The Little Dictionary That Could
It’s a skinny thing, Gustave Flaubert’s Le Dictionnaire des idées reçues, not even 100 pages. And The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas also isn’t the source you’d turn to when someone peppers a conversation with a few big words. It is, however, the dictionary you could pick up and read during, say, a
For Those About To Write (We Salute You) #14: Let’s Get Small
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! Was anyone else feeling a little emotional after doing last session’s Sliding Doors exercise? Sheesh. While there’s definitely something freeing about exorcizing
Writing Lessons: Chad Stroup
In our Writing Lessons series, writers and writing students will discuss lessons learned, epiphanies about craft, and the challenges of studying writing. This week, we hear from Chad Stroup, a student in the MFA program at San Diego State University. You can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ChadStroupWriter —Andrew Ladd, Blog
A Map of Florence
I stand in the middle of a Plaza. A market is in front of me. To my left, down a narrow street, is a small restaurant, Mario’s, which serves lunch until it runs out of the day’s specials. If I walk to my right, I can make my way
People of the Book: Stephen Skuce
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
Writing in a Changing World: Craft, Readerships, and Social Media
What do you wish your MFA program had taught you? How is the literary world—and media in general—changing? How should we change with it? These are the questions that motivate Stephanie Vanderslice‘s work as a writer, professor, and HuffPost blogger. I heard Vanderslice speak at the International Great Writing Conference this June, where she
Fictional Writer Master Class: the King’s Men
Stephen King has a particular knack for fictionalizing the tortured lives of writers. Scribes of varied success people the pages of his works, from protagonists to supporting characters. (Under the Dome’s Thurston Marshall is a recent Ploughshares guest editor!) Many of these characters are also readable as Author Avatars
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge Peter Orner Little, Brown and Co., August 2013 208 pages $25.00 This review was contributed by John Francisconi. The staff of The Paris Review recently took part in an AMA interview on Reddit, during which they were asked a question about flash fiction’s
One Year In—Writing the Novel: Allison Lynn
After one year of writing my novel, I took stock of what I’d accomplished—which seemed like very little. Would writing always feel like flailing? How do novelists find their way through? For guidance, I turned to published novelists, whose interviews are presented in One Year In: Writing the Novel. Today’s novelist is Allison
Episodia 1.14: An Antidote to Scripted Female Friendship
A few months ago, I wrote a post on the best bromances on television. Since then, I’ve wanted to write a similar post on female friendship, but I came up empty when I hunted for good examples. There are so many storytelling techniques that current scripted television gets right