Podcasts & Audio

Podcast: Lauren Delapenha on “Supermarketing”

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Transcript: Lauren Delapenha Podcast 

Headshot and Issue 31 cover

LAUREN DELAPENHA speaks to EMILY EVERETT about her poems “Supermarketing” and “If You Are Learning English,” which appear in The Common’s spring issue. Lauren also discusses her process and revision methods, her time at the Disquiet Literary Program in Lisbon, and how balancing both teaching and writing challenges her.

Lauren is a Jamaican poet and English teacher. She earned her master’s in creative writing from the University of Oxford, and her work has received an Oxbelly Fellowship, a Helen Zell and Jamaica Poet Laureate’s Young Writers Prize for Poetry, a Grindstone International Poetry Prize, and two Pushcart nominations. She currently lives and teaches in Connecticut.

­­Read Lauren’s poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/Lauren-Delapenha.

Learn more about her work at laurendelapenha.com.


The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.

Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.

Podcast: Lauren Delapenha on “Supermarketing”
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Podcast: Juliet McShannon on “Rescue”

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Transcript: Juliet McShannon Podcast.

Juliet McShannon headshot with Issue 31

Juliet McShannon speaks to Emily Everett about her story “Rescue,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. The story follows a woman on her search for a lost dog through a neighborhood very different from her own, and explores ideas of loss, class, community, and healing. Juliet also discusses how her childhood in Apartheid South Africa, and young adulthood practicing law during the time of transition that followed, has shaped her writing.

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

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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.

headshot of aj bermudez next to the cover of issue 30
Podcast: A. J. Bermudez on “The Sixteenth Brother”
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Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands”

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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 20th century.

Portrait of Casey Walker in front of a bookshelf spliced next to the cover page of Issue 30

Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands”
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Podcast: Lauren Groff on “Brawler”

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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.

Lauren Groff next to the book cover of "Brawler"

Podcast: Lauren Groff on “Brawler”
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Podcast: Jennifer Acker on “On 15 Years of The Common”

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Transcript: Jennifer Acker

JENNIFER ACKER, founder and editor in chief of The Common, speaks to EMILY EVERETT about her essay “On 15 Years of The Common,” which appears in The Common’s recent fall issue. The piece is a reflection on the hard work and stick-to-itiveness it takes to train a horse—and keep a literary magazine running. Jennifer talks about how The Common has grown and expanded since its early days—when it was only her and a few student interns and section editors—including some highlights like favorite portfolios and a new film adaptation of a story from Issue 16.

Jennifer also discusses her forthcoming novel, Surrender, out in April 2026 from Delphinium. The book explores smalltown life, following a woman who returns to her family’s farm to raise goats, and encounters life challenges that extend far beyond farmwork.

Jennifer Acker's headshot, next to The Common's Issue 30 cover

Podcast: Jennifer Acker on “On 15 Years of The Common”
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Podcast: Sarah Smarsh on “Bone of the Bone”

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Transcript: Sarah Smarsh

National Book Award finalist SARAH SMARSH speaks to managing editor EMILY EVERETT about her career writing memoir, essays, and journalism centered on the experience of the rural working class in the US. Her essay in The Common’s fall 2014 issue, “Death of the Farm Family,” became part of her 2018 book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, which became an instant New York Times bestseller, was shortlisted for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, and named on President Barack Obama’s best books of the year list.

Smarsh discusses her most recent book, a collection of essays from 2012 to 2024 titled Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class, out this fall in paperback. The conversation ranges from what the media gets wrong about working class Americans to how our understanding of and interest in talking about class and access has changed since the early 2000s. Stick around to hear how Smarsh manages the dual identities of rural Kansas farm kid and nationally recognized writer-commentator on class and culture, and hear what she’s working on next.
 

Sarah Smarsh headshot and photo of her book "bone of the bone" 

Podcast: Sarah Smarsh on “Bone of the Bone”
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Podcast: Lily Lloyd Burkhalter on “Raffia Memory”

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Transcript: Lily Lloyd Burkhalter

LILY LLOYD BURKHALTER speaks to managing editor EMILY EVERETT about her essay “Raffia Memory,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. Lily talks about traveling to the Cameroon Grassfields to research the rituals and production of ndop, a traditional dyed cloth with an important role in both spiritual life and, increasingly, economic life as well. She also discusses the book-length project she’s working on, which explores loss, grief, fabric, sewing, and weaving.

Podcast: Lily Lloyd Burkhalter on “Raffia Memory”
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Podcast: Mariah Rigg on “Target Island”

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Transcript: Maria Rigg Podcast.

MARIAH RIGG speaks to managing editor EMILY EVERETT about her story “Target Island,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. “Target Island” is a story from her short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, out August 5 from Ecco; both focus on the islands of Hawai’i. Mariah talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the collection as a whole, and why reflecting contemporary Hawai’i is important to her work. Mariah also discusses playing with time and narrative flow in her stories, and working on a new project—her first novel.

Headshot of Mariah Rigg and the cover of Issue 29 of The Common

Podcast: Mariah Rigg on “Target Island”
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