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.
Congratulations to TC contributor Leslie McGrath! Her poem “Encountering Franz Wright Along the Way,” published by The Common, has co-won the Gretchen Warren Award at the New England Poetry Club. It was published in September 2016; you can read it here.
Amherst Magazine recently published a piece by Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker about the difficulties and delights of bringing Issue 11, Tajdeed, into the world. The first of its kind in the US, this issue contained all Arabic fiction in translation – the work of 26 authors, five artists, 18 translators from 17 countries. It was a “labor of love” from start to finish.
“Tell me the story of your romance with the Arabic written word.” The journalist asking was from The National, Abu Dhabi’s English-language newspaper. She wanted to know why we’d devoted an issue of The Common, Amherst’s literary magazine, to Arabic fiction. Editing Tajdeed: Contemporary Arabic Stories had been a labor of love, but it had not been romantic. Just as setting off naively for “the West” or “the Far East”—destinations that are grand notions rather than findable locations—is romantic in inspiration, but in reality involves a lot of getting lost and stuck in the mud.
We would like to extend a warm welcome to W. Drake McFeely and Suketu Mehta, the two newest additions to The Common’s Board of Directors.
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.