The Summer 2018 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year’s four issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles; the Fall and Winter issues are staff-edited.As guest-editor Jill McCorkle writes in her introduction, “Some of the most satisfying moments in fiction are those where I might gasp with shock or surprise only to immediately see that I should have known, that in...

With a poet's clear eye and a journalist's curiosity about how a city works, Dan Barry shows us New York as no other writer has seen it.Evocative, intimate, piercing, and often funny, the essays in City Lights capture everyday life in the city at its most ordinary and extraordinary. Wandering the city as a columnist for The New York Times, Barry visits the denizens of the Fulton Fish Market on the eve of its closing; journeys with an obsessed guide through the secr...

How elements of masculinity manifest themselves in all aspects of American political lifeWhile hardly a new phenomenon, masculinity—which includes elements of toughness, independence, and leadership, among others—roared onto the national political stage in America with the 2016 candidacy, election, and presidency of Donald Trump. Research into masculinity dates back over a century, but little attention has been paid to the specific role of masculinity in politics b...

While hardly a new phenomenon, masculinity—which includes elements of toughness, independence, and leadership, among others—roared onto the national political stage in America with the 2016 candidacy, election, and presidency of Donald Trump. Research into masculinity dates back over a century, but little attention has been paid to the specific role of masculinity in politics beyond the conventional wisdom that it, rather than femininity, is the dominant force. This lack of research has le...