News & Events | Page 226 | The Common | A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Poems, Essays & Images

Jonah’s Babysitter

March 25, 2015 Dispatches

I’d met Jimmy Reynolds when we were in fifth grade and his parents were the new owners of one of the two grocery stores in Maysville, my hometown of 900 or so, on the banks of the Little Wabash River in southern Illinois. I even went to his house once after school. His dad supervised while we shot off Jimmy’s model rockets, then later his mom cooked hamburgers and homemade fries for us and his younger brothers Jason and Jonah. The Reynolds kids spent that summer with their grandparents back up in Michigan but then with just a few weeks to go before the 1978-79 school year started Jimmy called and asked if I could come over again.

“New” Arabic Writing: Cataclysm in Fast-Forward

March 24, 2015 Essays

By HISHAM BUSTANI

One might ask: “What is this ‘new’ writing in the Arab World?”

Is it a “new generation” of writers? Is it an unprecedented form of writing? The new writing that this essay wants to explore has nothing to do with the age of the writer, nor does it claim that “new writing” suddenly dropped—rootless and without precursors—into the vast space of literature. Rather, “new” writing is an evolution in the techniques of the literary form; in the themes and subjects that correspond with societal change in “real-time”; and in the relationship between the writer, the “cultural authority,” and the official cultural sphere designated by governments and institutions. “New” Arabic writing is also the result of a struggle between the writer and his exploding surroundings.

Ask a Local: Elizabeth Bradfield, North Truro, MA

March 19, 2015 Interviews

With ELIZABETH BRADFIELD

Your name: Elizabeth Bradfield

Current city or town: North Truro, MA

How long have you lived here: Well, that’s not an easy one. There were a few years in Provincetown and then the five or seven years—depending on how you count two of them—I was connected but away. Perhaps it’s simpler to say that I began belonging to this place 17 years ago.

Early Spring in the Indiana Dunes

March 16, 2015 Essays, In House

By MARIAN CROTTY

The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore stretches along the southern tip of Lake Michigan in sixteen separate pieces—jagged, sharp-cornered patches of land that float in an industrial landscape of rail lines, factories, and tiny dilapidated homes. The official National Parks visitors’ map includes not just the usual hiking trails and bike paths, but also two steel mills, an electric company, and the machine-gutted inlets that make up the port of Indiana.

About a year ago, on a gray day in March, my girlfriend and I drove here from Chicago, where she lived then and where I was visiting for a long weekend. Winter was melting, but it was cold by the water, the air heavy with evaporated snowmelt, the lake’s presence radiating toward us even before we could see the flare of blue rising above the mounds of the red silt. It was a lonely place. Except for an older woman sitting by herself on a blanket, staring solemnly into the distance, the beach was empty.

Friday Reads: March 2015

March 13, 2015 Reviews

By CATE MCLAUGHLIN, DIANA BABINEAU, GREGORY CURTIS, TERESE SVOBODA, KELLY FORDON, OLIVIA WOLFGANG-SMITH

With the arrival of spring we’re leaping bravely into unfamiliar worlds—safe in the hands of experts, of course. An eerie peripheral dreamscape; quotidian life viewed from upside down or inside out, never as expected; the dark bureaucracy of the criminal underground; messages ferried to and from ghosts—these are unmapped terrains, and what better companions than these authors, their first cartographers? Expand your world(s) this month with these suggestions from our contributors and staff.

Recommended:

Bone Map: Poems by Sara Eliza Johnson, Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins, Blood and Money by Thomas Thompson, Self-Portrait in Green by Marie NDiaye, Elegies for the Brokenhearted: A Novel by Christie Hodgen.

The Common & Copeland Colloquium Host Arabic Culture Series at Amherst College

March 12, 2015 News and Events

AMHERST, MA. MAR. 12, 2015—From March 24–26, The Common literary magazine and Amherst College’s Copeland Colloquium will host a series of Arabic cultural events featuring internationally recognized writers, editors, translators, and musicians. Literary conversations will delve into the largely untranslated world of new Arabic writing, fiction in particular, and a live musical performance will bring Arabic music to local audiences. All events aim to broaden and deepen cultural exchange.

