The Winter 2009-10 issue of Ploughshares, guest-edited by Tony Hoagland. Ploughshares, a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles.

This issue of Ploughshares features selections of poetry and prose by award-winning poet Tony Hoagland. In his introduction, he writes, "Let's just say that my time among the transcendentalists made me fiercely suspicious of easy innocence. And my time among the realists has made me fiercely protective of our right to flight. Thus, the poems and stories gathered here in Ploughshares reflect these two broad bands of human temperament: the skeptical scrutiny and the rapturous updraft."

The issue includes new work from poets including Howard Altmann, Adrian Blevins, Matthew Dickman, Farrah Field, Mark Halliday; with prose by Rebecca Makkai, David Stuart MacLean, and Nic Pizzolatto; book reviews; and a profile of Tony Hoagland.