Closeup of empty double bed

Little Women

MEGAN TENNANT
Before we peel off to bed, Ruth suggests we close with a prayer. We all bow our heads, the buzz of the fluorescent light and grasshoppers growing louder in the silence. I hear the tones of my dad—earnest, grateful—and I feel my head become heavy, my closed eyes twitching.

Close-up images of cardboard boxes.

More to the Story

MICHAEL DAVID LUKAS
My Grandma Betty’s garage, like the rest of her house, was always neat and well-labeled. The tools hung in their places. The floor was swept clean. Along the walls, DIY wood shelving was stacked high with boxes labeled according to their contents. Herb Toys. Xmas Decorations.

October 2024 Poetry Feature: New Poems By Our Contributors

NATHANIEL PERRY
Words can contain their opposite, / pleasure at once a freedom and a ploy— / a garden something bound and original / where anything, but certain things, should thrive; / the difference between loving-kindness and loving / like the vowel shift from olive to alive.

Bruna Dantas Lobato

A New Kind of Campus Novel: Bruna Dantas Lobato on Her Debut Novel

BRUNA DANTAS LOBATO
But primarily, I wanted to write a contemporary long-distance relationship immigrant novel. I’ve always felt like a lot of immigrant novels didn’t capture my experience; those novels are about leaving something behind and going toward this other future. But I was trying to live two lives at once.

Dispatches from Ellesmere

BRANDON KILBOURNE
This land dreams up marvels: // a meteorite shower of clumpy / snow streaking under midnight’s sun. // This land embodies ruses: // broad valley floors and nondescript / slopes distorting scale and distance. // This land stages parables: // a lone caribou, / its coat the color / of fog

Cover of This is Not Miami: The title is spelled out in colorful lights, appearing soft and out-of-focus against a navy-blue background. Below, the author's name is penned in narrow, wobbly script.

What We’re Reading: October 2024

CHRIS JOHN POOLE
Narrative must accommodate reality, yet it can also give it new form. This Is Not Miami fizzles with this tension. Exploiting the duality of the crónica , Melchor asserts that truth and fiction are inextricable.

Using The Common in my first-year seminars has been fun, fruitful, and helpfully startling for these classes.”

—Martha Cooley, Associate Professor of English, Adelphi University Receive classroom subscription discounts, lesson plans, and more when you TEACH THE COMMON »

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