The Pfeffermans

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 Pfeffermans" by Nancy K. Mays:

"Of course, they choose the Fourth of July to reenact their childhood, a holiday known for explosions, maimed limbs, trumped-up loyalty. The kidsAbby will never stop calling them thathave grown unduly nostalgic in the past year, mythologizing her mediocre dinners, romanticizing their sporadic vacations, basically whitewashing decades of benign neglect into a family life that neither she nor Hank recognizes."

Dettagli