On the morning she became a young widow,my grandmother, startled by a sudden shadow,looked up from her work to see a hawk turnher prized rooster into a cloud of feathers.That same moment, halfway around the worldin a Minnesota mine, her husband died,buried under a ton of rockfall.She told me this story sixty years ago.I don’t…
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…
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…
The sun was nothing more than an orangethe 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 stopthe car from barreling down Mott Avenue,couldn’t shine enough to show the driver the eight-year-old girl dashing in front of his Pontiac so that…
You are a wretch and a leech and a dirtyold man and have been trying to pushinside me for years. Well, come on then.There’s something about the plum warm air. Usually at this time of day I don’twant to see people. Usually when I’m onthe old swings I think about the manwho stopped his car…
In poetry, our winner is Jen Silverman, for her series of Bath poems. Ploughshares poetry editor John Skoyles writes: “Silverman’s poems have a declarative force and a surprise in every phrase, a combination that results in a tone both intimate and astonishing.” Silverman is a New York–based poet and playwright who has, so far, mainly…
In the days before the wedding, as caterers and florists and seamstresses and bakers and even sommeliers and fromagers and charcutiers made appearances at the Maison ClosDennis, there were two of us who were irrelevant to the preparation of the proceedings. One of them, and this anyone could have predicted, was me, the boyfriend of…
for my mother, Veronica Cazier (1955-1991) The undertaker gripped my hand. I said I wanted Dairy Queen. I touched her cheek because I needed proof—and after, Dairy Queen. It’s what I asked for every day: to go to Dairy Queen. Worse than dead, she wasn’t quite herself. I pictured Dairy Queen. I’d finished second grade…
Ladette Randolph is Editor-in-chief of Ploughshares and the author of three books of fiction: two novels—Haven’s Wake (forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press, spring 2013) and the award-winning A Sandhills Ballad (University of New Mexico Press, 2009)—and the short story collection This Is Not the Tropics (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). Randolph is on the…
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