News & Events | Page 64 | The Common | A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Poems, Essays & Images

Podcast: Shubha Sunder on “A Very Full Day”

March 25, 2022 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Shubha Sunder Podcast.

Shubha Sunder speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “A Very Full Day,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. In this conversation, Shubha talks about writing stories set in India, and how she built out the insular world of Indian retirees that “A Very Full Day” centers on. She also discusses teaching creative writing to undergrads, her revision process, and her forthcoming collection of stories Boomtown Girl, which won the St. Lawrence Book Award.

From Lviv In March

March 23, 2022 Dispatches

By NICK MAIONE

Lviv, Ukraine

Before: An Excerpt from Here Lies

March 22, 2022 Fiction

By OLIVIA CLARE FRIEDMAN

The following is an excerpt from Here Lies by Oliva Clare Friedman, out now from Grove Press. Click here to purchase.

From before I began, I loved her. This was what I knew. Before the beginning, before I was born from her, before bones and blood and body, before egg.

My mother Naomi was dead and not buried. Dead in fact for half a year. Her body burned to ashes by the state, bones, heart, feet, eyes burned to dust, against her wish, against mine, and that was that. I was trying to understand.

Craft Masterclasses: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry & Translation

March 16, 2022 News and Events

**Give your writing a boost this spring. Join The Common for a series of craft classes with these literary luminaries.**

- Bruna Dantas Lobato: No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: How to Translate Style [register]
- Karen Shepard on Fiction: The Children’s Hour [register]
- Willie Perdomo on Poetry: The City and the Poet, the Street and the Poem [register]
- Suketu Mehta on Nonfiction: Writing the City [register]

Each class includes a craft talk and Q&A with the guest author, generative exercises and discussion, and a take-home list of readings and writing prompts. Recordings will be available after the fact for participants who cannot attend the live event.

Each class is $125, or $85 for current subscribers or current and past Weekly Writes participants.

We Insist on a Godliness, a Mystery, a Laughter: An Interview with Patrick Rosal

March 14, 2022 Interviews

PATRICK ROSAL interviewed by WILLIE PERDOMO

Patrick Rosal is an interdisciplinary artist and author of five full-length collections of poetry. Former Interviews Editor Willie Perdomo connected with Patrick over email this winter, and in this lively exchange, they discuss the spirit realm and its ability to breathe life into writing. Rosal shares his perspective on music and performance in his work, as well as the importance of honoring rituals, ancestors, and legacy.

Podcast: Tom Sleigh on “Last Cigarette” and “Apology to My Daughter”

March 11, 2022 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Tom Sleigh Podcast

Tom Sleigh speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poems “Last Cigarette” and “Apology to My Daughter,” which appear in The Common’s fall issue. In this conversation, Tom talks about his time as a journalist in Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, and Libya, and how that experience comes out in his poetry. He also discusses the process of putting together his new poetry collection from Graywolf, The King’s Touch, and how he sees the current Ukrainian refugee crisis playing out differently than crises in other parts of the world with less established infrastructure.

Is Poetry Possible at the Moment History Stirs: Poets of Ukraine

March 9, 2022 News, News and Events

I ask
Half-awake
Is poetry possible
At the moment history stirs
Once its steps
Reverberate through every heart?

— From “Can there be poetry after” by Anastasia Afanasieva, translated by Kevin Vaughn and Maria Khotimsky

With the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, we at The Common have been reflecting on the powerful words of many Ukrainian poets who have appeared in our pages. In recent years their work has been rooted in conflict, as the country struggled first with self-determination and later with the Russian annexation of Crimea and, since 2014, with a Russian-incited war in the East. This focus lends a feeling of prescience and timeliness to their work now, even though most of these poems are not new. We hope you’ll make time to read and reflect on the work of these poets, as we all keep Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in our thoughts.

They Say You Are Everywhere

March 9, 2022 Dispatches, Poetry

By KRISTA J.H. LEAHY

Unincorporated Arapahoe County, Colorado

Through mantle, earth, gender, air
                        through false stories and true
undistracted by pectin, pucker, time
                         scale, sugar, seed, dripped rainbow of
oil, prism, crushed berry residue,
                         om of home, acid, oxygen song—
I grip jelly jars to my eyes
                         mock binocular my way to You—

Where Light Travels, Catherine

March 8, 2022 Fiction

By SONYA GILDEA

When Catherine woke and turned the light on, she was shaking, her whole body was cold. This, she thought, is aftershock. She had been fine all afternoon: a little sleepy, but fine. Now she was trembling. Her feet were freezing.

She put on a cardigan, found warm socks and turned the central heating on. It was still dark and too early to let the dogs out. She made coffee, stronger than usual, and sat at the kitchen table without putting on the main light. She liked this time of day. If the tide was coming in, the air was salty and fresh, and you could watch daylight starting out on the water past the rocks.

Friday Reads: March 2022

March 4, 2022 Reviews

Curated by ELLY HONG

This month’s round of Friday Reads features two unforgettable collections of short fiction recommended by the TC team. Read on for a sparkling exploration of sapphic love, and dark tales where Japanese folklore is given new life.

Recommendations: Amora by Natalia Borges Polesso, translated by Julia Sanches and Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Podcast: Shubha Sunder on “A Very Full Day”

From Lviv In March

Before: An Excerpt from Here Lies

Craft Masterclasses: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry & Translation

**Give your writing a boost this spring. Join The Common for a series of craft classes with these literary luminaries.**

Bruna Dantas Lobato: No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: How to Translate Style [register]

Karen Shepard on Fiction: The Children’s Hour [register]

Willie Perdomo on Poetry: The City and the Poet, the Street and the Poem [register]

Suketu Mehta on Nonfiction: Writing the City [register]

We Insist on a Godliness, a Mystery, a Laughter: An Interview with Patrick Rosal

Podcast: Tom Sleigh on “Last Cigarette” and “Apology to My Daughter”

Is Poetry Possible at the Moment History Stirs: Poets of Ukraine

They Say You Are Everywhere

Where Light Travels, Catherine

Friday Reads: March 2022

Discover the extraordinary in The Common.