news and events | The Common

All posts tagged: news and events

Join us for the 2024 Festival of Debut Authors!

February 23, 2024 News and Events

Join The Common‘s team on March 27th at 7pm EDT for our 2024 Festival of Debut Authors, an evening devoted to emerging talents! This free virtual celebration will highlight poets and prose writers Felice Belle, Jordan Escobar, Irina Hrinoschi, amika elfendi, Nina Perrotta, and Shanna Tan.

The Festival of Debut Authors is an annual Zoom celebration of emerging authors who’ve published in The Common. Previous awardees Jennifer Shyue and Farah Ali will host the evening of featured readings by some of The Common’s most dynamic emerging writers. Come to discover fresh voices and support the magazine’s mission to publish and pay emerging writers.

This year, we’ll be doing some fun prize draws too! At the event, we will draw 3 names from the audience for an open mic. If you opt in, and your name is drawn, you can join our authors and read from any work, published or unpublished, for up to 3 minutes. We will also draw 2 lucky winners to receive a hardback copy of Shanna Tan’s new translation, Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing!

REGISTER HERE

The Most-Read Pieces of 2023

January 30, 2024 News and Events

As our new year of publishing and programming picks up speed, we at The Common wanted to reflect on the pieces that made last year such a great one! We published over 200 pieces online and in print in 2023. Below, you can browse a list of the six most-read pieces of 2023 to see which stories, essays, and poems left an impact on readers.

Two Poems from The Spring of Plagues by Ana Carolina Assis, translated by Heath Wing

“i wish I could / prevent your death / and bury your body alive / in the puny damp / earth
we tended / so that it kept on living / mandioca corn banana / would not sprout forth /
but instead / acerola cherry blackberry pitanga hog plum.”

Read more.

January 2023 Poetry Feature, with work by Tina Cane, Myronn Hardy, and Marc Vincenz

“Sheila had IHOP     delivered to her apartment     in El Alto, NY / on January 6th
so she could kick back     self-proclaimed terrorist / that she is     and eat pancakes
     while watching white supremacists / storm the Capital.”

Read more.

The Story of A Box by Jeffrey Harrison

“Duchamp gave my grandparents the Boîte-en-valise in the early 1960s. It was one of many handmade boxes Duchamp created containing miniature versions of his paintings and other works. This item… might have been the most intriguing to my siblings and me.”

Read more.

Dispatch from Moscow, Idaho by Afton Montgomery

“The neighbor children are in the Evangelical cult that Vice and The Guardian wrote about last year. They’re not allowed to speak to us, which is a thing no one has ever said aloud but is true, nonetheless. This town is full of true things that no one says aloud.”

Read more.

Five Poems by Serbian Poet Milena Marković, translated by Steven and Maja Teref

“the girl isn’t wearing warm socks / some men catcall her at the bus station / she pretends not to hear them / the barking dog chases the escaping sun / there used to be a landfill / behind the supermarket / black birds used to have lunch / and even dinner there.”

Read more.

Farmworker Poetry Feature, with work by Rodney Gomez

“If I sang I was sinful, I was animal. Stole sips from circumscribed fountains.
I said murciélago, my knuckles drew a ruler. I said San Judas, my arm was viced.
Survived by christening the bruise a train track.”

Read more.

Thanks for a great year! We are excited to continue sharing work by writers all over the world with you in 2024. Keep up with the art, prose, and poetry we publish each week by subscribing to our newsletter!

Call for Submissions: A Special Folio on China after 2008

January 10, 2024 News and Events

The Common, in collaboration with guest editor Cleo Qian, will publish a special online folio of work about youth and contemporary culture from writers with a strong tie to Mainland China. Submissions will open on February 1st.

For the rest of the world, China’s 2008 Summer Olympics—with its $40 billion budget, dramatic “Bird’s Nest” stadium, and the lavish spectacle of its opening ceremony—marked the ascension of a new economic superpower onto the modern stage. Since then, new generations of Chinese youth have come of age into a society constantly rippling with changes, inundated with globalization, technology, and consumerism. The West continues to view China with curiosity, suspicion, and a sense of enigma as the country rapidly industrialized and urbanized, and its economic and political influence continues to shift. Yet Chinese literature translated into English is still predominantly written by older authors from the period of WW2, Maoism, and the Cultural Revolution, while neglecting the up-and-coming generation of Chinese artists, now dealing with wholly different lifestyles and sets of concerns.

