Monthly Archive:: March 2013

The Bees and Rapture

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The Bees and Rapture Carol Ann Duffy Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 2013 96 pages / 80 pages $23.00 / $15.00 Editor’s note: P. Scott Stanfield holds a Ph.D. in English and teaches literature at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Recently, I challenged him to see how many references to other

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Mort Naturelle” by Ricardo Nuila

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For most of us, our bodies can be mysteries, but in Ricardo Nuila’s story “Mort Naturelle,” we find them painfully explained. Here’s what happens to a spleen when a parachute doesn’t deploy; here’s how a jaw disappears when it’s been blasted with birdshot; here’s the sinewy tendons from a

Reading the Environment: Book Artist Melissa Jay Craig

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It’s a digital age, but we’re still mad for paper! Even as readers embrace the connectivity and convenience offered by iPads and Kindles, there are still many good reasons to celebrate a book’s physicality. In Ploughshares’ Book Arts series, we’ll be looking at some of the artists, curators, and

Ask This, Not That

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I once heard a story about John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, contributing a lunch date to a silent auction. And my first thought was, “This is one of the most generous things that man could possibly do.” Not because it took tremendous time or energy, but because how

Fantasy Blog Draft – Round 1 – Editors

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We’ve established the rules for the game, the teams have been decided, and the managers have been locked away in their Fantasy Blog Draft War Rooms for the past two weeks, chain smoking and debating whether or not to hire Gordon Lish or Ezra Pound. And now: welcome to

Crowdsourcing the Canon: Literary Merit in Science Fiction

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  Imagine the carefully catalogued books available in your favorite library. The rows on rows and stacks on stacks, categorized with little regard for how they participate in the literary canon. There is, in libraries, a certain egalitarianism about book order. A follows B. Yet when the cover is opened, the

Roundup: Writing Dialogue

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In our Roundups segment, we’re looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. We explore posts from our archives as well as other top literary magazines, centered on a certain theme to help you jump-start your week. This week we have posts on writing

The Myth of the Literary Cowboy, Part 2: Make Me a Cowboy

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Last time on Myth of the Literary Cowboy, our hero was developed from the English knight as a post-Civil War appeal to nationalism, and my husband discovered I withheld pie a few years ago. While the cowboy is inspired by the knight, however, he is his own man, one

I Can Haz Earnestness?!: Anthropomorphism, Irony and Two New-ish Books By Well-Known Authors Named David

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Animals: so hot right now. OK, but first, full disclosure: I am a dog person. I volunteer at the Humane Society. I socialize with people I met at the dog park…outside of the dog park. I’m always finding dried beef liver in my pockets (note: dried beef liver rehydrates

The Modern Bookstore: An Interview with St. Mark’s BookShop Co-Owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy

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I remember the first time I went to St. Mark’s Bookshop. I had just skipped out of an orientation session my first week of freshman year at NYU, and decided to explore the area by myself. It was the first time I was walking New York’s vibrant streets alone,