Ben Tamburri

The Common Young Writers Program Opens Applications for Summer 2026!

Applications for The Common Young Writers Program, a fully virtual summer writing class for high school students (rising 9-12), are now open! Over the span of two weeks, students will be introduced to the building blocks of fiction, learn to closely read a text the way a writer would, and leave having written and edited a short story of their own. Taught by the editors and editorial assistants of Amherst College’s literary magazine, the two summer courses (Level I and Level II) run Monday-Friday and are open to all aspiring writers in grades 9-12. The program starts on July 20 and ends with a celebration of student work on the 31st. Applications close May 18 at midnight.

 

Level I is for beginners and anyone excited to try their hand at fiction. Level II is for returning TCYWP participants or students who have already completed a creative writing class or workshop. 
 

Full and partial need-based tuition waivers are available for both levels; we hope that no student will let financial difficulty prevent them from applying. Tuition waivers will be awarded to students with strong applications who cannot attend the program without financial assistance. In the application, students will have the opportunity to briefly describe their financial circumstances and state the amount they could afford to pay, if any, if accepted into the program. No tax returns or other documentation is required.

Click here for more information and details on how to apply.

The Common Young Writers Program Opens Applications for Summer 2026!
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Writing the Rust Belt: Rosanna Young Oh Interviews Allison Pitinii Davis

Allison Pitinii Davis (left) and Rosanna Young Oh (right)

Allison Pitinii Davis (left) and Rosanna Young Oh (right)

ALLISON PITINII DAVIS and ROSANNA YOUNG OH explore how Davis’ personal connection to Youngstown, Ohio and scholarly interest in labor inspired her debut novella, Business. They discuss representing the Rust Belt in literature, their identities as eldest daughters who worked for their family businesses, and the dignity and ethos of the working-class communities that raised them. Allison Pitinii Davis is the author of the poetry collection Line Study of a Motel Clerk , Poppy Seeds, and Business, a novella in Agency 3: Novellas . She serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry at Ohio State University.​​

Writing the Rust Belt: Rosanna Young Oh Interviews Allison Pitinii Davis
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Raid on the Roma Camp

By THEODORA BAUER
Translated by AARON CARPENTER

Piece appears below in English and the original German

 

Translator Note

Theodora Bauer’s novel Chikago (2017) follows two sisters from the Croatian minority in Burgenland, Austria. In this stand-alone chapter we learn that the family was ostracized from the small community in one of the poorest, but also most ethnically diverse regions in Austria. Burgenland was part of Hungary while under Hapsburg rule and is still home to Hungarian and Croatian minorities. This chapter begins with an idyllic trip that the father and his youngest daughter take to the village to do some business. When they hear a group of drunken townspeople plan on raiding the Roma camp just outside of town, where the father’s smithy is, they race back home to warn them.

Raid on the Roma Camp
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The Epiphany in the Ordinary: An Interview with Teju Cole

Teju Cole at Amherst LitFest 2025

Teju Cole at LitFest 2025

For TEJU COLE, prose, poetry, and photography tug against and bleed into one another. At the tenth anniversary of Amherst College’s LitFest, on March 1, 2025, Cole spoke with The Common’s Editor in Chief JENNIFER ACKER about his novel Tremor, his approach to genre-bending, and the role of writers and photographers in bearing witness to catastrophe.  

The Epiphany in the Ordinary: An Interview with Teju Cole
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In Another Version

By ELIZABETH METZGER

 

They walk to the ocean, talk about all the relationships
            that have fallen apart around them.
So many women they know pursued love
            and risked their chance for children.
The sound her hand makes against his sleeve
            is the sound of palm trees.

In Another Version
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