What exactly is Ploughshares?
Ploughshares is a literary print journal, publishing poetry and fiction and occasionally personal essays/memoirs. Each issue is guest-edited by a prominent writer who explores different and personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles (see our guest editor policy.) We are considered one of the top literary journals in the country; work first published in Ploughshares is selected continuously for annual prize anthologies such as The Best American Poetry, The Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. See the list of our prizewinners. Although we are affiliated with Emerson College, we are not a student publication. We receive 1,200 submissions each month from all over the country and the world, and the authors we publish range from best-selling household names to fresh new discoveries. Emerson College, our institutional sponsor, is a premiere communications and performing arts college in Boston and hosts one
