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Ploughshares is the award-winning non-profit literary magazine based at Emerson College in Boston. Most of our print issues are guest-edited, and our mission is to present varying viewpoints. Our blog is an extension of our print publication, and so we feature writing from guest-bloggers. We present their opinions to our readers in order to foster a lively discussion, but do not necessarily endorse all viewpoints published on our blog.
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Tag Archives: Andrew Ladd
Roundup: Scary, Creepy, Dead, and Haunting Posts
As we look forward to updating the Ploughshares blog for the new year, we’re also looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. Our roundups explore the archives and gather past posts around a certain … Continue reading
Posted in Roundups
Tagged Akshay Ahuja, Andrew Ladd, Christine Sneed, Peter B. Hyland, Roundup
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Blurbese: “The First _____”
When Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was published, in 2010, the British Daily Telegraph called it “the first great American novel of the post-Obama era.” If that sounds oddly specific (not to mention premature), they at least had good reason for it: … Continue reading
Andrew Ladd wins AWP Novel Award: A Q & A with one of our own
Ploughshares is thrilled to announce that the winner of the AWP Award for the novel is none other than our beloved book reviews editor, Andrew Ladd. The award is part of the AWP Award Series, an annual competition for new, … Continue reading
Not Unlike…
Last Poems Hayden Carruth Copper Canyon Press, June 2012 120 pages $16.00 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 … Continue reading
Blurbese: “a _____ debut”
Book reviewers generally frown on unnecessary adjectives. Precisely how they frown depends on the situation, but you can bet if an author’s use of adjectives comes up in a review it’s not as a compliment. If a book is filled … Continue reading
Blurbese: “funny”
Book reviewers’ relationship with the word “funny” is, well—a little funny. I’m somewhat sympathetic about this one, too, at least when it comes to novels that are deliberately comic, because it’s tough to review authors whose reputation is based entirely … Continue reading
AWP Book Review Contest: The Results!
At AWP this year, we asked bookfair attendees to review a book—any book they liked—in one sentence. We got a lot of creative responses, from five words to fifty-three, from questions to statements to imperatives, and from glowing to critical … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Tagged Andrew Ladd, AWP, AWP Chicago, Blog Book Review Competition, Book Reviews, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, John Hersey
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The Ploughshares AWP Book Review Competition
There won’t be any book reviews on the blog this week, mostly because we think you should all be at AWP in Chicago instead, buying—and attending readings of—as many books as you can. More importantly, though, if you happen to … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Tagged Andrew Ladd, AWP, Blog Book Review Competition, Book Reviews, Chicago, Competition
1 Comment
Blurbese: “unflinching”
I think a lot of book reviewers were smacked as children. Some of them must have at least been bullied. How else to explain their admiration for the ability not to flinch? Just look at the first page of results … Continue reading
