The Winter 2012-13 issue of Ploughshares, edited by John Skoyles and Ladette Randolph. Ploughshares, a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different and personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles.

Ploughshares editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph and poetry editor John Skoyles compile this Winter issue, which features the work of several distinguished writers as well as the winners of the Emerging Writer’s Contest. The issue features fiction about the Bei Piao, the aimless twenty-somethings who wander modern Beijing (“Days of Being Mild,” by Xuan Juliana Wang), the legacy of anti-Semitism in Belgium (“Strawberries,” by Karl Taro Greenfeld), an essay about a painful high school production of The Miracle Worker (“Heather, 1984,” by Kate Flaherty), and poetry by Carl Dennis, Barbara Hamby, Ellen Bass, Afaa Michael Weaver, and many more.

INTRODUCTION

Ladette Randolph

FICTION

"A Blink a Blink and Dehiscence," by Shauna Galante

"The Wicked of the Earth," by Barry Gifford

"Strawberries," by Karl Taro Greenfeld

"Grace," by Joshua Howes

"Victoria Falls Hotel," Reese Okyong Kwon

"Telemetry," by Matthew Neill Null

"Come the Revolution," by Emma Torzs

"Days of Being Mild," by Xuan Juliana Wang

NONFICTION

"Heather, 1984," by Kate Flaherty

"Unsaid," by Gretchen E. Henderson

POETRY by

Keith Althaus

Valerie Bandura

Ellen Bass

Ciaran Berry

James Crews

Carl Dennis

Hilary Vaughn Dobel

Peter Everwine

Ona Gritz

Barbara Hamby

Kerry Hardie

Tony Hoagland

Brenna W. Lemieux

Matthew Lippman

Dave Nielsen

D. Nurkse

Rebecca Okrent

January Gill O'Neil

Gretchen Primack

Grace Schauer

Maria Terrone

David Thacker

Nance Van Winckel

Ryan Vine

Afaa Michael Weaver

Eric Weinstein

Stephen Neal Weiss

EMERGING WRITER'S CONTEST

Fiction: "The Culling," by Jasmine Sawers

Nonfiction: "What You Will Do," by Jacob Newberry

Poetry: Three Bath Poems, by Jen Silverman

MISC

"A Life in a House," a Plan B essay by Timothy Schaffert

"Taking Feminist to 'Fantasticoes,'" a Look2 essay on Jaimy Gordon by John Domini

POSTSCRIPTS

Zacharis Award Winner Heidy Steidlmayer