— ''Ploughshares'' is published three times a year: mixed issues of poetry and fiction in the Spring and Winter and a fiction issue in the Fall, with each guest-edited by a different writer of prominence, usually one whose early work was published in the journal.
Guest editors are invited to solicit up to half of their issues, with the other half selected from unsolicited manuscripts screened for them by staff editors. This guest-editor policy is designed to introduce readers to different literary circles and tastes, and to offer a fuller representation of the range and diversity of contemporary letters than would be possible with a single editorship.
Yet, at the same time, we expect every issue to reflect our overall standards of literary excellence. We liken ''Ploughshares'' to a theater company: each issue might have a different guest editor and different writers--just as a play will have a different director, playwright, and cast--but subscribers can count on a governing aesthetic, a consistency in literary values and quality, that is uniquely our own.〔http://www.pshares.org/submissions/page.cfm?intContentID=29〕