Olive Amdur

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The Common Magazine Announces Fourth Literary Editorial Fellow

August 4, 2023 News and Events

(Amherst, Mass. August 4, 2023)— The Common, the award-winning, international literary journal based at Amherst College, has announced its fourth Literary Editorial Fellow: Olive Amdur ’23. The fellowship launched in 2020 with support from the Whiting Foundation and is sustained by the generosity of Amherst College alumni donors.

The Literary Editorial Fellowship (LEF) was introduced with three goals in mind: to strengthen the bridge between The Common’s existing Literary Publishing Internship (LPI) for undergraduates and the professional publishing world; to provide real-world experience for an Amherst graduate, transferable to a wide range of fields; and to increase the capacity of The Common’s publishing and programming operations.

The full-time, postgraduate fellow writes, edits, and proofreads prose and poetry; creates multimedia web features; writes and designs publicity materials; manages print and digital production; and develops, organizes and staffs innovative events on campus and across the country. The fellow also helps to mentor and train current interns.

Translation: Excerpt from TAXI

July 25, 2023 Fiction, Translation

By SERGIO ALTESOR LICANDRO
Translated from the Spanish by MARY HAWLEY

Translator’s note: Sergio Altesor Licandro’s 2016 novel TAXI (Estuary Editora, 2016) holds particular resonance this year, the fiftieth anniversary of the brutal military dictatorship in Uruguay, which held power from 1973 to 1985. The novel is structured as a series of journal entries recorded by the protagonist, Pedro Fontana, who in his youth—like the author—spent years in military prisons in Uruguay, as punishment for his opposition to the military dictatorship, before being exiled to Sweden. In Sweden, Fontana trained to become an artist, lived there for some years, and eventually left to search elsewhere for his destiny. Now, many years later, he has returned to Sweden for a conceptual art project, which is to drive a taxi in Stockholm and record his interactions with the passengers, as a way of analyzing life in Sweden at a time when the democratic-socialist ideals of the past have given way to a grim neoliberalism. In this excerpt, however, Pedro Fontana must instead analyze his own past.

The Common Awarded 2023 Amazon Literary Partnership Grant

July 20, 2023 News, News and Events

We are pleased to announce that The Common is among the 93 literary nonprofit organizations awarded a 2023 Literary Magazine Fund Grant by the Amazon Literary Partnership Literary Magazine Fund, in conjunction with the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses. Since 2017, funding from the Amazon Literary Partnership has helped further The Common’s mission of publishing and promoting emerging and diverse authors who deepen our individual and collective sense of place. In 2023, the Amazon Literary Partnership awarded nearly $1M in funds.

Friday Reads: July 2023

July 7, 2023 Reviews

Curated by SOFIA BELIMOVA and OLIVE AMDUR

The fireworks have finally quieted down, but July has just begun to heat up! Whether you are looking for a book to help you forget the hot weather or a book filled with just as many vivid sensations as the summer season is, keep on reading. In this month’s Friday Reads feature, three of our interns recommend dynamic stories about the nightclubs of the Midwest, a boarding school in coastal Rhode Island, and the tangled relationships of a young person’s body and spirits.

Podcast: Robin Lee Carlson on “Reading the Ashes”

May 26, 2023 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Transcript: Robin Lee Carlson Podcast

Robin Lee Carlson speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Reading the Ashes,” which appears in The Common’s fall 2022 issue. Robin talks about the many-year process of observation, illustration, and writing that went into the essay, which explores the cycle of fire and rebirth in Cold Canyon. She also discusses how her work balances the poetic and artistic with the scientific, how sketching and watercolors help her understand the natural world, and how she hopes her book will encourage readers to observe and question ecological change in their local areas.

Still Life 3: The Suburbs

May 17, 2023 Dispatches

By KELLY McMASTERS

Long Island, NY

Interior of a silver Volvo wagon, back door pockets stuffed with Candy Ring wrappers, pencils, and rocks; I am looking in the rear-view mirror or over my right shoulder into the backseat, my left hand on the wheel, right hand on the seat back next to me. Two small boys, both with eyes the exact color as my own, stare back at me, pleading or explaining or demanding or questioning or laughing or crying or sulking or fighting or trying to hide. The car smells vaguely Cheerio-like. No matter the music, the soundtrack is chatter and the rhythmic kicking of a seat back. They also like punching each other’s seat warmer buttons with their feet to be annoying.

The Library

May 8, 2023 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 25, Issue 25 Fiction, Issues, Kuwait, Translation

By NASSER AL-DHAFIRI
Translated from the Arabic by NASHWA NASRELDIN

When my friends and I left the homeland, my second departure from Kuwait, there were five of us and ten suitcases. I knew exactly what was in each bag, just as I knew the pain and angst of the five travelers heading toward the unknown. The suitcases were packed with clothes, kitchenware, Indian spices, and various items we didn’t think we’d be able to find abroad. I could only bring four books with me from my vast library back home: Al-Mutannabi, in two parts; the collected works of Mahmoud Darwish; and just one of the volumes of The Unique Necklace. These would constitute the entire library I would survive on, for however long I ended up living in estrangement. Once we’d settled into our accommodation in a small house on Norris Drive in Ottawa, I arranged the books on the sleek wooden flooring, the place being still unfurnished. Then I sat back and simply gazed at them.

Aphorism 57: You Cannot Fail at Being You

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Issues, Poetry

By JOHN BLAIR

We cherish ourselves even to the bones
which like some mother’s rigid hangers
hold us to our lacquered shapes in the smug
dialetheia of am and briefly was until
we come to our raveled ends everyone
just taking up space until space takes us back
one washed-out moment at a time like tea
leaves steeping in a cup until we’re ready
for someone to bow in close and take
a quick ceremonial sip then turn the cup
wipe clean the rim and hand it carefully
to yet another honored guest who mindful
of what we might let go to waste will not
leave until every drop is drunk.

Jack Benny

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Issues, Poetry

By MITCH SISSKIND

John Ashbery called me after he died
So you can imagine my excitement
When in his droll hyper-nasalated
Timbre quite undiminished by death
He chatted on about the bowls of
Pitted cherries provided as snack-food
In the upper worlds and of afternoons
Climbing trees with Edna Millay to read
Comic books with her in the branches.
Then his voice dropped two octaves
And he spoke solemnly of Jack Benny:
‘You can say funny things or say things
Funny but silence was the punchline
For Jack Benny.’ And he was gone.