Plough Quarterly
@plough.bsky.social
Another life is possible. Plough is an international magazine of stories, ideas, and culture, publishing daily online and quarterly in print. Join our newsletter: http://plough.com/signup Subscribe: http://plough.com/subscribe
Friends: join us in Boston on Sept 24 for a Reader Meetup to discuss the latest issue of Plough, on the theme of friendship. Be sure to RSVP. See you there! 📅 9.24.2026 📍 Boston MA www.plough.com/events/bosto...
Boston Plough Reader Meetup | Plough Events
Join other Plough readers in your area for discussion and fellowship.
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“He said, ‘Mom, when I took my life, I thought it was the right thing to do, but now I know that it was a mistake.’ Then he reached out to touch my arm. We clasped each other’s forearms. Then he was gone, and I woke up.” —Susan Delaney Spear
Where Do the Lost Things Go? | Plough
Where is my son who committed suicide? I know what Christianity has taught, but I also know the Good Shepherd who goes out to find his one lost sheep.
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While Plough aims to inspire faith and action, it’s not often we present readers with an actual, hands-on challenge. But here’s one. Learn more at the PloughStack: ploughstack.substack.com/p/a-wendell-...
“As I have spent more time with Edith Stein’s writing, I have found that what appears cold and impersonal at first turns out to be passionately universal. Under the veil of academic and monastic austerity is a heart burning with love and tenderness.” —Zena Hitz
Seeking a Surer Way | Plough
Edith Stein, a philosophy-professor-turned-nun, found a faith mighty enough to face down the evils of her day.
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Frog and Toad were my favorite books as a kid.
Plough Quarterly@plough.bsky.social · yesterday“The stories of Frog and Toad are beloved for their humor, but also, I believe, for reflecting to us truths about the friendships that we cherish, distilled into their simplest elements – things we know from experience but rarely ponder.” —Cambria Kaltwasser
“Maya Savir does not turn away from grief or from what justice and responsibility would actually require, and treats reconciliation as unsentimental, morally serious work: the hard, holy labor of learning to live together before all wounds have healed.” @ysl.bsky.social
On Reconciliation | Plough Books
What Israelis and Palestinians – and everyone else – can learn from South Africans and Rwandans about ending conflict and healing and rebuilding in the aftermath.
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“The stories of Frog and Toad are beloved for their humor, but also, I believe, for reflecting to us truths about the friendships that we cherish, distilled into their simplest elements – things we know from experience but rarely ponder.” —Cambria Kaltwasser
Frog and Toad Theology | Plough
What can Arnold Lobel’s beloved amphibians teach us about friendship with God?
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“I’ll admit it: I’m getting tired. Tired of pushing against the current of “AI” hype. Tired of explaining that having a chatbot produce answers for you is not education.” www.plough.com/articles/so-...
So, a Chatbot Did Your Homework | Plough
If education is nothing but an information-processing exercise to get a degree, why not?
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Our Autumn Issue *Friendship* is live! 🧵See the thread of highlights below or read the issue here: www.plough.com/magazine/fri...
“The partition thins between this world and the world to come, or the next or the other world. On the other side of the partition the dead are living. As one grows older some of the dead grow more alive, more essentially themselves. One loves them more.” Wendell Berry www.plough.com/articles/six...
Six New Poems by Wendell Berry | Plough
The great American writer addresses the thinning partition between this life and eternity.
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"I knew that if I waited to understand, if I waited to get rid of all my doubts, I would never be ready. So I went in all haste one December day right after Christmas and was baptized a Catholic." Dorothy Day www.plough.com/articles/hel...
Help My Unbelief | Plough
Faith comes before understanding and is a gift no human can impart.
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“Jesus’ generosity explodes the philosophers’ careful boundaries around friendship, extending it to the virtuous and unvirtuous alike.” —Peter Mommsen
A Friend for Life | Plough
Without friends, says Aristotle, no one would choose to live.
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“Acknowledging and embracing the relational nature of care – being present to the people who care for you, your loved ones, or your home, and realizing that exposing your own need means being exposed to theirs. Vulnerability cannot be solved; it can only be shared.” —Leah Libresco Sargeant
You Can’t Buy Care | Plough
Borrowing the language of economics and labor to describe care work may help spark conversation, but it misses the point.
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ChatGPT cannot replace the communion of saints. www.plough.com/articles/cha...
ChatGPT Goes to Church | Plough
Should large language models write sermons and prayers?
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Lovely essay on the virtues of gentleness in academic critique... Needed now more then ever www.plough.com/articles/gen...
