‘Ugly as sin’, ‘ugly duckling’, ‘rear its ugly head’. The word ‘ugly’ is used freely, yet it is a loaded term: from the simply plain and unsightly to the repulsive and even offensive, definitions slide all over the place. Hovering around ‘feared and dreaded’, ugliness both repels and fascinates. But the concept of ugliness has a lineage that has long haunted our cultural imagination.In this riveting book, Gretchen E. Henderson explores perceptions of ugliness through history, from ...

The Winter 2019-20 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since 1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the freshest voices in contemporary American literature, and remains prescient in the digital age by providing readers with thoughtful and entertaining literature in a variety of formats. Find out why the New York Times named Ploughshares “the Triton among minnows.”The Winter 2019-20 Issue, edited by Editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph and John Skoy...

The Fall 2024 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since 1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the most innovative voices in contemporary American literature, and now provides readers with thoughtful and entertaining literature in a variety of formats. Find out why the New York Times named Ploughshares “the Triton among minnows.”The Fall 2024 Issue, edited by Ladette Randolph, features prose by Andre Dubus III, Gretchen E. Henderson, Benjamin H...

At Great Salt Lake, near Robert Smithson’s iconic earthwork Spiral Jetty, a motley crew of scientists walks the mudflats to study fossils in the making. This reputedly dead sea is home to tar seeps, pools of raw oil (nicknamed ‘death traps’) that act as a preservative, encasing organisms as they were in life.In this spare landscape, an intricate web of life unfurls. Halophiles―salt-hungry microorganisms―tint the brackish water pink and orange; crystals of gypsum stud the g...

Gretchen Henderson had a happy childhood until age seven when she succumbed to the physical, sexual, and mental abuse of her stepfather. He disappeared a few years later, but the trauma that had been endured severely damaged her psyche. This led to deep depression and several suicide attempts However, fate had different ideas… HAPPINESS AFTER HORROR is a book that will compel you to read until the last page.