How to Avoid Homelessness and Starvation As a Writer

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As the MFA vs. NYC book launches, as Emily Gould’s essay from said book makes the rounds, and as the bookternet explodes over the latest publishing controversy, I can’t help but be bored by the whole school vs. experience argument. I mean, forget all that. We’ve been arguing that

Writers and Their Pets: Nancy Welch

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The ‘Writers and Their Pets’ series began with my own desire to celebrate my dog Sally, and since then I have also invited other writers to share with the rest of us the details of their lives with beloved pets. Today, please enjoy this essay by Nancy Welch. You can also submit your

Justin Kaplan (1925-2014)

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Justin Kaplan, award-winning biographer, editor, and friend of Ploughshares, passed away on March 2 at the age of 88. Kaplan guest edited the 1984 issue of Ploughshares with his wife Anne Bernays. In their introduction to this issue, Kaplan and Bernays wrote “More and more, biography and memoir writing

The Ploughshares Round-Down: Why Your First Few Pages Mean Everything

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Because I love transparency and being generally helpful to writers, or because I am a masochist, I let writers query me by Twitter. It says in my bio that if you can squeeze your pitch into three tweets I’ll respond. I’ll admit I have a few stock responses, but

That’s What She Said?

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It’s not polite to eavesdrop. But how many gold nuggets of dialogue have you overheard in your life? I always feel at a loss when I don’t have a notebook and pen in my purse to jot down ideas and strangers’ intriguing utterances. Recently, in a restaurant in Seattle, 

Lit GIFs: The Hobbit

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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Until thirteen unwelcome dwarves and a wizard came and took him away on an equally unwelcome adventure.

Poetic Analytics

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Sonnet XVIII, William Shakespeare

The Ploughshares Round-Down: Waiting on a Job? Grad School? Publisher? Wait Better.

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Okay Writers. Confession: my last couple months disappeared in helpless Waiting: to hear from an interested publisher, to hear about grant funds, to get word on research, jobs, schools, where the hell I’ll be living in six months… It’s excruciating. And I’m not alone. Thousands of you are sending

People of the Book: Mara Mills

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People of the Book is an interview series gathering those engaged with books, broadly defined. As participants answer the same set of questions, their varied responses chart an informal ethnography of the book, highlighting its rich history as a mutable medium and anticipating its potential future. This week brings

Create Your Own Mythology: On Usain Bolt’s 9.58

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Under review: 9.58: Being the World’s Fastest Man, by Usain Bolt with Shaun Custis (2010, HarperSport, 287 pages) As the Sochi Winter Olympic Games lurch to a close, it’s instructional to remember that, for Summer Olympians, the past two weeks were exactly like every other two weeks in an