Issue 26 in the news

December 20, 2023 Farmworker, News and Events

Since its publication this November, The Common’s Issue 26 portfolio of writing and art from the seasonal, migrant, and immigrant farmworker community has received attention from a variety of news outlets and organizations across the United States. Visit the links below to hear conversations with farmworker portfolio co-editors and contributors, read more about the development of the portfolio, and keep up with ongoing programming involving our fall issue.

Screenshot of NEPM Article about farmworker portfolio

Screenshot of LitHub coverage of TC's farmworker portfolio

Screenshot of Texas Public Radio's article about the farmworker portfolio

Screenshot of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum Website with Narsiso Martinez exhibit description

Weekly Writes Volume 8: Accountable You

November 24, 2023 News and Events

Weekly Writes Vol. 8 is now closed for signups. To register your interest in the next round of Weekly Writes this summer, fill out this form.

Weekly Writes is a ten-week program designed to help you create original place-based writing and stay accountable to your practice in the new year, beginning January 29.

We’re offering both poetry AND prose, in two separate programs. What do you want to prioritize in 2024? Pick the program, sharpen your pencils, and get ready for a weekly dose of writing inspiration (and accountability) in your inbox!

The 2023 Author Postcard Auction is Open!

November 13, 2023 News and Events

The holidays are almost here, but before then, it’s time to bid in The Common’s tenth annual author postcard auction for a chance to receive a handwritten, personalized postcard from your favorite writers (plus, actors and musicians!). The postcards make great gifts for the literature-lovers in your life. Online bidding is open now, and closes at noon on December 4th.

Postcard with a picture of Amherst MA on it and the words THE COMMON

The 2023 Postcard Auction features recipients of the Pulitzer Prize, the Man Booker Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Guggenheim Fellowships, as well as multiple New York Times bestsellers. Returning authors include literary powerhouses David Sedaris, Jonathan Franzen, Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, and Viet Thanh Nguyen. Newcomers to the auction include acclaimed novelists, essayists, and poets Tracy K. Smith, Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, and Chang-rae Lee.

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!

Visit this page to learn more and explore the full list of participating authors.

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, and will support The Common’s mission to deepen society’s sense of place, nurture the careers of new and international writers, and mentor future voices within the publishing world.

If you’re interested in supporting The Common but don’t want to bid, click here to donate.

The Common Magazine Announces Inaugural David Applefield ’78 Fellow

November 2, 2023 News and Events

(Amherst, Mass. November 2, 2023)—The award-winning, international literary journal The Common announced today that Sam Spratford ’24 will be the inaugural recipient of the David Applefield ’78 Fellowship. The fellowship, the magazine’s first endowed student internship, was established in 2022 by a group of friends and family organized by David Whitman ’78, in honor of his late classmate and roommate, who was a literary polymath, international activist, media entrepreneur, and the founder of Frank, an eclectic English-language literary magazine based in Paris.

The Common On Campus: November 9th and 10th

October 27, 2023 News and Events

This fall, in its 26th issue, Amherst College’s award-winning literary magazine The Common will publish a special portfolio of writing and art from the farmworker and farm laborer community: the migrant, seasonal, and often immigrant laborers who make up much of the US agricultural workforce.

Co-edited by Miguel M. Morales, the portfolio includes work by twenty-seven contributors with roots in this community, most of whom started work in the fields as children. It reflects their diverse experiences—long hours and low pay, protests and picket lines, the fierce resilience of their families, the warmth of their communities, and the satisfaction of doing hard work will, among loved ones.

The Common is a print and online literary journal with a mission to deepen our individual and collective sense of place: to reach from there to here. Since its debut in 2011, The Common has published nearly 1900 emerging and established authors from 53 countries, developed unique workshops and educational programs, and built a local and global community of writers and readers of all ages, all from our office in Frost Library.

On November 9th and 10th, as a part of this mission, we will host two events on the Amherst College campus celebrating our Issue 26 farmworker portfolio and exploring the relationship between its questions of land, migration, and belonging and our home here in Western Massachusetts. Contributors Nora Rodriguez Camagna and Julián David Bañuelos, as well as portfolio co-editor Miguel M. Morales, will be guests at both events.

The Common Adds Attorney Meredith Dodd plus Business Leader Emilie Eliason ’99 to Board of Directors

September 15, 2023 News, News and Events

(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 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.