The Common is pleased to announce the receipt of its sixth award from the Amazon Literary Partnership’s Literary Magazine Fund.
“We are honored to receive the Amazon Literary Partnership’s continued support,” said Jennifer Acker, The Common editor in chief. “This grant enables us to show how much we value our authors—by paying them a competitive rate and engaging them through and beyond the publication process.”
The Common plans to use this $5,000 grant to continue highlighting the voices of vibrant literary communities underrepresented in the publishing world. Past funding from the Amazon Literary Partnership most recently supported a portfolio of farmworker writing (Issue 26), co-edited with Lambda Literary Fellow Miguel M. Morales. This new grant will provide direct payments to a diverse group of writers and help them find a global readership via The Common’s integrated print and online publishing platforms.
The Common Announces 2024 Amazon Literary Partnership Grant
Weekly Writes signups have now closed. To be the first to hear about our next round of Weekly Writes (January 2025), register your interest with this form.
Need some motivation? We’ve got you covered! Weekly Writes is a ten-week program designed to help you create your own place-based writing, beginning July 29.
We’re offering both poetry AND prose, in two separate programs. Whether you’re the next Dickinson or Dostoevsky, pick your program, sharpen your pencils, and get ready for a weekly dose of writing inspiration (and accountability) in your inbox!
This event has passed, but you can watch a recording of it below, or here on YouTube!
The Common Spring Launch Party
Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 7pm
Friendly Reading Room, Frost Library
Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Free and open to the public, wine and snacks will be provided.
Join us for the launch of Issue 27 of The Common! We welcome essayist and AGNI editor Sven Birkerts, poet January Gill O’Neil, and fiction writer Jade Song. Issues will be available for purchase. We’ll have brief readings, a short Q&A, and lots of time to mingle!
Left to Right: Sven Birkerts, January Gill O’Neil, Jade Song
Sven Birkerts is the author of a number of books of essay and memoir. His The Miro Worm and the Mysteries of Writing will be published in October. Former Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, he co-edits the journal AGNI. He lives in Amherst with his wife.
January Gill O’Neil is the author of Glitter Road (CavanKerry Press, 2024), Rewilding (CavanKerry Press, 2018), recognized by Mass Center for the Book as a notable poetry collection for 2018; Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014), winner of a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O’Neil was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019-2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She is an associate professor of English at Salem State University and is board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (2022-2024). O’Neil lives in Beverly, Massachusetts.
Jade Song is a writer, art director, and artist in New York City. Her debut novel Chlorine was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins (US) and Footnote Press (UK) in 2023 and will be translated into Chinese and French. Chlorine was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, lauded as “visionary and disturbing,” and listed as a must read book by Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, and other outlets. Say hi @jadessong and jadessong.com.
This event has passed, but you can watch a recording below! (Closed captions are included; download a transcript here.)
The Common Fall Launch Party
Thursday, November 9, 2023, 6pm
Friendly Reading Room, Frost Library
Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Free and open to the public, wine and food from La Veracruzana provided.
Join us to celebrate the launch of Issue 26, with three contributors to our portfolio of writing from the farmworker community!
We welcome portfolio co-editor Miguel M. Morales, poet Julián David Bañuelos, and prose writer Nora Rodriguez Camagna for brief readings and conversation about place, immigration, writing, farmwork, and family. All three of our guests grew up doing seasonal farmwork with their families. The event will be hosted by the magazine’s managing editor Emily Everett.
(Amherst, MA—September 15, 2023)—The Common, Amherst College’s award-winning, international literary magazine, announces the addition of two new members to its Board of Directors: Meredith Dodd and Emilie Eliason ’99.
The Common Adds Attorney Meredith Dodd plus Business Leader Emilie Eliason ’99 to Board of Directors
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.
The Common Awarded 2023 Amazon Literary Partnership Grant
→ Signups for Weekly Writes Summer 2023 are now closed. To register your interest in hearing about our next WW program in January, please fill out this form.
Weekly Writes is a ten-week program designed to help you create original place-based writing, beginning July 24.
We’re offering both poetry AND prose, in two separate programs. What do you want to prioritize this summer? Pick the program, sharpen your pencils, and get ready for a weekly dose of writing inspiration (and accountability) in your inbox!
It’s that time of year again: bid for a personalized, handwritten postcard from your favorite author in The Common’s ninth annual author postcard auction! The personalization of the postcards makes them fantastic gifts, just in time for the holidays. Online bidding is open now, and closes at noon on November 30th.
Join in on the fun this year for a chance to receive a postcard from New York Times-bestsellers, National Book Award-winners, Man Booker Prize finalists, and Pulitzer Prize-winners and finalists. In the past few years, authors have famously gone all out with their postcards: expect to receive anything from long letters to drawings and doodles to haikus. This year, we also have singer-songwriters, cartoonists, and more!
Participating authors include literary powerhouses and popular favorites such as Fran Lebowitz, David Sedaris,Alison Bechdel, Neil Gaiman, Donna Tartt, Andrew Sean Greer, Anthony Doerr, and George Saunders. We also have songwriters Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Craig Finn (The Hold Steady), Natalie Merchant, and Amanda Shires (The Highwomen). We’ve even got New Yorker cartoonist Chris Ware!
Winning bids are tax-deductible donations. All proceeds go to The Common Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to publishing and promoting art and literature from global, diverse voices.
If you’re interested in supporting The Common but don’t want to bid, click here to donate.
The deadline for this call has been extended to February 17.
The Common, in collaboration with guest co-editor Miguel M. Morales, will publish a portfolio of writing from the farmworker and farm laborer community: the migrant, seasonal, and often immigrant laborers who make up much of the US agricultural workforce. Submissions are now open.
![Issue 26 Launch Party in Amherst [VIDEO]](https://www.thecommononline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/INDD-comp.jpg)
