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Podcast: Mindy Misener on Good Guys

November 13, 2026 Audio, Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

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Transcript: Mindy Misener

Mindy Misener speaks to Emily Everett about the excerpt of her debut novel Good Guys, which appears in The Common’s brand-new fall issue. The book follows a pair of sisters in New England in 2008, breaking open the secrets of small towns and complicated families in a time of growing patriotism, masculinity, and religious fervor. Mindy discusses the many years she spent drafting and revising the book, and how the excerpted section opens up questions the book then explores. Also discussed is Mindy’s debut short story “Baby Is Not Fine,” which was first published in The Common in 2018.

Excerpt from “It Only Served for Divination”

November 12, 2026 Poetry, Translation

By LUISA VILLA MERIÑO
Translated from the Colombian Spanish by CIGAN VALENTINE

Poem appears below in English and the original Spanish

Translator’s note:
I originally stumbled upon Luisa Villa Meriño’s works in a class at Amherst College on the history of the Colombian Civil War. I was immediately captivated by a selection of poems we read from her collection Dios fue mejor cuando era tigre (God Was Better When He Was A Tiger) and later by a brief talk Villa Meriño gave over Zoom. What initially drew me to her words was how immersive the reading experience was; these were poems that held me in space unlike any other. Since then, I’ve returned again and again to Villa Meriño’s poetry, which, despite previous Spanish-language publications in the U.S. by Jade Publishing, has yet to be published in English and is seldom translated, except for the few poems translated by Kim Jensen in recent years. Villa Meriño’s most recent collection, Hijas de las perras negras (Daughters of the Black Bitches), won the Gabriel Celaya International Poetry Prize 2024 in Spain.

“A river sings near your grave:” A Review of Rivers, rivers, rivers by Triin Paja

November 10, 2026 Reviews

By TRIIN PAJA
Review by ERICA GOSS

From the flowers placed over the eyes of the dead, to the soil those flowers grew in, the poems in Triin Paja’s Rivers, rivers, rivers reverberate with magic symbolism and dark forces of nature. Throughout this chapbook, the constant motion of water amplifies an atmosphere of barely suppressed emotions. Both dangerous and benign, an erratic energy infuses this small, powerful collection, Paja’s first in English after four collections in Estonian.

The 2026 Author Postcard Auction is Open!

November 9, 2026 News and Events

I feel like the only person still sending postcards, but a pantheon of best-selling authors is taking up the practice for a good cause.”

—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

This holiday season, you could hear from one of your favorite authors—or have them write a missive to the book nerd on your gift list—all thanks to The Common. Authors will write and send postcards in time for the holidays, which in the past have featured personal anecdotes, original poems, and even doodles, making them a perfect gift for readers.

Bidding is Open Now!

This one-of-a-kind online auction, as featured by The Washington Post’s Book Club newsletter and BookRiot, gives book lovers around the world the opportunity to bid on handwritten, personalized postcards from their favorite writers. The postcards make great gifts for the literature lovers in your life. Winning bids are tax-deductible donations. Our twelfth annual Author Postcard Auction runs from November 9 to December 1.

Everything Has to Work: Michael Costaris interviews Sigrid Nunez

November 9, 2026 Interviews

Sigrid Nunez (left) and Michael Costaris (right). Photos courtesy of the authors.

In this interview, SIGRID NUNEZ and MICHAEL COSTARIS unearth the decades of writing behind Nunez’s first story collection, It Will Come Back to You. They spoke for over two hours on Zoom, Nunez in her New York apartment and Costaris from his Toronto home. Nunez is an acclaimed novelist turning to short fiction for the first time in her illustrious career, while Costaris is a short story writer who recently completed his first novel. Together, they discuss the demands of each form, the challenges facing short fiction in a changing marketplace, and The New Yorker’s enduring pull. Through craft, Nunez interrogates the instinctive nature of writing and the function of humor in both life and literature.

In the Know

November 6, 2026 Fiction

By BERGITA BUGARIJA

It was Iskra’s first day on the job, and Miles, the owner of Three Rivers Pharmacy, was giving her a tour of the register.

“Smaller bills go here,” he said, indicating the slots for ones, fives, tens, twenties, and fifties, “but Benjamins go underneath.” He lifted the cash tray. “Not that we get many in this neighborhood.”

“Benjamins?” Iskra said.

“Hundreds.”

Lucky Magarac Killing It

November 6, 2026 Fiction

By ADMIR SKODO

After three outbursts of fury at work, my supervisor told me I had to see a counselor or face serious disciplinary action. Or worse. Worse, worse what? Lose my job? Police involvement? I don’t know, because it never got to that. “Lucky, you’re lucky. This time.”

Read Excerpts by Finalists for the Restless Books Kellman Prize for Immigrant Literature 2026

November 6, 2026 News and Events

Restless Books is honored to hold the eleventh year of what is now known as the Kellman Prize for Immigrant Literature. By seeking outstanding work by immigrant writers, the prize amplifies immigrant voices and invites readers to contemplate the myriad ways in which migration shapes our lives, vitalizes our communities, and connects our world.

The 2026 Kellman Prize for Immigrant Literature was judged by Terry Hong, Ilan Stavans, and Anderson Tepper; the winner will be announced by LitHub on December 1. Please join us in celebrating the work of the following four finalists, and in holding up the power of immigrant stories to speak to our shared humanity.

— Restless Books

Two Stories by Dibakar Barua

November 6, 2026 Fiction

By DIBAKAR BARUA

Snails

It is 1971. Civil war has spread from the cities of East Pakistan into the countryside. Thirty miles south of the port city of Chittagong, a chill has settled over Manpur, where men and boys of different faiths gather after dusk in secret, segregated groups.

Ajoy, seventeen, sits with a Buddhist cabal in his cousin Tunu’s house. Tunu adds to the night’s rumors. The Hindus are getting it, he says. Muslims are taking furniture, radios, clothes. Suren Mitra, a Hindu businessman, has shot two looters and is trying to escape to India through the Bandarban hills.

“But listen,” another boy says. “The Muslims may not get him, but the Kukis in the Hill Tracts—”

He doesn’t finish. Everyone has heard about the naked Kukis. The talk trails off. Voices grow drowsy. In the stillness, they hear the distant boom of a Pakistani warship shelling the port of Chittagong.

At home, Ajoy’s mother kneels before a framed picture of the Buddha on the plastered mud wall of their bedroom. A candle flickers; shadows dance around the orange halo. She recites Pali sutras. Ajoy lights incense and kneels beside her.

His brother Bijan has not come home for two nights.

Favorit

November 6, 2026 Fiction

By VALER POPA

An excerpt from Moon Over Bucharest, a finalist for the 2026 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.

He was led by the apostle into a valley shut in between two hills, where everything that is lost on earth (be the fault of ours or that of time or fate) fetches up miraculously

— Ludovico Ariosto (Orlando Furioso, Canto 34)

Of course, the Favorit Cinema was closed. It had kept mute vigil behind our building for nearly thirty years—ever since some overzealous tycoon bought it shortly after the revolution, hoping to turn the place into a nightclub; ever since he went bankrupt, fired the staff, and locked the doors with a chain so massive and medieval that even now, people often wonder how such a bulky thing could still be manufactured.