Aidan Cooper

As summer opens up before us, as we shake off our winter blankets and spring raincoats, writers and readers alike are flocking outside to drink in the long-awaited sunlight. Summer is the season of remembering how it feels to be a member of the world — this strange world of pollen and sneezes, of hot adirondack chairs and sweat, of cool waterfronts and sand between your toes. In these recommendations from RUSSELL BRAKEFIELD, TERESE SVOBODA, and STEFAN BINDLEY-TAYLOR, characters similarly discover where they fit and falter in their surroundings, and how they transform the worlds they inhabit. From cityscape to household, these stories traverse landscapes large and small, and one might just land in your summer-reading stack.

Podcast: A. J. Bermudez on “The Sixteenth Brother”

May 8, 2026 Audio, Issue 30 Fiction, Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Transcript: A. J. Bermudez

A. J. BERMUDEZ speaks to EMILY EVERETT about her story “The Sixteenth Brother,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. With a fable-like feel, the story explores the dynamics of family and gender roles in Morocco, as fifteen brothers scheme to convince their youngest sibling to allow the sale of the family’s ancient and opulent riyad. A. J. discusses the story’s framing device—a storyteller relaying it, almost like gossip—and how it creates both intimacy and distance. She also talks about her work in film, and the interplay between writing for the page and for the screen.

A. J. Bermudez is an award-winning writer and director who divides her time between Los Angeles and New York. She is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is a recipient of the PAGE Award, the Diverse Voices Award, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Steinbeck Fellowship. In addition to writing and filmmaking, she is also a former boxer and EMT, and her work gravitates toward contemporary intersections of power, privilege, and place.

The Grave Fox

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By DANIEL TOBIN

Like a dog truant among the tended plots
it turns back toward us a considerate eye
as though sensing the disquiet of our being

lost here among all the unfamiliar graves
that would be landmarks proving the right way
if this were the way we’d believed it to be.

Dead Man’s Association

April 24, 2026 Fiction, Issue 31, Issue 31 Fiction

By SINDYA BHANOO

Dead Man’s Association meets every Wednesday evening at Padiyappa’s Tea Stall & Smoke Shop. I am the president and the primary focus of the club. There is only one table at Padiyappa’s, but at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, no local would dare take my spot. It’s been this way for the past fifteen years. The tea stall boy, a new chap, hands us stainless steel tumblers of piping hot tea and then hangs around to stare at me.

“Po da,” I say to him, eyeing his hairless chest, visible because his top two buttons are not fastened. “This is not a circus. Let me be.”

On the Farm

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Art, Studio

By NINA FULLER

Nina Fuller is a Maine-based photographer, writer, counselor, and sheep farmer whose career spans more than five decades. Known for her evocative images of animals, landscapes, and rural life, Nina creates much of her work from her farm and carriage-house studio in Hollis, Maine. Her fine art photography often captures moments of stillness and natural light within the daily rhythm of farm life, bringing visual poetry to the textured reality of wool, wood, and pasture. Her work reflects a deep reverence for nature and animals. As Nina explains, “There is peace within the chaos—the sheep, the light in the barn, the feeling that this could be two hundred years ago.” Whether photographing a running lamb, a quiet flower, or a collapsing fence, Nina captures more than just image—she reveals emotion, texture, and timeless presence.

Courtesy of the Portland Art Gallery

My Wife Dreams of My Father

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By GEOFFREY BROCK

Dream 1: In which he annoys her

It was New Year’s Eve when he showed up,
in the sleety weather, in his old flannels,
to knock on our door again. You’re back!

my wife cried. I missed you! He laughed,
and as they hugged he lifted her gently
into the air—that’s when she remembered

he was dead. She stopped crying, annoyed
at his ruse, annoyed that this was the day,
of all days, when the ruses of our dead

would be exposed. Still, for a full minute—
after waking but before opening her eyes—
she let him keep holding her in the air.

U N C O N T A I N A B L E

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By L. S. KLATT

I leave the house unlocked & walk to the garage jacked to
The White Stripes. My mouth is a guitar; snow is in the sound hole.
Spring. I think it’s spring. The automatic door leaps

in its tracks & is music again. I record on my phone a soundwave
as the GTO convertible wheels out of its tomb, the driveway
chartreuse with maple wings. Tell White I’ll cut some garlic

Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands”

April 10, 2026 Audio, Issue 30, Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Transcript: Casey Walker

CASEY WALKER speaks to EMILY EVERETT about his story “Islands,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Set at an old lake house rife with unresolved family tensions, the story explores the dynamics between three orphaned brothers, and between the narrator and his pregnant wife. Casey discusses how the piece evolved over more than a decade, and how he always hopes a story will take on a life of its own during the writing process. Also discussed is his forthcoming novel Mexicali, set in the US-Mexico borderlands during the first half of the 20^th century.

Podcast: Lauren Groff on “Brawler”

February 27, 2026 Audio, Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Transcript: Lauren Groff

Acclaimed TC contributor LAUREN GROFF speaks to managing editor EMILY EVERETT about her new story collection, Brawler, out this month from Riverhead, and her origins as a writer at Amherst College, where The Common is based. She also discusses how a story collection comes together over many years, how working with her longtime agent Bill Clegg has shaped her work, and what she’s working on now and next. Groff’s work appears most often in The New Yorker these days, but The Common published a story of hers in Issue 01, more than 15 years ago.

I/Teh Ran

February 18, 2026 Dispatches

By SARVIN PARVIZ

woman holding a sheet in front of the mountains

Photo courtesy of the author.

Tehran, Diaspora

I moved to the U.S. for a creative writing program with a luggage full of must-haves and gifts, to survive the at-once costs with one paycheck, memorabilia from each friend and close relatives to hold, on days of unbelonging and loss, to feel the connection to the ground back to a place. The largest collection of belongings is in my phone. More than twenty thousand photos of food on the table (always more than one plate), streets of Tehran at night through the car window, wet and bright after rain, harmonious, unlike the dust and chaos of the day. My daisy covered shoes on the curb, friends singing, tapping on the table, hugging, running all the way to the top of a hill. When I moved, the photos became similar, screen shots of Facetime or Zoom calls, us in squares next to each other, our joy breaking out of the frame, heart emojis flying, everyone laughing.

Aidan Cooper

Aidan Cooper

What We’re Reading: June 2026

Podcast: A. J. Bermudez on “The Sixteenth Brother”

The Grave Fox

Dead Man’s Association

On the Farm

My Wife Dreams of My Father

U N C O N T A I N A B L E

Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands”

Podcast: Lauren Groff on “Brawler”

I/Teh Ran

Discover the extraordinary in The Common.

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