The Common literary journal will receive its sixth grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2022. The Art Works grant of $10,000 will be awarded to The Common to help publish and promote place-based stories, essays, and poems by new and underrepresented writers from the US and abroad.
Join the Emily Dickinson Museum and The Common on September 23rd at 6PM EDT for the Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series, celebrating present-day literary craft that echoes Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary voice. This reading features Elizabeth Metzger, Chloe Martinez, Rodney A. Brown, and Moriel Rothman-Zecher, all of whose work has been published in The Common.
This event is part of the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, which brings together contemporary creativity of the Pioneer Valley and Dickinson’s legendary writing. This fully virtual festival, running September 20th – 26th, will feature panels, readings, and masterclasses. All of these events are free and open to the public, but registration is required to access the links. Please register here.
The ethos of the modern world is defined by immigrants. Their stories have always been an essential component of our cultural consciousness, from Isaac Bashevis Singer to Isabel Allende, from Milan Kundera to Yiyun Li. In novels, short stories, memoirs, and works of journalism, immigrants have shown us what resilience and dedication we’re capable of, and have expanded our sense of what it means to be global citizens. In these times of intense xenophobia, it is more important than ever that these boundary-crossing stories reach the broadest possible audience.
Now in its sixth 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, Francisco Cantú, Shuchi Saraswat, and Ilan Stavans, have selected the below four finalists. Click on the links in each section to read excerpts from their books.
In honor of women in translation month, we at The Common have compiled this feature, highlighting the translated pieces from our pages that were written or translated by women.
This event has passed. Watch the recording above!
Join The Common and Foglifter for a virtual panel conversation, moderated by Callum Angus, on Thursday, July 8 at 7:30pm EST/4:30pm PDT. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required to receive the Zoom link!
Amherst, MA, June 4, 2021 — The Common, the award-winning literary journal based at Amherst College, is a 2021 Literary Magazine Fund Grant Recipient, awarded in alliance with the Amazon Literary Partnership Literary Magazine Fund and 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 underrepresented authors who deepen our individual and collective sense of place.
With this $7,000 grant, The Common will publish, promote, and support a diverse group of writers in its print magazine and open-access website, connecting authors with a global readership. In the spring of 2022, The Common will continue its series of translated Arabic fiction with a collection of short stories from Palestinian authors, co-edited by acclaimed Jordanian author, and The Common’s Arabic Fiction Editor, Hisham Bustani. As part of The Common’s spring issue, this portfolio will feature contemporary Palestinian voices alongside poetry and prose from the US and abroad.
Recent issues of The Common have featured short stories from Morocco (Issue 21, spring 2021), literature from and about the Lusosphere (Portugal and its linguistic and colonial diaspora) in Issue 20, and fiction from Sudan in Issue 19. A collection of writing from the Arabian Gulf, co-edited with Egyptian author Noor Naga, is forthcoming this fall. All of the above portfolios have been developed with Amazon Literary Partnership support.
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Love Issue 21’s portfolio of stories and art from Morocco? Donate to support The Common’s mission to feature new and underrepresented voices from around the world, including their translators!
Interested in teaching Issue 21 in your class? Click here to explore your options and resources.
On March 25th at 7:00pm, in honor of ten years of publishing and cultivating new voices, please join The Common‘s special events team for an evening devoted to emerging talents! Celebrate with poets and prose writers Ama Codjoe, Sara Elkamel, LaToya Faulk, Ben Shattuck, Cleo Qian, and Ghassan Zeineddine. This event will take place virtually via Zoom.
This inaugural festival features readings and conversation, and aims to to raise scholarship funds for the magazine’s Young Writers Program. All contributions will be matched by the Whiting Foundation.
Register for the event, hosted by Tess Taylor, Katherine Vaz, and JinJin Xu, here!
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