Blog

Storyish Poems, Poemish Stories, and Why Poets Should Love Reading Children’s Books

Storyish Poems, Poemish Stories, and Why Poets Should Love Reading Children’s Books

My fellow Ploughshares blogger Caitlin O’Neil recently wrote an awesome post about all the important writing lessons she learned from reading children’s books. I was like, “OMG so true! I too have learned so many important writing lessons from reading children’s books!” And then I told all my friends about it. And they were like, “OMG…

“Dear Lucky One”: The Westing Game Invites Us to Play

“Dear Lucky One”: The Westing Game Invites Us to Play

Thirty-five years after the publication of Ellen Raskin’s novel The Westing Game, readers still rave about it. As one literary agent tweeted recently, “if I could find the new Ellen Raskin, I would be the happiest agent ever.” Bestselling novelist Gillian Flynn ventures that in Gone Girl, she maybe, “finally,” achieved the wordplay of The…

Ploughshares Fantasy Blog Draft Round 2 – Vonnegut to the Chopper! vs What the Chuckin’ Buk?!

Ploughshares Fantasy Blog Draft Round 2 – Vonnegut to the Chopper! vs What the Chuckin’ Buk?!

Voting this past week was a return to the pitched ferocity of the first round, as both Benjamin Samuel’s The Mighty Duck Palahniuks (Electric Literature) and Michael Nye’s The Holden Caulbabies (Missouri Review) brought out voters in force. The two teams deadlocked at the end of the week, and again we were forced to undergo…