Sofia Belimova

Friday Reads: September 2021

September 3, 2021 Reviews

For our September round of Friday Reads, we spoke to two recent online contributors: Kaori Fujimoto, author of the dispatch “Shinjuku Golden Gai and the Midnight Diner,” and Sophie Crocker, author of the story “Lyuba Boys.” Their recommendations both speak to the power of language; an American author journeys toward writing in Italian, and a new collection of poems challenges English as a weapon of colonialism.

Recommendations: In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri and Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar

Podcast: Jose Hernandez Diaz on “Ode to a California Neck Tattoo”

August 27, 2021 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Jose Hernandez Diaz speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poem “Ode to a California Neck Tattoo,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Jose talks about finding his way to prose poetry, initially drawn in by its casual language and style. He also discusses the process of editing and revising poetry, his interest in the surreal, and what it’s like writing from a first generation point of view.

Podcast: Emma Sloley on “The Cassandras”

August 13, 2021 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Emma Sloley speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Cassandras,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Sloley talks about writing a story based on the fear of men women are taught to have from a young age. She also discusses her decision to include a sort of Greek chorus in the story, apocalyptic isolation in her novel Disaster’s Children, and how travel writing has changed in the age of Instagram.

Another Mother

August 10, 2021 Essays

By POLINA BELIMOVA

I was waiting at the top of the escalator, as we had agreed the night before by phone. The marble palace of the metro station Gorkovskaya, named after a Russian writer whose name means “bitter,” felt solemn enough for the occasion. I was peering into the face of every woman delivered by the moving stairs, as if each was a final product on a factory line reaching its destination. I watched their wandering looks, their wrinkles, the tensions of their mouths and speculated which one was my mother. Any of them could be.

Most Read Pieces of Summer 2021

August 5, 2021 News and Events

As fall approaches, we want to celebrate the pieces that made this summer so special! Below, you can browse our list of summer 2021’s most-read pieces to see which essays, short stories, and poems left an impact on our readers.

Podcast: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri on “The Good Donkey”

July 30, 2021 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Talia Lakshmi Kolluri speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Good Donkey,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Kolluri talks about writing fiction from the perspectives of different animals, and where the inspiration for those stories comes from. She also discusses how being mixed race can complicate conversations about race and identity in the U.S., how books and literature are making space for those conversations, and how she balances writing with a full-time job as an attorney.

Podcast: Ravi Shankar on “The Five-Room Box”

July 16, 2021 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Ravi Shankar speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “The Five-Room Box,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Shankar talks about constructing this essay on identity, family, and fitting in from an excerpt of his memoir, Correctional, about his time spent in prison. He also discusses how that time changed the course of his academic work, what it’s like to transition from poet to prose-writer, and the privilege and profiling Asian-Americans experience as the ‘model minority.’

A Salamander

July 14, 2021 Dispatches

By MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER

Southwest Ohio

Cute, I said bending over, a salam—
I swallowed the second half of the word

as my face drew nearer to the shiny body
and I saw the white oozing from its mouth, but

it was too late.

My daughter was already rushing over,
What is that little guy?

I stood, tried pivoting,
a bit dizzy from the way the thing

lay there still

moving one of its tiny arms, I looked at Kayla
and said in Hebrew, which we both speak thanks to

The Common Magazine Announces Second Literary Editorial Fellow

July 12, 2021 News and Events

(Amherst, Mass. July 12, 2021)— The Common, the award-winning literary journal based at Amherst College, has announced its second Literary Editorial Fellow: Elly Hong ’21. The fellowship is funded in part by generous support from alumni donors and from the Whiting Foundation, which is providing a $20,000 matching grant for the second consecutive year, in recognition of the magazine’s secure and important foothold in literary publishing. In 2019, The Common was the top print award winner of the Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes.

The Literary Editorial Fellowship was created with two goals in mind: to strengthen the bridge between The Common’s existing Literary Publishing Internship (LPI) program for undergraduates and the professional publishing world; and to provide invaluable, real-world experience for an Amherst graduate, transferable to any job in nonprofit, trade, or academic publishing, or a wide variety of related fields.

On the Path from the Edison Fishery to the Moose Boneyard

July 7, 2021 Essays

By RUSSELL BRAKEFIELD

Isle Royale National Park

The powerboat clips Scofield point and breaks away from my cabin toward the more serious waters of Lake Superior. My guide, Tom, cranes his neck to view the shore as if he’s never seen it before, though he knows these bends and inlets well. We pass the outer islands—Rabbit, Caribou, Cemetery—which lift like teeth from the blue-green water. The motor quiets as we turn inward and thread the eye of Moskey Basin, toward docks and wooden nets, remnants of a long-gone fishing industry cast along the shoreline.

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Sofia Belimova

sbelimova

Friday Reads: September 2021

Podcast: Jose Hernandez Diaz on “Ode to a California Neck Tattoo”

Podcast: Emma Sloley on “The Cassandras”

Another Mother

Podcast: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri on “The Good Donkey”

Podcast: Ravi Shankar on “The Five-Room Box”

A Salamander

The Common Magazine Announces Second Literary Editorial Fellow

On the Path from the Edison Fishery to the Moose Boneyard

Discover the extraordinary in The Common.