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Some Day

Some Day

Some Day Shemi Zarhin Trans. Yardenne Greenspan New Vessel Press, October 2013 $16.99 450 pages What: Epic family drama With lots of: Food Also: Lust, love, loss, and longing Where: Tiberias, by Israel’s Sea of Galilee When: 1969-1983 Concerning: Shlomi, a child who develops near-magical culinary talents Hilik, his little brother who collects words Ruchama,…

The Little Dictionary That Could

The Little Dictionary That Could

It’s a skinny thing, Gustave Flaubert’s Le Dictionnaire des idées reçues, not even 100 pages. And The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas also isn’t the source you’d turn to when someone peppers a conversation with a few big words. It is, however, the dictionary you could pick up and read during, say, a federal government shutdown. Flaubert’s definition of…

For Those About To Write (We Salute You) #14: Let’s Get Small

For Those About To Write (We Salute You) #14: Let’s Get Small

For Those About To Write (We Salute You) will present a writing exercise to the Ploughshares community every few weeks. We heartily encourage everyone reading to take part!  Was anyone else feeling a little emotional after doing last session’s Sliding Doors exercise? Sheesh. While there’s definitely something freeing about exorcizing regrets and shoulda-woulda-couldas from your own…

A snail moving across tile

Writing Lessons: Chad Stroup

In our Writing Lessons series, writers and writing students will discuss lessons learned, epiphanies about craft, and the challenges of studying writing. This week, we hear from Chad Stroup, a student in the MFA program at San Diego State University. You can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ChadStroupWriter —Andrew Ladd, Blog Editor Self-inflicted discipline applied to writing…

People of the Book: Stephen Skuce

People of the Book: Stephen Skuce

People of the Book is an interview series gathering those engaged with books, broadly defined. As participants answer the same set of questions, their varied responses chart an informal ethnography of the book, highlighting its rich history as a mutable medium and anticipating its potential future. This week brings the conversation to Stephen Skuce, Program Manager…

Cover of Can It Be Taught

Writing in a Changing World: Craft, Readerships, and Social Media

What do you wish your MFA program had taught you? How is the literary world—and media in general—changing? How should we change with it? These are the questions that motivate Stephanie Vanderslice‘s work as a writer, professor, and HuffPost blogger. I heard Vanderslice speak at the International Great Writing Conference this June, where she tackled some controversial issues in the…

Home of Stephen King

Fictional Writer Master Class: the King’s Men

Stephen King has a particular knack for fictionalizing the tortured lives of writers. Scribes of varied success people the pages of his works, from protagonists to supporting characters. (Under the Dome’s Thurston Marshall is a recent Ploughshares guest editor!) Many of these characters are also readable as Author Avatars for King. Beyond his personal struggles,…