Curated by: SARAH WHELAN
This month, enjoy a new feature that celebrates the wonderful former interns and employees that have worked at The Common over the years. Though we miss seeing them everyday, we’re continually impressed by what they go on to accomplish. This month, we’re catching up with former Editorial Assistant JinJin Xu, an Amherst College alumna, Watson Fellow, and most recently, recipient of the Lillian Vernon Fellowship at NYU.
Join The Common for a Puerto Rican meal, and stay to hear writers and translators Ana Teresa Toro, Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, María José Giménez, and María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado discuss their work in The Common‘s special portfolio: De Puerto Rico: Un año después de la tormenta/ From Puerto Rico: One Year after the Storm. Filmmaker Michelle Falcón will showcase her documentary film PROMESA, which tells the stories of people affected by Puerto Rico’s economic crisis. The independent short documentary examines the economic crisis in Puerto Rico, before Hurricane Maria, by exploring how its colonial relationship with the US has had both political and personal impact on the islanders. From this documentary, Reclaim Puerto Rico was created to help the Puerto Rican community overcome the Hurricane Maria devastation by awarding mini-grants to support entrepreneurship on the island. Donate to Reclaim Puerto Rico here.
Free and open to the public. Dinner provided.
238 Cabot Street, Holyoke MA
Join the staff and interns of The Common for a celebration of uncommonly good literature! Come to hear readings from our most recent issue and enjoy wine and cheese in the Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Amherst College.
Free and open to the public – students, parents, and local lit lovers all welcome!
Amherst College
The Common is excited to announce four new additions to the editorial staff: Translations Editor Curtis Bauer, Contributing Editor W. Ralph Eubanks, Arabic Fiction Editor Hisham Bustani, and Dispatches Editor Nina Sudhakar.
September 2018 marks one year after Hurricane María devastated the island of Puerto Rico. This event features contemporary Puerto Rican writers of both poetry and prose sharing new creative work and discussing how the ongoing crisis has transformed our styles of survival, our experience of diaspora, and the function of translation. Readings will include a bilingual element to fully represent Puerto Rican linguistic diversity.
Are you an educator? Do you work with students? Join us as The Common editors present at The National Book Foundation’s third annual Why Reading Matters conference on June 7 at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.
Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker and Associate Editor and Director of The Common in the Classroom Elizabeth Witte will be joined by Katherine Hill, a TC contributor and Assistant Professor of English at Adelphi University, for a panel discussion: Reaching from There to Here: broadening student perspectives through place-focused literature.
Check out more details on the conference here. TC readers receive a 15% discount on registration with the code: NBFFRIEND
We’ve got a very busy April ahead of us – can you join us at an event? We’ll be sharing our work, our expertise, and our brand new Issue 15 contributors with the world!
Juniper Literary Festival
April 7, 1:45-2:45pm, UMASS Amherst – The Common will be hosting a panel discussion at UMass’s Juniper Literary Festival alongside editors from renowned western Massachusetts literary magazines jubilat, Meridians, and The Massachusetts Review to discuss what they’re looking for, how to submit to literary magazines, and the behind-the-scenes editorial process. Bring your questions! Then swing by the Book Fair to buy discounted copies of The Common. Click here for more info on the event!
April 14, 12-5pm, Eastworks Building, Easthampton – The Common will be participating in the Easthampton Book Fest; come find us in the Literary Marketplace! We’ll be selling discounted issues, answering questions, and maybe giving out a few freebies, too. Check out the bookfest website here!
Tesserae: Poetry in Community
April 22, 3:30-5pm, The Parlor Room, Northampton – Northampton’s Poet Laureate, Amy Dryansky, will host a special event on behalf of several local agencies that work to welcome and support immigrants and new Americans in the community. The event, Tesserae: Poetry in Community, will feature readings by award-winning poets Leslie Marie Aguilar, Maria Luisa Arroyo, Tamiko Beyer, Kirun Kapur, Oliver de la Paz and Ocean Vuong. As a sponsor of Tesserae, The Common will be posting an online feature of these poets on our website, so stay tuned! For more information on the venue, click here, and for full details about the event, click here.
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Issue 15 NYC Launch Party
April 26, 6:30-8pm, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, NYC – Join The Common to celebrate our Spring Issue 15 Launch, featuring readings by Liz Arnold, Emma Copley Eisenberg, and translator Lissie Jaquette, followed by a discussion with editor in chief Jennifer Acker. The event is free and open to the public, so make sure to stop by! Find all the event details here.
Join us in celebrating Issue 15 of The Common! The evening will feature readings from Liz Arnold, Emma Copley Eisenberg, and translator Lissie Jaquette, followed by a discussion with the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jennifer Acker. This event is free and open to the public.
More than 1,700 bibliophiles gathered on campus March 1-3 for LitFest 2018, the College’s third annual literary festival that included conversations and book signings with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz, 2017 National Book Award finalists Carmen Maria Machado and Min Jin Lee, 2017 National Book Award winner and Amherst professor Masha Gessen, and acclaimed Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, among others. Additional activities included master classes, a poetry slam, panel conversations and tours of the Emily Dickinson Museum. The Common, the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, and the Emily Dickinson Museum partner with the College on this event.
Click here for the full write-up and more photos.
Photos by Maria Stenzel and Takudzwa Tapfuma ’17.
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