Amherst, MA — The Common literary journal is pleased to announce its eighth award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Arts Projects grant approved for 2024 is The Common’s largest NEA award to date and will support the journal in publishing and promoting place-based writing, fostering international connections, and expanding the audiences of emerging writers.
In previous years, The Common has published numerous global portfolios, covering underrepresented voices from Kuwait, Palestine, the Lusosphere, and, most recently, U.S. farmworker communities. In spring 2024, supported by the NEA award and co-edited with the magazine’s Arabic Fiction Editor Hisham Bustani, Issue 27 will feature Arabic stories from three African countries rarely represented in the literary world: Chad, South Sudan, and Eritrea.
This will be the magazine’s seventh annual portfolio of Arabic fiction, this time highlighting writers from linguistically diverse countries and contexts who have chosen to use Arabic. The portfolio will appear simultaneously in Arabic in Akhbar ak-Adab, the Arab world’s leading literary weekly.
“The NEA’s generous grant will support our ongoing mission to provide American audiences with the best in contemporary Arabic short fiction,” says TC founder and editor in chief Jennifer Acker. “Through our portfolios, we make literature that can’t be found anywhere else accessible to a wide readership.”
Also forthcoming is a portfolio of Catalan women’s writing. Altogether, the grant will support The Common‘s efforts to provide linguistically marginalized writers a platform in the U.S. and abroad.
To further increase outreach and promotion, The Common maintains an open-access website with no pay wall; all print content, along with a variety of audio and web features, are available to readers at no cost. Educational programs like The Common in the Classroom and The Common Young Writers Program also bring the magazine’s unique content to younger readers and budding writers.
Since 1966, the NEA has supported arts projects in every state and territory in the nation. The Common‘s grant is among958 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $27.1 million that were announced as part of the NEA’s first round of fiscal year 2024 grants.
“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to The Common, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “We are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.”
For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, visit https://www.arts.gov/news.
