“Clarity isn’t an exciting virtue, but it is a virtue always.” I repeat this maxim to my students, and it runs through my own head with even greater frequency. It comes from Good Prose, a guide to writing and editing excellent nonfiction, co-written by Tracy Kidder and the late Richard Todd, who passed away on April 21.
News
Issue 15 Launch Party
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.
Issue 14 Launch & Reading at the Mead
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!
Richard Wilbur’s 90th Birthday Party
Richard Wilbur, Pulitzer Prize winner, former Poet Laureate, and Editorial Board member for The Common, celebrated his 90th birthday on March 1. Here are photos from his birthday celebration at Amherst College.
First Ink
The Common is heralded in today’s Inside Higher Ed.
“The last few years had many literary journal editors’ backs against the wall. Numerous journals teetered between shuttering and downsizing.
“Have Bed. Need Floor.”
By MAX KAISLER
College students are a lot like hermit crabs. For four years they divide the warm and cold seasons between home and school, shuttling back and forth with a few overstuffed bags in tow.
Introducing Dispatches
Today we are proud to launch Dispatches, a weekly column that will feature news, notes, and impressions from around the world. Some of our dispatches will be posted with great speed, to reflect recent experience. Others, like today’s installment from Jock Doubleday, might be a postcard of a season gone by.
Year 00: A Review of Our First Year
In 2010, The Common was born. It’s been a year full of adventure, enthusiasm, creativity, and big steps forward. Steps advancing our mission to publish the best sense-of-place literature, work that says: This Can Only Happen Here.
The Common Goes to Boston
This Saturday (October 16th) The Common makes its way to the Boston Book Festival. The event features readings, workshops, book signings, great food and more. We will be sharing a table with our friends at Small Beer Press. Swing by to say hello, check out our prototype Issue 00, learn about submissions, and even WIN A SIGNED BOOK by one of our Editorial Board members. We’d love to see you there!
Details: Saturday, October 16. Copley Square, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Table 26 (to the right, facing Fountain Stage). http://www.bostonbookfest.org
The Printer’s Ball
We get excited about print. A card, a poster, an ad, an invitation, a broadside, a lit mag. You can take a printed thing home with you, shelve it, hang it on a wall, stuff it in a pocket and–and this is the best part–rediscover it later.