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The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “An Animal Under the Ground” by Steven T. Gibbon

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “An Animal Under the Ground” by Steven T. Gibbon

I think most of us who have ever had customer-facing jobs can say: dear god, it’s exhausting. Human beings, while resourceful and tenacious, are made of meat and therefore susceptible to all manner of physical and mental abuse. There’s only so much we can handle. After long enough, having the same conversation with a customer…

The Ploughshares Round-Down: That Time A Famous Author Failed And Blamed Ebooks

The Ploughshares Round-Down: That Time A Famous Author Failed And Blamed Ebooks

Last year, I was talking to a romance novelist who self-publishes her books. She had decided to go this route after submitting a manuscript directly to Harlequin and not hearing back from them for months. What forced her hand was that she had kids, she had been working part-time, and her husband had just been…

A Checklist of Book Proposal Essentials to Go Through Before You Start Schmoozing Agents

A Checklist of Book Proposal Essentials to Go Through Before You Start Schmoozing Agents

In my wildest fantasies, an editor from Seal Press stumbles upon that personal essay I wrote about the awkwardness of babymaking sex—or the blog post I wrote about landing a husband despite being a crazy cat lady, or that other piece I wrote about my shifting body image—and feels compelled to email me, begging me to write a book…