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Podcast: Elisabeth Jaquette on Translating Sudanese Fiction

January 15, 2021 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Translator Elisabeth Jaquette speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about four stories she translated from Arabic for Issue 19 of The Common magazine. These stories appear in a special portfolio of fiction from established and emerging Sudanese writers. In this conversation, Jaquette talks about the delights and difficulties of translating from Arabic, as well as her thoughts on form, style, and satire in literature from the Arab world. She also discusses translating Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, which is currently a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Podcast: Omer Friedlander on “Operation Tamar”

January 1, 2021 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Writer Omer Friedlander speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Operation Tamar,” which appears in Issue 19 of The Common magazine. “Operation Tamar” is set in Israel, where Friedlander grew up. In this conversation, Friedlander talks about the setting and inspiration for this story and others, and the editing and revision that went into “Operation Tamar” before publication. He also discusses his current projects, a novel and a short story collection recently sold to Random House for publication.

Podcast: Tara Skurtu on “Offering”

December 18, 2020 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Tara Skurtu is an American poet and writer, writing coach, and public speaker. She speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about “Offering,” her poem from Issue 19 of The Common magazine. “Offering,” and many more of Skurtu’s poems, are set in Bucharest, Romania, where the poet has lived for several years. Skurtu discusses the inspiration and process behind the poem, her thoughts on teaching creative writing, and her time studying with poet Louise Glück. This conversation also includes the story behind the International Poetry Circle, an online poetry-reading initiative Skurtu started on Twitter in the early days of the pandemic.

Podcast: David Moloney on “Counsel”

December 8, 2020 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Writer David Moloney speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Counsel,” which appears in Issue 19 of The Common. “Counsel” is an excerpt from Moloney’s novel-in-stories, Barker House, set in a correctional facility in New Hampshire. The book follows nine correctional officers over the course of one year on the job. Moloney discusses his own experiences as a correctional officer in a New Hampshire facility, and the work of turning those complex experiences into stories for the novel. Barker House was published by Bloomsbury in April 2020, so this conversation also includes discussion of what it’s like to publish during a pandemic.

Kikawa

October 28, 2020 Issue 20, Issue 20 Poetry, Lusosphere, Poetry, Poetry Recordings

By LANDA WO

The Common Magazine · Kikawa (Landa wo)

“Grief is never more than a house being rebuilt.”
Ntolle Mbuyi¹

Little Cabindan history
All the Cabindan strategies were there
To mount the portrait of a free Cabinda.

The historic chief discoursed on education
The Cabindan earth sketched a faint smile.

Goddamn

July 15, 2020 Dispatches, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry, Poetry Recordings

By MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER

Music by ABRAHAM KATZ

The Common Magazine · Goddamn

Northern Israel-Palestine

The chunk of the ball
On the cracked blacktop
And our torsos so covered
In sweat nearby the sea
Swells and the smell seeps
Into our hair and the air

A List of His Flaws

May 8, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry, Poetry Recordings

By PETER MISHLER

Single-headed.

Flowering inwardly.

Barely felt in the birth canal.

Medical marketer.

Sick with planet.

Offering

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry, Poetry Recordings

By TARA SKURTU

It was the first time I’d lived
with a man, and I wanted him

to translate the name of our street.
He was holding my cold fist

in his own, and we were on
Ofrandei, in the middle of unpaved

Bragadiru, Romania, on our way
home. It’s something you give

to get something—like a sacrifice.
Like what you do for a god.

Antipode

April 17, 2019 Fiction, Issue 17, Issue 17 Fiction, Podcasts & Audio

By RIVER ADAMS

“Miss Val! Miss Val!” A swarm of five-year-olds buzzes around me in the kindergarten playroom. Marni is standing in the middle, feet planted, lower lip sucked in, staring down her blood-coated finger from under her scrunched-up eyebrows as though the finger should have known better. This is leftover hubbub from bigger and scarier trouble in the courtyard, which involved a stuffed monkey, the edge of the sandbox, and a superficial but profusely bleeding head wound, but the ambulance has already left, whisking away the lollipop-loaded victim, and the droplets of blood are being cleaned up outside the courtyard doors.

Malibu Beach

April 15, 2019 Issue 17, Issue 17 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry

By JENNIFER JEAN

—for my brother Joey

What if there were no light, he wondered. Just sound & scent owning the night, without the invasive

Surf Shop green neon, or PCH streetlamps glowering at everyone.
Their glint was wrong, false, while the waves sounded
like aloe on a burn, a quick fix.
Some blue & some red lights also flooded the water—flashed

All posts tagged: Audio

Podcast: Elisabeth Jaquette on Translating Sudanese Fiction

Podcast: Omer Friedlander on “Operation Tamar”

Podcast: Tara Skurtu on “Offering”

Podcast: David Moloney on “Counsel”

Kikawa

Goddamn

A List of His Flaws

Offering

Antipode

Malibu Beach

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