Series Archive
Book vs. Movie: Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go is both an unsettling allegory of systemic oppression, and an intimate portrait of three young people negotiating an impossible living situation. There’s a lot going on, both on the surface and beneath, and a reader couldn’t be faulted for thinking, “this
Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians
On October 26, South African author J.M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians is published. The unnamed narrator, an imperial magistrate stationed in a colonial settlement on the outskirts of the unspecified “Empire,” enjoys the languorous ease of his privileged position.
Fiction Responding to Fiction: Nunez, Rushdie, and Seidlinger
The writers discussed the many ways in which fiction can respond to fiction. Of particular note was the impetus for using a particular source text—what inspired the response—and the extent to which a retelling can or should stand on its own without an intimate knowledge of the original.
Edges and Awakenings: Paul Ruffin’s “Hog-Killing Weather”
Paul Ruffin had me at the title. It wasn’t the spectacle of the hog-killing I was drawn to so much as the way he undercuts the brutality to focus our attention on the weather. I liked the juxtaposition, the audacity of deflecting our attention from the sensational to the
How to Find Your Self (and How to Kill It): A Conversation with Suzi Analogue and Nathaniel Mackey on Black Music
I talk to Nathaniel Mackey and musician Suzi Analogue about how to, in Amiri Baraka's words, find the self, then kill it—and about the role of technology in that process.
Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries XV-XVI
This is the eighth installment of a year-long journey through Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia.
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Query XV: The colleges and public establishments, the roads, buildings, &c.
Query XVI: The measures taken with regard to the estates and possessions of the rebels, commonly called Tories
Throwback Thursday: “The Lottery” and Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson
Let Me Tell You is a collection of thirty short stories–twenty-two of which never made it into the public sphere–and twenty-six snippets and essays which encompass the body of Shirley Jackson’s work.
In Both Directions: Elise Juska’s “Transfer Station”
When I started this series back in July, my plan was to write about a single Ploughshares story in each post, focusing on what each story might teach us about writing fiction. That a pattern in my story choice would emerge was unexpected.
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Wind on the Moon” by Katie Burgess
We are a world awash with conspiracy theories, but what resides in the hearts of those behind the actual conspiracies? In her flash fiction piece, “Wind on the Moon,” Katie Burgess explores the internal struggle of a governmental doctor of spin.
Writing Trauma: Notes of Transcendence, #3—Finding Light in Darkness
Perhaps I’d brought Heart of Darkness to court with me not as reading material but as a talisman, as a symbol of what I believe literature has the power to do.