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The Books We Teach series will feature primary, secondary, and post-secondary educators and their thoughts about literature in the face of an evolving classroom. Posts will highlight literary innovations in teaching, contemporary literature’s place in pedagogy, and the books that writers teach. In the spirit of educational dynamism, we encourage readers to contribute their thoughts…

Over the next couple of days, we ask you to join us in a literary experiment. Our test subject is Megan Mayhew Bergman, the lovely author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories and former contributor to an issue of Ploughshares, our Ploughshares Solos series, and this very blog. In this partnership between Medium and…

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 Bonnie Mak, assistant…

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!  Heyo, friends! Did everyone have an over-abundance of fascinating conversations since last session’s Q & A & Q & A? In my day job as a design writer…

In our Roundups segment, we’re looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. We explore posts from our archives as well as other top literary magazines and websites, centered on a certain theme to help you jump-start your week. Nora Maynard’s interview with Lynne Olver, founder of the Food Timeline,…

In his introduction to the most recent issue of Ploughshares, guest editor Peter Ho Davies says that the thrill he found in each selected story was the sense that it spoke to him alone.  But how do you make that happen? We’ve talked about a lot of different strategies to make your stories rise to the top…

I’ve written before about the feeling you get when a story follows you. When you’ve put the book or journal down or you’ve turned off your computer and gotten up and gone back to the rest of your life. But then you catch yourself, in idle moments, thinking of those characters or the plot or…

It’s summer! Time to get out those binoculars and spot some writers. If you are unable to find writers, a simple whiskey trail should suffice to lure them to your backyard. Be on the lookout for these newly identified species. Laureatos bolanos The dead foreign writer who wrote eight 6,000-page recently translated novels that everyone…

The first time I met Rick Bass, in early 2010, I was sick as a dog. Iowa State University had invited him to participate in its annual Wildness Symposium, during my first year in the MFA program. In the middle of the symposium my Florida-born body rejected winter altogether. I discovered what a full-blown Iowan…