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black and white photograph of three baseball players, but their faces have been photoshopped with the faces of JK Rowling, Edgar Allen Poe, and Shakespeare

Ploughshares Fantasy Blog Draft – An Introduction

For too long, fantasy sports have been confined to—well, actual sports. Whether it’s historical fantasy sports or contemporary fantasy sports, the literary world has watched from the sidelines as number crunchers and keg tappers compete for glory in an imaginary world of teams with pun–tastic names like “Sproles Royce,” “Apocalypse Noah,” “Austin Rivers Runs Through…

photo of a man sitting a desk in a large office filled with people--he looks exasperated and has his face in his hands

How to Leave School (Without Leaving Your Writing Behind)

At the risk of sounding like a John Mayer song, I’ve never believed in the real world. Or rather, I’ve never believed in the non-real world, some supposed realm that acts as a cozy womb for practitioners of glorified hobbies, like extreme sports and graduate school. This idea seems to be born out of the…

photo of a man in a green vest holding up a blue shirt

Binding Community: North Branch Projects Turns Pizza Boxes into Books

Frustrated by the gulf between the contemporary art world and the people he cares for most, visual artist and bookbinder Regin Igloria founded North Branch Projects in the Chicago neighborhood where he grew up, Albany Park. In this small, independently run project space, Igloria offers hand bookbinding sessions free of charge six days a week, using…

photo of a cafe interior with dark wood floors, a dog naps under a table

Literary Boroughs #53: Prague, Czech Republic

The Literary Boroughs series will explore little-known and well-known literary communities across the country and world and show that while literary culture can exist online without regard to geographic location, it also continues to thrive locally. Posts are by no means exhaustive and we encourage our readers to contribute in the comment section. The series will run on our blog…