Uncategorized Archive

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Letters Between Tortoise and Hare” by Brandi Wells

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I’ve been in a bit of a slump lately, chaffing against my nine to five office job, weary of the routine and cadence of every week and weekend. It’s spring in New York, which doesn’t help, since all anyone wants to do is go sit in the sun somewhere

Pink Reef

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Pink Reef Robert Fernandez Canarium Books, April 2013 96 pages $14.00 I brought this along on a recent visit to my doctor, just in case there was a wait; as it turned out, I read the whole book and started again at the beginning—not only because my doctor was

Can’t See the Forest OR the Trees

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There’s a standard piece of writing advice—I believe it’s in the Official Fiction Handbook right between #135, Don’t relate dreams, and #137, Stop describing fluorescent lights already – that goes, There’s no such thing as a tree. By which is meant, your character can’t drive through a tunnel of

Why Poetry Can’t Find its Public

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Hey Poets. I was in LA last month for music work, and I think I found something you dropped: The public.  So—Maybe you weren’t sure when you lost it, but you seem pretty certain music stole it. Or film perhaps? Or YouTube cats? Meanwhile, poetry’s stayed alive. It’s been breeding

Ambiguity: The Boundary Between Psychosis and Reality in Science Fiction

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Television culture means that we often lack the depth to deal with ambiguity. The complexity of novels eludes our attention; we often prefer the truncated and clear narratives of sitcoms, where a plot line is fully resolved in forty-three minutes. The beauty of ambiguity, and of the blurred line

Roundup: Now That You’ve Graduated…

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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 and websites, centered on a certain theme to help you jump-start your week. This week we bring you

For Those About To Write (We Salute You) #6: Stop, Look, and Listen

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For Those About To Write (We Salute You) will present a writing exercise to the Ploughshares community every few weeks. We heartily encourage everyone reading to take part!  If you’ve been following along with this series from the start, you might have noticed a bit of a theme emerging—each

The World’s Strongest Librarian

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The World’s Strongest Librarian Josh Hanagarne Gotham Books, May 2013 304 pages $26.00 Josh Hanagarne’s first book, The World’s Strongest Librarian, has so many different hooks it’s enough to make a publisher weep with joy. A 6’7”, weightlifting librarian? Sold. A librarian who suffers from Tourette’s? Sold. A part-Navajo,

Cookbooks, Compost Heaps, and Poetry Booby Traps: A Conversation with Poet and Pie-maker Kate Lebo

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The first poetry anthology I owned was How to Eat A Poem: A Smorgasbord of Tasty and Delicious Poems for Young Readers. The title still gives me the giggles, though my amusement is perhaps more nuanced—as a kid, I delighted in the simple silliness of the concept; now, the

The Myth of the Literary Cowboy, Part 5: Cowboy Poetry

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I’ve heard this phrase uttered by a number of people—students, coworkers, friends, academics, random drunk party guests—anytime I mention one of the following: wearing comfortable stilettos, being a vegan Texan, or enjoying cowboy poetry. The juxtaposition of those pairings proves too much for people to process, but cowboy poetry