The Winter 2011-2012 issue of Ploughshares, guest-edited by Alice Hoffman. This 40th anniversary issue edited by best-selling novelist Alice Hoffman (The Dovekeepers, Practical Magic) features new work from Ursula K. Le Guin, Marge Piercy, Jennifer Haigh, Ann Hood, and Wally Lamb; an interview with Elizabeth Bishop from the archives; and a story from Ploughshares' first Emerging Fiction Writer's Award winner Thomas Lee.

Full Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Alice Hoffman

EDITOR PROFILE
by Alexandra Marshall

FICTION

"Tomato Season," by Ruth Blank
"The Deer," by James Franco
"Hold the Dark," by William Giraldi
"Paramour," by Jennifer Haigh
"Code Blue," by Ann Hood
"Run," by Joshua Howes
"The Governess and the Tree," by Rachel Kadish
"Girl Skipping Rope," by Wally Lamb
"Safety," by Ann Leary
"The Gospel of Blackbird," by Thomas Lee

NONFICTION

"Coming of Age in Book Country," by Bonnnie Friedman

POETRY by

Paula Bohince
Martha Collins
Kerry James
Ursula K. Le Guin
Sydney Lea
Anna Margolin
J. D. McClatchy
Campbell McGrath
Jennifer Militello
Joseph Millar
Marge Piercy
Nicholas Samaras
Philip Schultz
Megan Sexton
Sue Standing
Jane Summer
Mary Szybist
Matthew Thorburn

MISC.

Messing About in Boats: A Plan B Essay by Michael Anania

FROM THE ARCHIVES

"The Work!" An Interview with Elizabeth Bishop: George Starbuck (from issue 11, Spring 1977)

BOOKSHELF

DeWitt Henry reviews: What is Left the Daughter, by Howard Norman
Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough reviews: Unseen Hand: Poems, by Adam Zagajewski
Jocelyn Lieu reviews: Train Dreams: A Novella, by Denis Johnson
Maryanne O'Hara reviews: The Foremost Good Fortune: A Memoir, by Susan Conley
Linwood Rumney reviews: How like Foreign Objects: Poems, by Alexis Orgera