(Amherst, Mass. July 10, 2025)—Award-winning, international literary journal The Common has announced Kei Lim ’25 as its sixth Literary Editorial Fellow. 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 literary 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 LEF is designed to provide recently graduated students with a stepping stone between academic work and the greater publishing world. The full-time, postgraduate fellow assists the managing editor with print and digital production; edits and proofreads prose and poetry, working closely with contributors; creates multimedia web features; mentors current LPI students; and develops, organizes, and staffs innovative events on campus and across the country.
Kei Lim ’25 is the sixth Literary Editorial Fellow, following Sam Spratford ’24, Olive Amdur ’23, Sofia Belimova ’22, Elly Hong ’21, and Isabel Yao Meyers ’20. Lim arrives at the position after two years as an editorial assistant for The Common and one year as its David Applefield ’78 Fellow. They graduated from Amherst College as an economics and English major, where they served as editor-in-chief of Amherst’s student-run newspaper, The Amherst Student. They are also an instructor for the creative writing nonprofit Cosmic Writers, and have worked in the houses and collections of the Emily Dickinson Museum. Their poem “Evergreen” was published online at The Common.
“I am delighted to continue developing as an editor while supporting the vibrant community of readers, writers, translators, and students that the journal fosters,” Lim said. “I’m also excited to continue to push forward the operational components required to sustain nonprofits and literary publications.”
“Kei has had a notable role in the greater literary and editorial sphere at Amherst, and as the newest LEF, they will only further build upon the skills they have developed,” said The Common’s founder and editor-in-chief Jennifer Acker. “Carrying out close editorial work with authors and mentoring the student intern team, they will help facilitate the publication of vast voices and perspectives that The Common is committed to cultivating.” Since 2010, Acker has directed the Literary Publishing Internship, which employs eight to ten students during the school year, the January Interterm, and the summer. She also directs Amherst College LitFest, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary.
The LEF position is only one example of Amherst’s commitment to supporting hands-on learning, introducing students to practical and intellectual applications of its liberal arts curriculum. “The Common provides students with an opportunity to apply their humanistic education toward real-world publishing experiences, and the Literary Editorial Fellowship enables this learning to extend beyond graduation, as students take the first steps towards their careers,” said Martha Umphrey, Amherst College’s Provost and Dean of the Faculty.
About The Common
The Common is a print and digital literary journal published biannually. Issues of The Common include fiction, essays, poems and images that embody a strong sense of place. Each spring, the magazine features a rich portfolio of Arabic fiction in translation, introducing English-language readers to new and exciting voices from across the Middle East and North Africa. Since its debut in 2011, The Common has published more than 1,500 authors from 56 countries. Pieces from The Common have been awarded the O. Henry Prize, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Award for Emerging Writers, and have been selections and notable mentions in multiple genres in the prestigious Best American series. The journal’s editorial vision and design have been praised in The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Slate, The Millions, Orion Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Former Literary Publishing Interns have gone on to publish acclaimed novels, win Watson Fellowships, study English literature at top graduate programs, and work at nonprofit organizations and literary publishers around the world. Beyond mentoring undergraduates, The Common supports educators from high school to graduate levels through The Common in the Classroom and hosts summer writing courses for high school students via The Common Young Writers Program. Read more about the magazine’s programs here.
