News & Events | Page 150 | The Common | A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Poems, Essays & Images

Little Wonder

October 3, 2018 Fiction

Sunlight and Shadows

The sunlight filtered through the window of our cafe. Golden sweet, it wove around the trees, the garden, over the stage, through the window and onto the railroad tie floor. I didn’t mind sweeping, because I got to dip my feet in it.

There was music on, and in the late spring air, it sounded perfect. Gram Parson’s Brass Buttons. Like it was made for right there right then, even though we all knew it was made a long time ago, back when parents were young and happy and we were only a microscopic part of them.

Uncommon Literature: Reading at Frost Library

September 28, 2018 News and Events

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!

Friday, October 26, 5 p.m.

CHI – Center for Humanistic Inquiry

Frost Library, 2nd Floor

Amherst College

[Preorder your copy of Issue 16 here.]

September 2018 Poetry Feature: CP Surendran

September 28, 2018 Poetry

Poems from Available Light: New and Selected Poems

By CP SURENDRAN

In advance of the U.S. publication of AVAILABLE LIGHT: New and Selected Poems (forthcoming from MadHat Press), we welcome CP Surendran to The Common.

Dogs

September 25, 2018 Fiction

By KELSEY LEACH

I walk along the sidewalk, my little dog tugging at her leash. The snow has begun to melt; water gathers in puddles and darkens the leather of my boots. The sun breaks over the roofs of houses across the street and the wet tree branches gleam. A sun too hot for January, but beautiful. The neighborhood is quiet and empty. I sniff the air.

Review: The Distance Home

September 24, 2018 Reviews

Book by PAULA SAUNDERS

Reviewed by TESS CALLAHAN

Willa Cather once said, “Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” I thought of those words while reading Paula Saunders’s cinematic debut novel, The Distance Home, which she has said is based on her fractured 1960s South Dakota childhood. Saunders draws from a deep well.

The Distance Home joins such recent novels as Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone, Joyce Carol Oates’ A Book of American Martyrs, Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth and Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton that explore family dysfunction. Saunders asks us to consider the violent underside of American drivenness and its impact on a family’s most vulnerable members.

Friday Reads: September 2018

September 21, 2018 Reviews

Curated by: SARAH WHELAN

Though we love a quiet summer, nothing makes us happier than the hustle and bustle of a new semester. This month, we’re reaching for recommendations from the pillars of our academic community—the professors themselves. Please enjoy these recommendations from the Amherst College English Department!

Recommendations: Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford and Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

The Little River

September 19, 2018 Dispatches

By SUSAN HARLAN

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Little River isn’t very little or rather
I don’t know what it is little in relationship to.
By the bank the water is smooth as paper
but in the middle my sneakered feet are unsteady
pulled by the current.

Above the Clouds: An Interview with Chandrahas Choudhury

September 17, 2018 Interviews

NEHA KIRPAL interviews CHANDRAHAS CHOUDHURY

Chandrahas Choudhury is a novelist and columnist based in New Delhi. His first novel Arzee the Dwarf was shortlisted for the Commonwealth First Book Prize and chosen by World Literature Today as one of “60 Essential English-Language Works of Modern Indian Literature.” Choudhury is also the editor of India: A Traveler’s Literary Companion.

Released by Simon & Schuster this year, Clouds is Choudhury’s second novel. While fictional, the book weaves in topical themes of religion, democracy, and politics in India.

Via email, Neha Kirpal recently spoke with Choudhury about the people and places that influenced Clouds’ narrative and characters, his obsession with clouds, and a recent mango trail he undertook across the subcontinent.

The Common Welcomes New Editors!

September 13, 2018 News and Events

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.

Backyard Alchemy

September 13, 2018 Essays

By J.D. HO

What is above is as that which is below, and what is below is as that which is above.

— principle of alchemy