Promises to Keep.

"Alternative publishing" in the American counter-culture era of the 1970s attracted talented young writers, many of them from MFA programs or unofficial literary centers, who felt shut out of the existing publishing culture, and who were then moved to the quixotic effort to start literary magazines or small presses and to learn the difference between printing and publishing on a trial and error basis. Ploughshares emerged from this background to become one of the durable and most influential magazines in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]