The Summer 2016 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year's three issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles, with the Winter issue staff-edited. This 45th anniversary issue, guest edited by novelist Claire Messud and literary critic James Wood, includes new work from Viet Thanh Nguyen (winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize), Lydia Davis, Carys Davies, and more. In their introduction, Messud and Wood write: ¿No matter its form, we sought to include fiction that is vivid, vital and urgent." Ranging from realism to allegory to experimental, the work in this issue highlights the amazing breadth of capabilities of the short story. This issue is dedicated to Daniel Aaron (1912-2016), a longtime friend, consultant, and former Ploughshares Trustee, who presided over our formal affiliation with Emerson College in 1989.