Ploughshares
- Dec 18, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 15
Ploughshares, founded at Emerson College in 1971, has become one of the most influential literary journals in the United States, known for its exacting editorial standards and consistent support of emerging writers. Through its distinctive reading practices, rigorous editing, and commitment to year-round open submissions, the magazine has shaped the careers of authors who later defined major movements in contemporary literature. Its contests, fellowships, and deeply engaged editorial culture continue to position the journal as a central force in identifying new talent and charting the direction of American writing.
Founded in 1971 at Emerson College, Ploughshares quickly distinguished itself through an editorial model that set it apart from other literary journals. Rather than relying on a single vision, the magazine adopted a system of rotating guest editors—writers, critics, and cultural figures whose tastes and sensibilities brought new energy to each issue. This approach introduced readers to a constantly shifting range of voices and styles and gave emerging writers opportunities to be selected by editors who would later become major literary figures themselves.
The journal’s reputation grew as early issues featured work by writers who would go on to define late-twentieth-century American literature. Over time, Ploughshares became known as a publication where early-career writers could appear alongside established authors and where the strength of the work mattered more than the writer’s résumé. That commitment helped shape the careers of numerous poets, fiction writers, and essayists who credit their first national audience to the journal.
As the magazine expanded, so did its reach. Its annual Emerging Writers’ Contest, the Ploughshares Solos series, and its widely used archives created multiple entry points for writers seeking publication. Teachers and editors began to rely on its selections as markers of contemporary craft, and readers turned to the journal to track new movements in style and form.
With each issue, Ploughshares advances its founding goal of fostering literary innovation by creating a space where distinctive narratives can take root. Its influence now stretches far beyond its Boston origins, shaping reading lists, editorial priorities, and the development of writers whose work defines the current literary moment. For many, the journal remains a trusted indicator of where the art is headed next.
Editorial Vision
The strength of Ploughshares lies in the clarity of its editorial expectations. The magazine examines each submission for the authority of its voice, the integrity of its structure, and the precision of its language. Pieces must demonstrate an internal logic that holds from the first line to the last, and the editors favor writing that reveals its intelligence through craft rather than explanation. The journal has built its identity on work that shows deliberation at every level of construction.
The editing itself has become part of the magazine’s reputation. Contributors frequently speak about the close, exacting attention their pieces receive—scrutinized line by line, with questions that attend to rhythm, argument, and the hidden architecture of the prose. Revision is treated as a continuation of the writer’s thinking, carried out with the belief that a piece can always reach greater clarity or a stronger shape. This process has guided many writers as they refine their methods and sharpen their instincts.
The magazine’s selections also reflect an engagement with the conditions shaping contemporary life. Ploughshares publishes work that stays alert to political, environmental, and cultural pressures without reducing itself to commentary. The journal seeks pieces that carry the weight of their subject matter with accuracy and imaginative force, allowing complexity to remain intact rather than simplified for effect.
This approach—careful reading, rigorous editing, and a sustained interest in the world beyond the page—has turned Ploughshares into a journal writers regard as a serious test of their work. Readers follow it for the same reason: each issue offers writing built to last, writing shaped through discipline and discernment rather than trend or convenience.
Publishing Legacy
The publishing record of Ploughshares serves as evidence of its editorial discernment and its influence on the direction of American literature. The journal has a long history of identifying writers at crucial early stages, often placing them before readers years before their most celebrated books appeared. These early publications reveal the magazine’s instinct for voices that will shape the field.
Ann Beattie appeared in the journal with work that carried the cool observational tone that later defined a generation of short fiction. Edward P. Jones’s first pieces arrived with the quiet authority that would anchor Lost in the City and, later, his Pulitzer-winning novel. Elizabeth Strout’s early fiction showed the emotional acuity that readers would later recognize in Olive Kitteridge. Tim O’Brien’s contribution demonstrated a command of narrative tension that became central to his writing on war. These appearances were not accidental. They resulted from an editorial process that recognized craft before acclaim.
Many pieces first seen in Ploughshares went on to appear in national anthologies or win major awards, but those accolades tell only part of the story. The journal has shaped literary culture by bringing complex, carefully built work into circulation long before it aligned with any broader trend. Its pages have recorded shifts in sensibility—stylistic, thematic, and political—through the writers who first tested their ideas in its issues.
The magazine’s publishing presence now reaches beyond its print volumes. Its digital platform extends the conversation through essays, critical reflections, and interviews that place contemporary writing in a broader context. This ongoing work supports writers at various stages, offering a space where literary thinking stays active, engaged, and visible.
Ploughshares has created a record that writers and editors continue to study: a body of work that shows how attentive publishing can shape both individual careers and the larger movements of contemporary literature.
Annual Contests and Special Features
The contests administered by Ploughshares form an essential part of how the journal identifies and supports rising talent. Each prize reflects a different facet of the magazine’s editorial priorities, offering writers a chance to enter the publication’s orbit through work that demonstrates precision, originality, and a strong sense of artistic intent.
