News and Events | Page 11

Literature and Creative Writing Resources for Your Remote-Learning Needs

April 16, 2020 News and Events

During this difficult time, we want to take the opportunity to highlight a few educational resources we offer that are readily available for at-home learning. Even while stuck at home, you can use works from The Common to connect your students to new voices and perspectives from around the world, while also deepening their own sense of place. Several recently published web features will also offer students examples of how literature can help us to reflect upon the present moment.

Support The Common’s Favorite Indie Bookstores

March 30, 2020 News and Events

We’re all eager to support local small businesses at this difficult time. Among the businesses that could most use our support are independent bookstores: that’s why we at The Common have put together this list of bookstores we’ve partnered with who are staying open—in some capacity—to serve your literary quarantine needs. The situation is changing rapidly, so make sure to check bookstores’ websites or social media for the most up-to-date info on how they are operating.

Virtual Office Hour for Teachers

March 3, 2020 News and Events

Virtual AWP, Virtual Office Hour for Teachers: Please join us Thursday, March 5th, at 4pm ET via Zoom.

Unfortunately, we at The Common had to cancel our trip to San Antonio, but I hope you’ll join me and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Acker via video conference to chat about The Common‘s classroom program and our supportive resources for teachers and students. We’ll also be joined by Professor Judith Baumel (Adelphi University) who will share her experiences and answer your questions about teaching The Common.

RSVP for The Common‘s Virtual Office Hour.

Download informational flyer and free sample lesson plans.

Questions in the interim? Send to Liz Witte, Associate Editor and Director of The Common in the Classroom at liz@thecommononline.org! Know of a friend or colleague looking for a syllabus refresh? Forward them the link to this page so they can join, too.

The Common to Receive $15,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

January 15, 2020 News and Events

The Common will receive its fourth grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2020. The Art Works grant of $15,000 will be awarded to The Common to help publish diverse writers, expand its readership, and support The Common‘s international portfolios.

The Common’s 2019 Pushcart Prize Nominations

December 4, 2019 News and Events

It’s that time of year again: below are The Common’s nominations for the annual Pushcart Prize! The Pushcart Prize celebrates outstanding works of literature produced by small-press writers; each of our nominations are exceptional works of art that dare to take fresh and impactful perspectives on what it means to have a unique sense of place.

Author Postcard Auction 2019

November 7, 2019 News and Events

It's that time of year again: bid for a personalized, handwritten postcard from your favorite author through The Common's annual author postcard auction! The personalization of the postcards makes them fantastic gifts, and they should arrive in time for the holidays.

Join in on the fun this year for a chance to receive a postcard from Pulitzer Prize-winners, National Book Award-winners, and Guggenheim Fellows. In the past few years, authors have famously gone all out with their postcards: expect to receive anything from long letters to drawings and haikus.

Online bidding begins this year on November 11, 2019 at 10 a.m. EST! Participating authors include literary powerhouses like David Sedaris, George Saunders, Ann Patchett, André Aciman, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, among others. Newcomer authors this year include author-actors Jenny Slate and Alan Cumming. Don't miss out!

All proceeds from the auction will help The Common's effort to publish emerging writers, aid our Literary Publishing Internship Program, and allow us to establish even more connections with students across the globe via The Common in the Classroom. Check out the full list of authors at our auction site: https://charityauction.bid/postcards.

Issue 18 Launch and Reading

October 18, 2019 News and Events

We’d love for you to join us in Amherst to celebrate the launch of Issue 18. The Common‘s student interns will be reading briefly from their favorite pieces in the new issue, and seniors will read from their own writing as well. There will be wine, cheese, and great conversation.

Friday, November 1, 5 p.m.
Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Frost Library
Amherst College

Come toast the latest place-based stories, essays, poems and artwork! We’ll be gathering in Frost Library’s beautiful Center for Humanistic Inquiry, on the Amherst College campus. This event is free and open to the public; bring your family and friends! You can also invite other lit lovers via our Facebook event page.

[Pre-order Issue 18 here.]

A conversation with Joseph O’Neill, hosted by Jennifer Acker

October 14, 2019 News and Events

Wednesday, November 13, 4:30pm
The Center for Humanistic Inquiry
Frost Library
Amherst College
Free and open to the public

Join The Common and the Amherst College Creative Writing Center for a reading and Q&A with author Joseph O’Neill, hosted by TC Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker. This event is part of the Amherst College Creative Writing Fall Reading Series, which includes several readings around the town of Amherst.

“Coloso” Chosen for 2019 Best Small Fictions Award Anthology

July 29, 2019 News, News and Events

Hugo Ríos Cordero’s story “Coloso” has been chosen to appear in Sonder Press’s 2019 award anthology The Best Small Fictions. The anthology, now in its fifth year, presents one hundred and forty-six pristinely crafted pieces from an array of authors representing twenty-six nations and six continents. It features micro fiction, flash fiction, haibun stories and prose poetry. Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works says, “Brilliant, incendiary, incandescent, these tiny stories capture worlds both intimate and universal. Give this book to anyone who says flash fiction doesn’t go deep. This newest volume of Best Small Fictions demonstrates once and for all that flash fiction writers are the Ginger Rogers of the literary world, accomplishing all that novelists and short story writers do, only backwards and in high heels.”

Congrats to Hugo! Read “Coloso” here, or check out his other piece for The Common, “Tonight, the Wind,” from our Issue 16 portfolio of work about Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Browse more of The Common’s prize-winning pieces here.

The Common Receives Whiting Literary Magazine Prize

July 18, 2019 News, News and Events

The Common Receives a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize: The Largest National Prize for Nonprofit Literary Magazines, a Grant Award of $60,000

The Common magazine has been selected as the winner of the Whiting Foundation’s Literary Magazine Prize for medium-sized print magazines, the largest prize category. The Common will receive a total of $60,000 over three years. These funds will support The Common’s mission of featuring new and underrepresented artistic voices from around the world who deepen our individual and collective sense of place.