Nonfiction

John C. Zacharis First Book Award

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…

Introduction

This is a letter from the past to the future. All writing is, of course. In our moment in time, we put words on paper and hope that later someone will read them and recognize the people and the feelings we’re describing. No matter how many miles or years separate us from our readers, if…

Blue Hour

I need you to tell the truth, to tell the mean stories, and to sing the song of hope. —Dorothy Allison, Skin   What I remember, mostly, is the orange tag. It had no place for a name—just er visitor printed in sharp uppercase letters, so that’s who I became. For three days, I hid…