The Summer 2015 issue of Ploughshares , guest-edited by Lauren Groff. Ploughshares , a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different and personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles. Acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Lauren Groff ( The Monsters of Templeton, Delicate Edible Birds ) guest-edits this all-fiction issue. As Groff writes in her introduction, “I am searching for work that is written with blood or bile or choler, not necessarily sweat alone.” Featuring narratives that range from a woman falling in love with a dead man (“In the Flesh, We Shone” by Alex Shakar) to the effect a traveling circus has on an entire town (“The Miracle Years of Little Fork” by Rebecca Makkai), these stories explore humanity through the bizarre and unexpected. This issue includes new work from Lydia Davis, Daniel Peña, Helen Oyeyemi, Fiona Maazel, and more. The Summer 2015 issue also features Thomas Pruiksma’s Plan B essay about his first love of magic, a look at the prolific author Peter De Vries, and an interview with Nick Arvin, the Alice Hoffman Prize Winner.