The Emerging Writer’s Contest serves as a first point of entry for many early-career authors. The award offers more than a financial incentive. It places the winning work before editors, agents, and teachers who closely track the journal, giving unpublished writers a rare opportunity to reach an audience prepared to take new voices seriously.
The Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction highlights a piece already chosen for the print journal, signaling that the story held particular force within an already selective issue. Recipients often see this recognition extend the lifespan of their work as the prize draws renewed attention to the story’s craft and vision.
The Look2 Essay Prize has become one of the magazine’s more intellectually ambitious features. The award encourages critics and practicing writers to reexamine authors who have slipped from public attention or who never received the readership their work warranted. Winning essays often reintroduce overlooked writers to contemporary audiences and influence the way literary histories are written.
The John C. Zacharis First Book Award honors a contributor whose debut collection or novel demonstrates clarity of voice and command of form. Because the prize goes only to writers who have appeared in the journal, it reinforces the magazine’s long-standing relationship with its contributors, recognizing not just a single publication but the arc of a writer’s early development.
Together, these prizes strengthen the magazine’s role as a site of discovery. They provide structured opportunities for writers working at different stages of their careers and help sustain a culture in which skill and ambition carry weight. Through these programs, Ploughshares continues to broaden the field by drawing attention to writers who might otherwise go unnoticed in the literary world.
For more on writing contests, literary awards, and career-building opportunities at Ploughshares, continue reading: Ploughshares: Annual Writing Contests, Literary Awards and Opportunities.
Style of Writing Accepted
The work that finds a home in Ploughshares carries a deliberate intelligence on the page. The journal publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that show command of structure, clarity of purpose, and a willingness to engage the reader without relying on ornament or contrivance. Editors look for pieces in which every choice—voice, pacing, image, line—demonstrates intention. The magazine’s standards favor writing that rewards close reading rather than work driven by premise alone.
Fiction selected for the journal often reveals its strength through its architecture. Stories that succeed here tend to balance narrative momentum with a keen awareness of how character and language shape one another. The editors respond to work that handles emotional stakes without theatrics, that builds tension through precision rather than excess, and that trusts the reader to follow the deeper movement of the piece.
The poetry published in Ploughshares reflects a similar commitment to discipline and risk. Successful poems tend to locate their power in the friction between image and idea, or in the pressure created by a line turning toward an unexpected angle. The magazine favors poems that hold up under repeated reading.
In nonfiction, the editors gravitate toward writing that confronts its subject directly and with clarity. Pieces often blend inquiry with narrative, allowing the writer’s thinking to unfold through carefully shaped prose rather than through overt argument. The journal responds to essays that maintain tension between personal experience and broader observation, giving the work both intimacy and reach.
Across genres, Ploughshares seeks writing that feels fully realized on its own terms. The editors publish pieces that expand the field not through novelty but through craft, imagination, and the writer’s insistence on getting the language right.
Commitment to New Voices
The strength of Ploughshares has always rested on its ability to recognize a writer before the larger world knows their name. The journal reads unsolicited work with the same seriousness it gives to established contributors, which has allowed countless writers to enter the literary conversation through the force of a single well-made piece. This openness remains one of the magazine’s defining commitments and one of the reasons its pages continue to surprise readers.
The Emerging Writer’s Contest provides one entry point, but the journal’s support for new talent is threaded through its entire editorial practice. Guest editors regularly shape issues around writers whose work has not yet reached a national audience, offering them the kind of careful attention that can alter the course of a project. Many contributors point to their first appearance in Ploughshares as the moment when their work began to move beyond private drafting and into public life.
The magazine’s presence within the broader literary community reinforces this commitment. Through readings, conversations, and partnerships with the Emerson writing program, Ploughshares creates spaces where early-career writers can test ideas, share work, and build the networks that sustain a literary life. These gatherings often introduce writers to editors, mentors, and peers who help carry their work forward.
Year-round submissions remain central to the magazine’s ethos. Writers approaching the journal for the first time can trust that their work will be read with care and without the filters that narrow opportunity elsewhere. This steady attention to fresh voices has shaped the magazine’s identity and ensured that the next generation of writers continues to find its footing in its pages.
Its Place in Contemporary Literature
Ploughshares holds its place in contemporary literature because it treats the page as a site of serious artistic work rather than a marketplace. The journal has maintained a clear editorial compass through shifts in taste, technology, and publishing economics, offering writers a venue where ambition is met with equally rigorous reading. Its issues chart the movement of literary thought across decades, capturing the evolution of style and subject in real time.
The magazine’s influence is felt most clearly in the way it shapes readers’ expectations. Work chosen for Ploughshares often sets a benchmark for craft that resonates far beyond a single issue, guiding conversations in classrooms, writing programs, and editorial meetings across the country. The journal’s selections show how fiction, poetry, and nonfiction can carry intellectual weight without sacrificing narrative force, and how new voices can sit alongside established ones without hierarchy.
For writers, publication in Ploughshares signals that their work has been measured against a high standard and found to hold its ground. For readers, the journal offers a record of where literature is moving and where it may go next. This combination of discernment, continuity, and a willingness to place emerging talent at the center of the conversation has secured the magazine’s place as one of the most reliable guides through the shifting terrain of American writing.