Monday, November 29, 2010 - 14:07
Bullet trains are on their way. Earlier this week, the application process began for 13 billion dollars worth of federal money – chiseled out of the nearly $800 billion President Obama allocated for the federal stimulus package – including $8 billion for this year and another billion each year until fall 2016. Florida and California are expected to receive much of the money...
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - 18:19
In what we hope was the first of many on-campus literary evenings, The Common joined Circus, Amherst’s student-run literary magazine, for special Family Weekend readings in the Mead Art Museum. Visiting Writer Amity Gaige, acclaimed author of The Folded World and O My Darling, read from a recently published short story. Amherst creative writing...
Monday, November 15, 2010 - 21:10
“Paradise is an island. So is hell.” So opens Judith Schalansky’s new book, Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will, which chronicles the history and geography of fifty miniature continents dotted around the globe. Each page-spread offers a portrait of an island: a historical vignette paired with a hand-drawn, true-...
Monday, November 15, 2010 - 17:28
In 2009, Miranda Hill founded Project Bookmark Canada, an organization that aims to fuse the real with the imagined. The team is installing plaques (called “bookmarks”) that display texts from literary scenes on the exact geographic sites where those scenes took place. Hill believes that these bookmarks will enhance the experience...
Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 11:28
The Common is now accepting Dispatches online through Tellitslant. Dispatches are short (250 words or less) evocations of particular places from around the world. The pieces need not involve characters nor a clear narrative, though we do not discourage contributors from including said elements. The Common is about...
Friday, October 15, 2010 - 09:15
This Saturday (October 16th) The Common makes its way to the Boston Book Festival. The event features readings, workshops, book signings, great food and more. We will be sharing a table with our friends at Small Beer Press. Swing by to say hello, check out our prototype Issue 00, learn about...
Thursday, October 14, 2010 - 23:53
In a city as big as New York, there are bound to be some cracks: interstices where no accounting is made. The roof of a downtown apartment building accessed solely by prowling teenagers; the dusty falafel joint in Bushwick no one but you seems to visit; a disused MTA stop with a twenty-five-year film of graffiti.
Or the fortieth floor of the Empire State Building, where lawyer Daniel...
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - 13:27
In New York City some children go to school and, instead of opening history books to page 123, defend the earth against evil aliens. These children are participating in an educational experiment (a school currently composed of just grade 6) called Quest to Learn. Imagined by professional game designer Katie Selen, and recently spotlighted in...
Friday, September 17, 2010 - 13:41
Make way for the metropolis. As Parag Khanna writes in Foreign Policy,"The age of nations is over. The new urban age has begun.” Technology, population growth, and globalization are reshaping the world into a network of cities that have more in common with each other than with their respective states...
Monday, September 13, 2010 - 23:54
The Common is open for submissions! We're currently seeking stories, poems, and essays for Issue 01 (Spring 2011). We accept translations for which translators hold the appropriate rights.
The submissions period runs from September 15–December 1. Check out the full guidelines here.
Issue 00 Now Available
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