Gentleness in Academia | Plough
In a cutthroat environment, is it naive to approach one’s critics, or even one’s students, with virtues such as gentleness, patience, and humility?
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“Talking about the attacks and sharing their impact with young people is one step toward wrangling the humanity of the tragedy back from the political interests that controlled it for so long.” —James Mattise
Teaching September 11 | Plough
If we don’t talk about it, the recent past can feel more remote than a historical period where a consensus has been made, a picture fully rendered.
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“Whenever we open our hearts to God, we receive spiritual nourishment and grow more and more into the likeness of God until we reach spiritual maturity. And once we open our spiritual eyes and see God’s presence, we find indescribable and unending bliss.” —Sadhu Sundar Singh
The Hungry Birds | Plough
What we can learn from blind baby birds who never doubt the loving presence of their mother?
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Last month, poet Rhina P. Espaillat joined us as we announced the winning poems of the sixth annual Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award. Thank you to Jane Clark Scharl for your work as our Poetry Editor and judge of the award (more than 1100 poems submitted!) – and for hosting the award ceremony.
The Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award Ceremony 2026
YouTube video by Plough
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“The best of my friendships, time has taught me, are those in which creation, openness, play, are active forces, in which our friendship itself is a stage. They are friendships in which we do not simply recount to one another life happening, but in which life actually happens.” —Tara Isabella Burton
The Art of Friendship | Plough
Whether it’s reading plays or visiting museums, good friends seek out beauty together.
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Remembering a rooted man of faith, farmer, and author--here described in an older @plough.bsky.social www.plough.com/articles/wen...
Wendell Berry’s Long Obedience | Plough
A non-appetite for glitz and glamour has kept Wendell Berry in Henry County for a lifetime.
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We are grateful Wendell Berry shared some of his final poems with us. They were published in our last winter issue with illustrations by Stephen Crotts: www.plough.com/articles/six...
Deadline for the Plough Short Fiction Contest is MIDNIGHT tonight! 🕛
Short Fiction Contest
Plough is seeking short fiction that honors the mysterious nature of reality and finds transcendence and redemption in unexpected places.
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“Mothers are decidedly absent from *Wuthering Heights*. This is not unusual for classical Victorian literature, written in a time & place where maternal mortality was extremely high. *Wuthering Heights* illuminates how much this matters: without mothering of (almost) any kind, it is a horror story.”
The Motherless World of Wuthering Heights | Plough
Most of the characters in Wuthering Heights could have used a mother.
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True words from one who is now in the next world: "As one grows older some of the dead grow more alive, more essentially themselves. One loves them more." Poem by Wendell Berry www.plough.com/articles/six...
Six New Poems by Wendell Berry | Plough
The great American writer addresses the thinning partition between this life and eternity.
plough.com
“I have come to see that quiet lives on the land are just as important as any politician’s or celebrity’s life, yet they are usually unsung and unnoticed – often fading into the earth without any, except family, to remember them or write them down.” —Grace Olmstead
Wendell Berry’s Long Obedience | Plough
A non-appetite for glitz and glamour has kept Wendell Berry in Henry County for a lifetime.
plough.com
If you love coffee and you love reading, there's never been a better moment to join the Plough Membership.
Plough Quarterly@plough.bsky.social · 2w agoIn appreciation for their extra support of Plough’s mission, Members receive: ✓ Invitations to quarterly calls with Plough editors ✓ 4 new Plough books/year ✓ A monthly members newsletter ✓ 50% discount on all Plough books ✓ Access to Plough ebooks free ✓ Members-only gifts ✓ Print-digital access
Tomorrow is the last day you can submit to Plough’s inaugural annual short fiction contest!
Short Fiction Contest
Plough is seeking short fiction that honors the mysterious nature of reality and finds transcendence and redemption in unexpected places.
plough.com
“Viktor Pávenko is one of the last remaining pastors in the ‘kill zone,’ near the front lines of the war in Ukraine. In the kill zone, no one, soldier or civilian, is safe. Russian drones and missiles are a part of daily life – and often death – here in Kramatorsk.” —William Fleeson
Staying on the Front Lines | Plough
These Christians in Ukraine’s embattled eastern region could evacuate – but choose to continue serving their neighbors.
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“Bonhoeffer argues that we only truly know what love is through Christ. We come to know that such love is possible only through faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit: that it is volitional and purposeful; that it loves real neighbors; that it knows no limits.” —Mark Thiessen Nation
Bonhoeffer’s Lifelong Search for Christ | Plough
From boyhood to his last letters, Dietrich Bonhoeffer grappled with how to live a life for Christ.
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