Ploughshares at Emerson College Announces Ploughshares Solos

—First story available July 31: “Lady of the Burlesque Ballet”by Timothy Schaffert—

BOSTON, MA (May 30, 2012)—On July 31, one of the nation’s leading literary publications, Ploughshares, will launch Ploughshares Solos: a new digital-only series of individual long stories, approximately 10,000 words in length, and novellas between 30,000 and 60,000 words. Each month, a new original story or novella will be available to download to Kindle and Nook tablets at pshares.org. The cost of stories will be $1.99; novellas will be available for $3.99.

Published three times a year (April, August, and December), Ploughshares magazine is a collection of short stories and poems. It has published the early work of some of today’s most respected writers, including Tim O’Brien, Sue Miller, Robert Pinsky, and Jayne Anne Phillips.Over the years, the magazine, which is in its 41^st year, has received longer story submissions that it’s been unable to publish because they didn’t fit the magazine’s format of shorter pieces, approximately 5,000-word stories.

“I’m excited to expand on what we do—creating a new forum for longer works, and a new opportunity for writers,” said Ladette Randolph, director and editor-in-chief of Ploughshares. Regarding the first Ploughshares Solos story by Timothy Schaffert, Randolph mentions that, in fact, it had been originally submitted for the magazine. “His ‘Lady of the Burlesque Ballet,’ like his wonderful novels, is part madcap adventure, part comic burlesque, part adult fairy tale. His sentences are sensuous and addictive, his characters like none you’ve encountered before.”

Randolph is confident that current Ploughshares readers and subscribers will welcome the addition of Ploughshares Solos, which will give them access to more original stories and new literary voices; she hopes it will also appeal to modern readers’ needs. “It creates a new experience for readers—substantive stories, in smaller doses. Readers who may not want to read through an entire magazine of short stories can choose to download one longer story a month.”

Monthly editions of Ploughshares Solos will launch July 31 with Schaffert’s ‘Lady of Burlesque Ballet.” They will only be available digitally at pshares.org, the Amazon.com Kindle store, and the BarnesandNoble.com Nook store. Submissions for Ploughshares Solos will officially be accepted starting June 1, and will be ongoing. For more information, visit pshares.org/submit.

Note: This press release was updated on Feb. 20, 2013.

About Ploughshares

Ploughshares literary magazine is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting contemporary literature as a vital component of our national culture and character. It was founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O’Malley in the Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ploughshares has become the preeminent source for significant contemporary American prose and poetry, and has consistently served as the launching pad for some of the nation’s most respected and enduring voices: writers such as Thomas Lux, Edward P. Jones, Mona Simpson, and Tim O'Brien, who had their first or early work published in Ploughshares. Guest editors of the magazine have been the recipients of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, National Book Awards, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, and numerous other honors. Since 1989, it has been based at Emerson College, which hosts one of the best MFA programs in creative writing in the country. For more information, visit pshares.org.

About Emerson College

Located in Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the historic Boston Common and in the heart of the city’s Theatre District, Emerson College educates individuals who will solve problems and change the world through engaged leadership in communication and the arts, a mission informed by liberal learning. The College has 3,453 undergraduates and 837 graduate students from across the United States and 50 countries. Supported by state-of-the-art facilities and a renowned faculty, students participate in more than 80 student organizations and performance groups. Emerson is known for its study and internship programs in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., the Netherlands, London, China, and the Czech Republic. The College has an active network of 32,000 alumni who hold leadership positions in communication and the arts. For more information, visit www.emerson.edu.