Editor's Introduction

A Confession: Introduction

When Russell Banks and I agreed that our theme was to be Borderlands, we chose it partly for its open-endedness. Literally and figuratively, borderlands strike us as places where powerful forces come into contact with one another, where sparks fly. Specifically, it’s the politics of that point of collision that we’re interested in. Whatever else…

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Introduction

It is perhaps the height of optimism to try to structure an issue of a literary magazine around some single subject or theme. There is clearly the notion that, floating around out there, waiting to be beckoned, are the requisite ten or twelve or fourteen fine stories which will exactly fit, which will make an…

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Strictly in the Interests of Plausibility: Introduction

I like thinking of the painting chosen for the cover of this issue as a visual representation of our theme of Borderlands. The artist, A. Artidor, is Haitian, contemporary, and not very well-known. My co-editor and I came across it in a Haitian art gallery on the island of Guadeloupe. It is a small (16"…

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Cellar Notes: An Introduction

Again, what’s the theme?” my friend, the painter Stephen Henriques, asked. We had just enjoyed a tasty sidewalk lunch blocks from his studio in San Francisco’s Richmond District. That we should be meeting to choose from his recent work a cover for this issue of Ploughshares seemed natural. Two books of mine — Things Ain’t…

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Introduction

My first thought in editing this issue of Ploughshares was to put together a collection of autobiographical and fictional writings that tested the border between those preposterously rough groupings. And the very first piece that crossed my desk, Susan Bergman's "Imago," confirmed me in this intention. "Imago" is a brilliant family portrait whose narrator claims…

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A Door, A Little Ajar: Introduction

You know the way you hear a voice sometimes, muffled, as from another room, and what you hear is intonation, and you can tell, almost right away, if someone is arguing with someone, or just talking, or making love, or if a child is there, or children. Intonation: the rise and fall of sound and…

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You Don’t Know How Good This Feels: Introduction

This issue of Ploughshares engages in an old ritual, an occasion that can be confusing to anyone not close to literary careers: literary discovery. What? An issue about discoveries? Columbus? An issue of stories and poems in which someone has to discover something? One of those party-game types of thing? Well, no. This is an…

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Introduction: West Real

The West is a big place, but not my West. The West for me is where I lived — it is a house. And it's how I lived, and who I lived with. It's some people, and some streets, a border fence with Mexico in the distance, an arroyo across the highway, a dry landscape,…

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Introduction

I am honored to serve as editor for this issue of Ploughshares, but with this sense of honor comes an interesting perplexity. The magazine has presented issues on special topics, issues on issues, and issues devoted to specific genres. For a number of reasons, I decided to offer an installment that was as generous a selection…

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