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The Five Books I’d Rescue From the Fire
I have favorite books. And then I have favorite books, as in, the objects themselves, the ones made weird and irreplaceable by the extra markings in or on them—the annotations, the inscriptions, the...
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How to Shop at a Bookstore: An Easy 20-Step Guide for Authors
1) First, smell it. Look at the new arrivals, lined up like candy. See if, for just one second, you can remember what it was like to walk into a bookstore as a reader. Just a reader, a happy, curious...
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The Coffeeshop You Meet in Heaven
It’s a good start. But we can do better. The New York Times blog recently highlighted a website called Coffitivity that plays ambient coffee shop noise on an endless loop to help you work more...
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Writers Behaving Badly
I’m at that stage in editing my second novel where I’m confronted with my own bad habits. It’s much like cleaning out your closet only to discover you still own not one but three pairs of those chunky...
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Write As If…
This is not me. But I’m getting there… I have a problem with inversion. I’ve never been able to do a cartwheel, a handstand, or a headstand. On my high school swim team, I was consigned to the...
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One Gift Guide to Rule Them All
It’s getting late, people. And your literary friends expect brilliant Festivus gifts from you. So let’s get cracking! Here’s something for everyone on your list. For the English major: These fake blood...
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Roundup: End of the Year
In our Roundups segment, we’re looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. We explore posts from our archives as well as other top literary magazines and websites, centered on a...
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The Thirsty Games
It’s so cold in Chicago that the temperature isn’t even negative; it has one of those calculus sigmas in front of it, and there’s some kind of logarithm involved. Maybe you’re sitting in the sun on...
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One Year In—Writing the Novel: Rebecca Makkai
After one year of writing my novel, I took stock of what I’d accomplished—which seemed like very little. Would writing always feel like flailing? How do novelists find their way through? For guidance,...
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Novelists, You’re Doing It Right
There’s a novel in here somewhere… You’re trying to write a novel. Sometimes, it’s exhilarating: characters wake you in the night, yammering, springing into action. Sometimes, it’s excruciating: you...
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Giving, Not Taking: Expectations of Author Interactions
In 2009, I was at the annual AWP conference in Chicago, heading into a panel session about flash fiction. Coming out of the room from the last session was Audrey Niffenegger who, even without her name...
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Our Summer 2015 Issue, Guest-Edited by Lauren Groff, Now Available!
We are excited to announce that the Summer 2015 issue of Ploughshares, guest-edited by Lauren Groff, is available for purchase! Acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Lauren Groff (The Monsters of...
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On Music and Story
Kreutzer Sonata, by Rene Francois Xavier Prinet, 1901 I had a professor in college who maintained that writers write about artists in other disciplines—painters, musicians, sculptors, etc.—when they...
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The Coffeeshop You Meet in Heaven
It’s a good start. But we can do better. The New York Times blog recently highlighted a website called Coffitivity that plays ambient coffee shop noise on an endless loop to help you work more...
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