Emerging Writer’s Contest Since 1971, Ploughshares has been committed to promoting the work of up-and-coming writers. After last year’s inaugural fiction contest, this was our first year accepting submissions in all three genres—poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. We are pleased to announce the following winners and runners-up. The winners will each receive $1,000 and be published…
When the camp director introduces God, he reminds us the man is just an actor. “His real name is Frank Collins,” the director says. “He lives in Knoxville and has a wife and three grown-up children.” He looks down at the little kids on the benches up front. “I want to make sure you know…
from the balcony of footpaths speak of the black horse & the dead rider how old the mirror is which brings with it spirits like tracks filled with basil from where you stand sing an antique song let your arms veinless hang by your side wait for the gypsy who took your life away you…
I’m staring at a rush of players on the screen—fragments of knees and shoulders, a collision of helmets—when the two aides in front of me leap from their seats and yell, “Go go go,” as if they’re rallying with fans under a blue dome of sky rather than with patients in pajamas and robes in…
The Look2 essay series, which replaces our print book reviews, takes a closer look at the careers of accomplished authors who have yet to receive the full appreciation that their work deserves. Reviews of new books can still be found on our blog at pshares.org. It was my good fortune to have been enrolled…
in terms of design one box is colored orange the one you wanted always is and sits in the bathroom of anyone’s house cause that’s what she wants it’s choosing that wakes things up I wondered how long all that I needed and encountered here would come like a wave not the shake but the…
(Where the woman in the iron lung breathes out every person she’s ever met, a big breath, like it’s cold and she’s pretending to smoke.) I said I’m dead you put blankets on my iron lung said Must be cold you’re always cold Dead I said again you said…
Sometimes, after my daily dose of radiation, I would stop at a small bath store near the hospital to buy a bar of soap, perhaps, or a bottle of bath gel. I liked the little shop; it was holding its own among the retro hippie emporia of the neighborhood, no hint yet of tea tree…
The first time it happened he assumed something had crawled into her fur—a hornet, maybe, or a spider (it was a chill day in October, so it might have been seeking warmth)—or that the dog had somehow lodged a shard of glass in her hair while rolling in the dirt. He’d been sitting in the…
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