This staff-edited issue of Ploughshares features a diverse collection of poems, essays, and stories. The prose ranges from surreal humor -- David Cameron's "Mannequin," about a man's relationship with a life-size doll he buys to use the HOV lane -- to tragedy in Lisa Gruenberg's essay on the experiences of her Viennese father and his family during the Holocaust. Sherrie Flick's Plan B essay looks at the joy and rage of gardening, and Nancy Kang and Silvio Torres-Saillaint write an appreciation of the Dominican-American poet Rhina P. Espaillat. 

The Winter issue also features poetry by Philip Levine, Sherod Santos, Nalini Jones, Laurie Sewall, and Gary Young; an interview with Zacharis Award winner Roger Reeves; and the winners of the annual Emerging Writer's Contest.