuring works by Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Charles Simic, Joyce Carol Oates, and many more. In order to win this issue, please…

This weekend, in the spirit of trying something new in the kitchen, I cooked up some kasha.  I will not be cooking up any more kasha. Kasha, for those of you who are like I was until very recently – that is, blissfully unaware of all manner of things about kasha, particularly those things that…

Many writers weigh in on the effect of today’s numerous MFA programs on the quality of contemporary fiction writing. Like others, I am—helpfully—100% ambivalent. The MFA served me well in many ways. After I graduated from college I went right into a full-time job editing sewage treatment reports for the state of Indiana. After a…

Last week, we had our first probably-twister since coming to live in beautiful Cullowhee; in the mountains, it’s hard for a tornado to get up a good whirl, and by and large our weather is so temperate we’re ashamed to complain about it.  (I also felled my first tree, dropping it almost exactly where I…

For all of my adult life I’ve kept a list of words.  Each time that I come across an unfamiliar word in my reading, I try to dutifully look it up in the dictionary and copy down its definition.  There have been busy weeks when I’ve let it slide – months later I’ll find a…

  Robert Stone’s story, “Helping,” is told (mostly) from the point of view of Elliot. He’s a Vietnam vet and a recovering alcoholic social worker married to Grace, a lawyer who works for child protective services. Clearly these two share an occupational dedication to helping others. They also invest, gamely, in various methods of helping…

Like many another writer doesn’t precisely work in creative writing, I’ve spent a lot of time teaching composition…so let’s just start with a shout-out to all the contingent labor teaching composition on a piecework basis, year in and decade out, summer and winter, usually for under $30,000 a year, sometimes way under. Thanks. Moving on…