In 2012, we established Ploughshares Solos, a digital-first series for longer stories and essays, edited by Ploughshares Editor-in-Chief Ladette Randolph. Solos were compiled in the Solos Omnibus until 2017, after which they were published in our yearly fall longform issue.
After a decade of publication, we ceased publishing new solos in a digital standalone format. You can still enjoy new longform prose in our fall issue. To read Solos-past, subscribe to the Ploughshares archive, starting at $20. Solos are also still available where e-books are sold for download on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or Kobo.
One morning, there were footprints in the snow outside our house. Beausejour High School, where I worked in the office, had closed for Christmas break. I let the dogs have a good long run before breakfast and watched them from the porch. The Golden Retrievers I breed for hunting and field trials are beautiful creatures…
They’re not true, you know. The platitudes. God, the itching. Tops of my hands. Base of my skull. Platitudes, Pleiades. He’s in a better place. Who says? Who knows? He lives on in people’s hearts. People forget. They get distracted. Then they die too. Scratch, scratch. Eyebrows. Clavicle. Need a ruler to get at my…
The case is now closed on the reasons behind the decision by the United Nations to officially terminate the existence of Israel as a living entity, an event that occurred about a century after it had voted for the partition of the Holy Land leading to the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948. But…
At sunrise on the first Saturday in March, 1970, as the body count continued to rise in the war in Vietnam, less than two months before the Cambodian Incursion, when campus protests would close down universities across the country, including mine, I sat in a coffee shop on Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach. On the…
John Lorimer wants to be friends on Facebook. Amanda isn’t sure whether to accept. It’s a long night like any other, her bedroom blue-lit by devices, laptop and phone and iPad scattered on the comforter, earbuds nestled as she listens to Songwriters/Folk on Pandora; this is how she goes to sleep. She has three or…
“I am ashamed to own them. You must understand that. And yet, to own them and not acknowledge them is even worse. That’s why I need you.” Charles pauses, to make sure I agree. I nod. My thoughts are elsewhere, but he trusts my serious expression. I call him Charles in my head, but address…
In the summer, your father starts taking in the strays. First come Pete and Jane. They’re from Texarcana and they’re spending a week at the El San Juan Hotel. When they walk into the Trolley, they sit next to your father. “This is paradise,” Pete says. He lifts his drink. “You, my friend, have got…
1. At first the women disagree over the saltshakers and peppermills and then the cookware and finally the utensils, until the bickering gives way to full-throated arguments and one stupendous scream-fest. When Miriam bursts into tears, Tamara follows suit. Within moments the two women fall into each other’s arms apologizing, consoling, and vowing never to…
1. IN WHICH MY TRUE HEAD MAKES AN APPEARANCE When your best friend smashes fluorescent light tubes across your chest, because you asked him to, because you thought it might mean something, because you need to mean something, and you bleed into a water tank while smart people watch and analyze, and the smart people…
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