Sam Spratford

Podcast: Kevin Dean on “Patron Saints”

 

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Transcript: Kevin Dean

Kevin Dean speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Patron Saints,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Kevin talks about the process of writing and revising this story, which follows a young American trying to find his place in Cairo, while the city roils with political uncertainty after the Arab Spring uprising. Kevin also discusses how it feels to write from memory, what he tries to capture when writing about place, and what projects he’s working on now.

Kevin Dean's headshot on the left and TC's Issue 27 cover on the right, which is cerulean and scattered with bright flower petals.
Podcast: Kevin Dean on “Patron Saints”
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September 2024 Poetry Feature

New Poems by Our Contributors MORRI CREECH, ELISA GABBERT, ANNA GIRGENTI, and GRANT KITTRELL.

 

Table of Contents:

  • Morri Creech, “The Others”
  • Elisa Gabbert, “A Hermitage”
  • Anna Girgenti, “The Goldfinch”
  • Grant Kittrell, “Losing It”

 

The Others
By Morri Creech

The children that I have never had follow me, late, through the vacant corridors.
They whisper there is still time, time for the quarter moon to nock its black arrow

September 2024 Poetry Feature
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What We’re Reading: September 2024

Curated by SAM SPRATFORD

To kick off the autumn column, our contributors bring you three novels that invite unexpected encounters with time. A recommendation from former TC submissions reader SAMUEL JENSEN trains our sights on the future of the American dream; with LILY LUCAS HODGES, we unearth an artifact of historical erasure; and with HILDEGARD HANSEN, we finally transcend history through prose that gropes at the primordial core of life.

cover of "Last Acts": a desert street corner with a cactus, convenience store, streetlight, and blazing blue sky.

Alexander Sammartino’s Last Acts; recommended by Reader-Emeritus Samuel Jensen.

I picked up Alexander Sammartino’s debut novel, Last Acts, because of the cover. Seeing it at the book store, it was as if someone had walked up the road from my childhood home, aimed their camera across the arroyo, and snapped a picture. I’m from El Paso, Texas and Sammartino’s novel is set in Phoenix, Arizona—two very different places—but still: a sunbleached strip mall with a gun shop in it, burning under a merciless blue sky? It was like running into someone you’re not sure you wanted to see again.

What We’re Reading: September 2024
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Announcing The Common’s Fifth Literary Editorial Fellow

(Amherst, Mass. August 19, 2024)— The Common has announced Sam Spratford ’24 as the 2024-25 Literary Editorial Fellow, marking the fifth year of the fellowship at Amherst College’s award-winning, open-access literary journal.

Launched in 2020 with the generous support of the Whiting Foundation and sustained by 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.

Announcing The Common’s Fifth Literary Editorial Fellow
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Genealogies

By LILY LUCAS HODGES

A golden object, shaped like a window with open shutters, sits atop a reddish wood table. The object is busy with delicate engravings: a cross; simple human forms, some adorning heart icons on their chests; water droplets; and palpitating lines. To the right is a container of prayer candles.

Photo courtesy of author.

San Francisco, CA

Gold is all you notice at first. A triptych dressed in shiny monochrome. The center of it is just above eyesight, so you’re left looking up at of Keith Haring’s altar, Life of Christ, an imposing piece, big enough to hold most of your gaze and envelop your mind. Haring made the original cast in 1990 and it’s considered his final work. Grace Cathedral in San Francisco acquired this edition in 1995 for its Interfaith AIDS Memorial Chapel.

Genealogies
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What We’re Reading: July 2024

Curated by SAM SPRATFORD

July in Western Massachusetts is a month of heightened sensation. Perceptions are focused by the burning and buzzing heat, until it bursts in its own excess, dripping or pouring from the sky. It is an excess that ferments rather than rots, and it is what makes July so intoxicating. The onset of climate change, bringing merciless humidity and monsoon weather patterns, has deepened and darkened this character. Amid this, our Editorial Assistants AIDAN COOPER, CIGAN VALENTINE, and SIANI AMMONS have been reading books that match the month’s potency: storytelling that dazzles, prose that floods and sweeps away the sane, and historical truths delivered in lightning-bolt cracks. 

What We’re Reading: July 2024
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Violence and Its Other: Toti O’Brien Interviews Dimitris Lyacos

Dimitris Lyacos (left) sits with his knees to his chest in front of a barbed-wire fence. Toti O'Brien (right) stands with her arms crossed, chin tilted slightly upward at the camera.

DIMITRIS LYACOS describes his new book, Until the Victim Becomes our Own, as a prequel to his world-renowned trilogy, Poena Damni—which begins with a fugitive on a train, but never clarifies what, whom, and where from he has fled, hinting at the past only through the traces it left, showing us a mere geography of scars. Until the Victim Becomes our Own reels us back to the pre-fugue universe, mapping both an archeological grid and a bird’s-eye view of our very own Western civilization, founded on Judeo-Christian traditions, then evolved through industrialization and capitalism up to the digitally-global present day.

Though he was bound to Israel when TOTI O’BRIEN reached out to him with her questions, Lyacos agreed to interweave their conversation with his travels, and we are glad he did.

Violence and Its Other: Toti O’Brien Interviews Dimitris Lyacos
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The Common Announces 2024 Amazon Literary Partnership Grant

Amazon Literary Partnership Logo

The Common is pleased to announce the receipt of its sixth award from the Amazon Literary Partnership’s Literary Magazine Fund.

“We are honored to receive the Amazon Literary Partnership’s continued support,” said Jennifer Acker, The Common editor in chief. “This grant enables us to show how much we value our authors—by paying them a competitive rate and engaging them through and beyond the publication process.”

The Common plans to use this $5,000 grant to continue highlighting the voices of vibrant literary communities underrepresented in the publishing world. Past funding from the Amazon Literary Partnership most recently supported a portfolio of farmworker writing (Issue 26), co-edited with Lambda Literary Fellow Miguel M. Morales. This new grant will provide direct payments to a diverse group of writers and help them find a global readership via The Common’s integrated print and online publishing platforms.

The Common Announces 2024 Amazon Literary Partnership Grant
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