"We Like to be Excited by the Printed Word." A Chat with John Skoyles, Editor of Ploughshares
"An extension of what I live for."
Ahoy, pals! I come with a new editor interview, freshly in the books!
Today I had the pleasure of speaking with John Skoyles, former Poetry Editor, recent Guest Editor and current Interim Editor-in-Chief of Ploughshares.
Ploughshares publishes writers who go on to achieve major accolades and awards within the literature community. Since its founding in 1971, stories, poems, and essays from Ploughshares have appeared over 150 times in the following award series anthologies: The Best American Poetry, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses.
All of my interactions with John over email were friendly and delightful. I somehow sensed speaking to him in person would be just the same—and I was right!
In today’s conversation we chatted about the magazine’s history, which brought back my own nostalgia for Boston, where I lived for about a decade. (I used to teach just next-door to Emerson College, where Ploughshares is based.) The magazine is named after The Plough & Stars, a bar in Cambridge (which I know well!). It was founded by DeWitt Henry and Peter O’Malley.
Since its early days of publishing stories by the local community and beyond, Ploughshares has gone on to be one of the premier lit mags in the country. For the last reading period, John said they received over 7,000 submissions (in all genres total). The magazine has two guest editors per year. Past guest editors have included Raymond Carver, Rita Dove, Terrance Hayes, Alice Hoffman, Tim O’Brien and many others.
After serving as Poetry Editor for the winter 2024-2025 issue (which we read for our Lit Mag Reading Club), John is now serving as interim Editor-in-Chief following the retirement of Ladette Randolph this past February. Given the range of guest editors, I wondered, could John describe a particular Ploughshares aesthetic? Is there a Ploughshares story, essay or poem?
John noted that each guest editor brings something different, making it difficult to name one single style the magazine prefers. Guest editors solicit work and also read work selected by readers from general submission. The magazine is committed to publishing new writers. About half of the writers in this issue have not published a book. The journal also holds an Emerging Writers contest each year in fiction, poetry and nonfiction.
John acknowledged the frustration writers feel when submitting work (and which he also feels as a submitting poet), particularly at magazines which can take up to a year to respond. Ploughshares aims to have a response time of 3-4 months and every submission is read with care. Part of the pleasure of editing a lit mag indeed comes from discovering new talent in the pool—“You just don’t know what you’re going to get.”
Since this was part of our Lit Mag Reading Club, I also got to ask John about particular works in this issue. What fun it was to discuss elements of craft—different approaches to ending a story, ways to end a poem, as well as methods of revising.
How do we writers allow ourselves to take risks with our work? How do we know when we really are taking risks? What does it even mean to take risks in writing? And when, as John said, is success “indistinguishable from panic”?
For answers to this and so much more, you will have to tune in!
Ploughshares is open for submissions from June 1st to January 15th. “The literary journal is published four times a year: blended poetry and prose issues in the Winter and Spring, a prose issue in the Summer, and a special longform prose issue in the Fall.” The longform issue invites work up to 15,000 words.
To all who came out today, thank you for attending! And for tolerating tech glitches! Your faces—even when I can’t see them—are the sweet chirping birds on my painfully windy March day!
And, of course, thank you to John for taking the time to take us behind the scenes of another lovely little magazine.
Happy viewing!
This video is for members of our Lit Mag Reading Club. Anyone can join the club any time by becoming a paying subscriber to Lit Mag News. Your financial support allows me to do this work, and is always appreciated!