CONTEMPORARY ARABIC FICTION: A CONVERSATION: MARCH 24, 4:30PM

What themes and styles are emerging in contemporary Arabic fiction? What are the opportunities and challenges of publishing these works? Panelists include The Common editor in chief Jennifer Acker, acclaimed authors Hisham Bustani (Jordan) and Hassan Blasim (Iraq), Interlink Books founder Michel S. Moushabeck, and executive editor at Penguin Random House John Siciliano. Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall 115, Amherst College. Reception to follow.

ARABIC FICTION MASTER CLASS: MARCH 25, 4:30–6:30PM

The conversation continues with a translation master class led by Bustani and El-Rayyes. Drawing on texts in an array of source languages, the master class will focus on important literary considerations for translators, translation techniques, and the experimental and collaborative process of translation. Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall 115, Amherst College.

Email info@thecommononline.org to register.

LAYAALI MUSIC PERFORMANCE: MARCH 26, 7:30PM

The Middle Eastern cultural series culminates in a performance by the Arabic music ensemble Layaali at the Powerhouse at Amherst College. This Massachusetts-based and world renowned group is committed to furthering the appreciation of traditional Arab music and culture through electrifying live performances. The Powerhouse, Amherst College.

Doors open at 7 pm.

You can listen to the following video clips from last year’s Iron Horse concert by Layaali:

L ayaali performance (Vimeo)

Layaali performance (YouTube)

“The music of Layaali moves the soul and stirs the spirit.”
–The Palestine Center, Washington, D.C.

All events are free and open to the public.

PARKING MAP

map

Co-sponsored by The Common and Copeland Colloquium. Supported by the Georges Lurcy Lecture Series Fund at Amherst College and the Corliss Lamont Lectureship for a Peaceful World.

In spring 2016, The Common will publish a special issue of contemporary Arabic fiction in translation, featuring more than 24 writers from 14 countries in the Middle East and Africa.

About The Common (www.thecommononline.org)

The Common is an award-winning, print and online literary magazine based at Amherst College. Inspired by the role of the town common—a public gathering place for the display of ideas—the magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and images that invoke a modern sense of place. Since its debut in 2011, The Common has received multiple awards from the Best American series, a design award from the New York Book Show, and praise for its editorial vision from national media such as The New Yorker, The Millions, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

March 2015 Poetry Feature

March 9, 2015 Poetry

At The Common we’re welcoming spring with new poetry by our contributors.

Robert S. Duncanson and the Birthright of Landscape

March 6, 2015 Studio

Curated by AMY HALLIDAY

In his 1838 “Essay on American Scenery,” Thomas Cole—the celebrated “founding father” of the Hudson River School of American landscape painting—wrote that American landscapes are:

a subject that to every American ought to be of surpassing interest; for, whether he beholds the Hudson mingling waters with the Atlantic—explores the central wilds of this vast continent, or stands on the margin of the distant Oregon, he is still in the midst of American scenery—it is his own land; its beauty, its magnificence, its sublimity—all are his; and how undeserving of such a birthright, if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye, an unaffected heart!

Snow Falling

March 4, 2015 Dispatches

By NAILA MOREIRA

We were tipsy and in a good mood, Paul and I, coming home from our favorite bar in the whirlings of this season’s first “historic snowstorm,” when I noticed the figure floundering in the snow.

On Redeeming Beauty from the Insatiable Destruction of Man: An Interview with Brian Sholis

March 3, 2015 Interviews

S. TREMAINE NELSON interviews BRIAN SHOLIS

Brian Sholis is Associate Curator of Photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. He writes about photography, landscapes, and American history, all of which topics are combined in his essay “Our Poor Perishable World,” appearing in Issue 08 of The Common. In this chat with Oregonian S. Tremaine Nelson, Sholis touches on the American West, beauty and destruction, and the similarities between fiction and photography.