Featured authors include Masha Gessen, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Carmen Maria Machado, and Min Jin Lee
Amherst College will host LitFest 2018, its third annual literary festival celebrating fiction, nonfiction, poetry and spoken-word performance, on March 1–3. The event, co-hosted by The Common, features readings and conversations with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz, 2017 National Book Award winner and Amherst College professor Masha Gessen, acclaimed Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and 2017 National Book Award finalists Carmen Maria Machado and Min Jin Lee, among others. All events are free and open to the public. All author events will take place in Johnson Chapel on the College’s campus and most will include an audience Q&A and author book-signings.
The Common will receive its third grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2018. The Art Works grant of $10,000 will be awarded to The Common to help publish more and diverse writers, expand its readership, and also support The Common in the Classroom initiatives.
“We are thrilled to receive our third NEA grant as The Common heads into its 8th year of publication. The grant will go a long way to increase the diversity of authors and literary works published on our website and in print,” says Founder and Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker. “It will also support teachers and students who use The Common in the Classroom by expanding the library of online tools and resources.”
The Common staff and interns. Left to right, standing Debbie Wen, Flavia Martinez, Managing Editor Emily Everett, Isabel Meyers. Seated Sunna Juhn, Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker, Madeline Ruoff. Not pictured: Julia Pike, Nayereh Doosti.
We at The Common are proud to announce our nominations for the 2018 Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, an accolade bestowed upon small-press writers for works of outstanding writing and literary talent. Each of our nominations represents this culmination of talent and ingenuity alongside the celebration of a daring and modern sense of place.
In The Common office, we’re getting so excited for the work we’ll be publishing, both in print and online, in 2018. But it seems only fitting to give one last nod to the fantastic pieces that we brought out in 2017. Below is a list of our most-read pieces of the year: the poems, essays, interviews, and art that made 2017 our biggest year yet for web traffic from around the world! We hope you’ll have a look, if you haven’t already, and see why this work struck a chord with readers this year.
Don’t miss The Common’s annual author postcard auction! Bid for a chance to win a postcard from your favorite writer, handwritten for yourself or a person of your choice. A wonderful keepsake, just in time for the holidays!
The auction will run from 8 a.m. EST on November 20 to 6 p.m. EST on December 10, 2017. This year’s participants include Junot Díaz, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, and Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), among others. Click here for more information about the auction.
All proceeds will go toward The Common’s programs. These include publishing emerging writers, mentoring students in our Literary Publishing Internship Program, and connecting with students around the world through The Common in the Classroom.
Join the staff and interns of The Common for our launch of Issue 14! Come to hear readings from our new issue and enjoy wine and cheese in the Mead Art Museum’s beautiful Rotherwas Room.
Free and open to the public – students, parents, and local lit lovers all welcome!
Join Issue 14 contributors Josephine Rowe, Mik Awake, and Maria Terrone to celebrate the launch of The Common‘s fall issue. RSVP to our Facebook event here!
Thursday, November 2
7pm
WORD Brooklyn
126 Franklin Street
Love reading The Common and in the Boston area this October? Come meet some of the faces behind the magazine! We’ll be attending the 2017 Boston Book Festival on October 28th, from 11am to 5pm in Copley Square, tabling with The Massachusetts Review. We’re in booth 23, which will be located along Boylston Street, up by Trinity Church. We have tasty treats to give out to those who stop by our booth, while supplies last, and discounted issues for sale. For more information on the festival schedule, special events, and visiting authors, click here.
Love reading The Common and want to see our staff’s smiling faces in person? Stop by our table at the Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday, September 17 from 10am-6pm at Table 347 in front of the courthouse. We’ll be giving away a special, tasty something while supplies last! For more information about the Festival marketplace and all the events and authors, visit www.brooklynbookfestival.org.
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