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."
Available now are nine new Ploughshares Solos, longform stories and essays also collected in our annual fall issue. Edited by Editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph, the Fall 2019 collection of Solos features new longform work by Andrea Barrett, Kiley Reid, Lex Williford, and Tracy Daugherty, as well as Ian Stansel, Nancy Mays, Danielle Spencer, Christopher Peacock, and Susan Neville. The stories and essays in our longform issue are also available for individual purchase as e-books.
Read "The Caller" by Ian Stansel:
"All week Max thinks about it. At night he falls asleep constructing the narrative and at work he spends the lunch hour in his car manufacturing details. When Sunday night rolls around and Nora has been put to bed and Julia is asleep or reading, he brings the radio station's stream up on his computer. He's in the den and the moon illuminates the snow falling outside. He tells himself he's calling on a lark, a private prank, because he's bored, because as he listens, there are lulls in the broadcast, awkward silences the show's host struggles to fill, admirably, with recitations of stories she's heard, with the importance of being in touch, of reaching out, of a voice, and he just wants to give her someone to talk to. And see, he just happens to have this story at the ready."
Genre: Literary Fiction
Available now are nine new Ploughshares Solos, longform stories and essays also collected in our annual fall issue. Edited by Editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph, the Fall 2019 collection of Solos features new longform work by Andrea Barrett, Kiley Reid, Lex Williford, and Tracy Daugherty, as well as Ian Stansel, Nancy Mays, Danielle Spencer, Christopher Peacock, and Susan Neville. The stories and essays in our longform issue are also available for individual purchase as e-books.
Read "The Caller" by Ian Stansel:
"All week Max thinks about it. At night he falls asleep constructing the narrative and at work he spends the lunch hour in his car manufacturing details. When Sunday night rolls around and Nora has been put to bed and Julia is asleep or reading, he brings the radio station's stream up on his computer. He's in the den and the moon illuminates the snow falling outside. He tells himself he's calling on a lark, a private prank, because he's bored, because as he listens, there are lulls in the broadcast, awkward silences the show's host struggles to fill, admirably, with recitations of stories she's heard, with the importance of being in touch, of reaching out, of a voice, and he just wants to give her someone to talk to. And see, he just happens to have this story at the ready."
Genre: Literary Fiction
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Used availability for Ian Stansel's The Caller