Article

The Wicked of the Earth

Roy and Jimmy Boyle were shooting pool on a rainy Saturday afternoon in Lucky’s El Paso when Mooney Yost, a Lucky’s regular, came in and sat down on a bench near the boys’ table. Yost was about fifty years old, a fin and a sawbuck hustler who was always kind to Roy and his friends….

The Blower of Leaves

Today I bow to the power of negative space, the beauty of what’s missing—the hard work of yard work made harder without you, while the stiff kiss of acorns puckers the ground. I am a fool. Even as the red impatiens wither and brown, they are still lovely. I feed the gaping mouths of lawn…

Unsaid

The auditorium falls to a hush. The audience settles in their seats. Sun backlights the room through a wall of windows: this evening of summer solstice. The first reader walks to the podium. She is a novelist, and this novelist smiles at the room, a graceful and warm and kind smile, welcoming everyone and introducing…

What You Will Do (Emerging Writer’s Contest Winner: NONFICTION)

In nonfiction, our winner is Jacob Newberry, for his essay “What You Will Do,” about his experiences in Israel and Palestine. The essay, Ploughshares’ Editor-in-chief, Ladette Randolph, writes, “is the story of Newberry’s own well-intentioned but misguided determination to resolve the differences between the Palestinians and Israelis (one shopping trip into Palestine at a time). It…

Retelling

The sun was nothing more than an orange the day Lisa ran for the ice cream truck. It was small and even if it held sweetness, even if it seeped Vitamin C, it couldn’t stop the car from barreling down Mott Avenue, couldn’t shine enough to show the driver the eight-year-old girl dashing in front…

You Are a Prince

You are a wretch and a leech and a dirty old man and have been trying to push inside me for years. Well, come on then. There’s something about the plum warm air. Usually at this time of day I don’t want to see people. Usually when I’m on the old swings I think about…