Isabel Meyers

imeyers20

Read the “Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing” Finalists

September 29, 2020 Fiction, News and Events

Now in its fifth year, the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing supports the voices of immigrant writers whose works straddle cultural divides, embrace the multicultural makeup of our society, and interrogate questions of identity in a global society. This prize awards $10,000 and publication with Restless Books to a writer who has produced a work that addresses the effects of global migration on identity. This year’s judges, Dinaw Mengestu, Achy Obejas, and Ilan Stavans, have selected the below five finalists. Click on the links in each section to read excerpts from their books.

The Common Receives $10,000 Grant from The Literary Arts Emergency Fund

September 17, 2020 News and Events

Amherst, MA, September 17, 2020 — The Common, the award-winning literary journal based at Amherst College, is a recipient of a grant from The Literary Arts Emergency Fund, which provides aid to nonprofit literary arts organizations, magazines, and presses that have experienced severe financial losses due to COVID-19. The fund, launched and administered by the Academy of American Poets, the Community of Literary Magazine & Presses (CLMP), and the National Book Foundation, will be distributing more than $3.5 million to literary organizations and publications across the country.

Leaders of the three national literary organizations—Jennifer Benka, Mary Gannon, and Lisa Lucas—united to raise funds and establish the Literary Arts Emergency Fund in response to the lack of institutional support for the nonprofit organizations and publishers that sustain literary culture in the U.S. by presenting poets and writers at events and by publishing and distributing thousands of poems, stories, and essays in books, magazines, and through open online archives.

Balconies, Anachronisms, Lamentations

September 9, 2020 Dispatches

By NATALIE BAKOPOULOS

Athens, Greece

1.

Here in Ann Arbor, unable to travel, I am missing the Greek balcony, a private and public space: it’s neither in nor out but something in between. Poet Alicia E. Stallings, who lives in Athens, notes on Twitter: “Very Athenian neighbor quarrel tonight: we fired up the grill in the yard to pretend like it was a Friday, but it turns out lady upstairs had just done her laundry. Words were had.” (It was indeed Friday, but what is Friday anymore, anyway?) When I write her about this, laughing, she adds that the woman also menacingly suggests she might water her plants while Alicia’s husband works on his laptop below.

In the early weeks of quarantine, from balconies in Athens, friends filmed videos of their neighbors clapping for health care workers. On Easter, when Athens is often eerily quiet, as many Athenians return to their home villages, say, or travel to an island, the quarantined city’s balconies shone bright with candles.

Friday Reads: September 2020

September 4, 2020 Reviews

Curated by ISABEL MEYERS

In this month’s Friday Reads, we’re hearing from our volunteer readers, who consider submissions for print and online publication. Their book recommendations range from poetry collections to recent novel debuts and Flannery O’Connor short stories revisited through the lens of anti-racism. Read on for new quarantine entertainment and keep an eye out for a second round of recommendations from our volunteer readers, out later this fall.

Recommendations: Thin Girls by Diana Clarke; Shiner by Maggie Nelson; Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor; Cherry by Nico Walker, Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano.

Writers on Writing: Blessing Ofia-Inyinya Nwodo

August 31, 2020 Interviews

This interview is the first in a new series, Writers on Writing, which focuses on craft and process. The series is part of The Common‘s 10^th anniversary celebration.

Read Nwodo’s dispatch, “The Capital of God’s Own State.”

Blessing Ofia-Inyinya Nwodo studied Adult Education/ English language at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where she earned the “Best Female Writer” award. Her short story “Vaginismus” was featured in Erotic Africa: The Sex Anthology by Brittle Paper and she was awarded the Highly Rated prize in the Nigerian Travel Story competition organized by Travel Next Door in 2016.

Amplifying Black Voices on TC Online III

August 20, 2020 News and Events

This is the third installment of an online series highlighting work by Black authors published in The Common. To read The Common’s statement in support of the nationwide protests against anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and police brutality, click here.

Friday Reads: August 2020

August 7, 2020 Reviews

Curated by ISABEL MEYERS

Welcome back to Friday Reads! After a brief hiatus, we are returning with books that have educated and entertained our former TC interns during quarantine. To find out what our former editorial assistants have been doing to pass the long days inside, read on.

Recommendations: The Tree and the Vine by Dola de Jong; Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid; Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

Amplifying Black Voices on TC Online II

August 5, 2020 News and Events

This is the second installment of an online series highlighting work by Black authors published in The Common. To read The Common’s statement in support of the nationwide protests against anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and police brutality, click here.

Amplifying Black Voices on TC Online

July 20, 2020 News and Events

This is the first installment of an online series highlighting work by Black authors published in The Common. To read The Common’s statement in support of the nationwide protests against anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and police brutality, click here.

Speed of Flight

April 27, 2020 Fiction, Issue 19, Issue 19 Fiction

By CATHERINE BUNI

The four of them lay on the rug in a circle. They could not be still. They could not shut the hell up. They played blackjack, betting for fistfuls of jerky their dad kept stashed on a kitchen shelf. Only rarely did the girl beat the boys, though she was next to oldest. There were three of them to her one, an equation of quantity and logic, she’d always understood, but also of weight and matter. Ace and face, she threw down her cards, three lucky wins in a row. She whooped and lifted up from the floor, prepared to wrestle an accord, star-flung limbs and static-flared hair bound in constellation. Instead, this late afternoon, the oldest brother detonated the cards in a rush of edges. Red and black diamonds, spades, hearts, and clubs.

‹
3
4
5
6
7
›