The Rumpus, in a review of his work, labeled poet Ryan Vine “a raconteur,” and his superior story-telling skills are on full display in WARD. The poems are witty, teeming with dark humor, political, playful, and the sardonic tone is pitch-perfect for our times, when we seem to have forgotten that an important survival strategy is the ability to laugh at ourselves.In its heart of hearts, WARD is a book about ethos and mythos, about the creation of a charac...

The Winter 2023-24 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 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 Winter 2023-24 Issue, edited by Ladette Randolph, features poetry and prose by Richard Bausch, Jesse Lee Kercheval,...

New York Times bestselling author Mary B. Morrison delivers an explosive second novel about the unforgettable Crystal women, a family battling to stay together as desire, deception, and ever-elusive happiness threaten to tear them apart. Too much is never, ever enough for Alexis Crystal. She's playing a dangerous game, but she's finally close to getting 24/7 sizzling satisfaction. With a ring on her finger from James Wilcox and the woman she loves firmly between her sheets, no one can matc...

They were just kids when Claudette McPhearson took them all in. Eight of them all together. All different races and ethnic make ups, but she loved them as her own. One woman taught them how to love, trust, and respect one another. She was the only glue that kept them together, the only one who they wanted to please and never let down. She had been their light at the end of a long troublesome tunnel--it shined so bright. Then, one dreadful day, it all came to a crashing halt. She was walkin...