Husking the foxtail millet gives it a new name where I’m from, the abundant attention staple crops command not so different from superhero reboots one after another, a man shedding a cape is a new man with a new past. I wanted to explain this the time a man in a corner office said he…
but I knew there were secrets. We all knew and we all strong-armed the chesty life vests back into their shed like lovers backed into closets. Only at that lake did I play spies; only there did I try writing with my sinister hand: Tin of poison in nightstand. But it was just…
My student spends his summers in city cemeteries, clipping the scruff that grows too close to the stones or anywhere the mowers can’t go. Sundays mostly the death-jilted come, some to pledge the stiff with a fifth, some to Windex the pane of granite. Some of those left come to sob nearer the…
In nonfiction, our winner is Jeremiah Barker for his essay “Bearing.” Of his essay, nonfiction judge Esmé Weijun Wang says, “The winning essay captured me immediately: both calm and confident, with a mature voice that carried me through a brilliantly written narrative of trauma. I am in awe of how adept this writer is at…
In fiction, our winner is Sofia Puente-Lay for her story “Vigil.” Of her story, fiction judge Kirstin Valdez Quade says, “‘Vigil’ is a closely observed, richly sensuous, and beautifully rendered story about a husband and wife cut off from their homelands and cut off from each other. Vittorio and Neang are bound by what holds…
In poetry, our winner is Mariya Zilberman for her poem “Against Temporality.” Of her poem, poetry judge Ilya Kaminsky says, “This poem dares to be simple: and, as a result, the nuances are uncovered in the tension between image and time, detail and emotion, silences and linebreaks. We are presented with a number of details,…
DeWitt Henry recommends a hundred little pieces on the end of the world by John Rember (U. of New Mexico Press, 2020). “Rember’s meditations ‘on teaching, writing, and friendship in an increasingly fragile world’ are, above all, alert, voracious, thoughtful, and life-read. From his prospect in Sawtooth Valley, Idaho, he offers clear-minded witness of our…
Charles Baxter, The Sun Collective (Pantheon Books, 2020). Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2021). Rosanna Warren, So Forth (W.W. Norton, 2020). Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters (W. W. Norton, 2020).
Ploughshares is pleased to present Jill Osier with the thirtieth annual John C. Zacharis First Book Award for her poetry collection, The Solace Is Not the Lullaby (Yale University Press, 2020). The $1,500 award, which is named after Emerson College’s former president, honors the best debut book by a Ploughshares writer, alternating annually between poetry…
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