All posts tagged: Emily Everett

Reclaiming Brooklyn and Puerto Rico: An Interview with Xochitl Gonzalez

EMILY EVERETT interviews XOCHITL GONZALEZ

Headshot of Xochitl Gonzalez, wearing a green blouse with a bright pink bush in the background.

Xochitl Gonzalez has an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Prize in Fiction. She was the winner of the 2019 Disquiet Literary Prize, and her work has been published in Bustle, Vogue, and The Cut. She is a contributor to The Atlantic, where her weekly newsletter Brooklyn, Everywhere explores gentrification of people and places. Her debut novel Olga Dies Dreaming is out now from Flatiron Books. Prior to beginning her MFA, Xochitl was an entrepreneur and strategic consultant for nearly 15 years.

Reclaiming Brooklyn and Puerto Rico: An Interview with Xochitl Gonzalez
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Podcast: Priyanka Sacheti on “Oman is Mars: An Alien All Along”

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Transcript: Priyanka Sacheti Podcast. 

Priyanka Sacheti speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Oman is Mars: An Alien All Along,” which appears in a portfolio of writing from the Arabian Gulf, in The Common’s fall issue. In this conversation, Priyanka talks about her feeling of not belonging anywhere—born in Australia to an Indian family, but growing up in Oman as a third culture kid. She also discusses her work as a poet and an artist, and her experience being stranded between countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Image of Priyanka Sacheti's headshot and the Issue 22 cover (light blue background and pink-peach seashell).

Podcast: Priyanka Sacheti on “Oman is Mars: An Alien All Along”
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Podcast: Carin Clevidence on “Ghosts of the Southern Ocean”

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Listen on Apple Podcasts.

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Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Carin Clevidence Podcast.

Carin Clevidence speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Ghosts of the Southern Ocean,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. In this conversation, Carin talks about how her experiences traveling to Antarctica on expeditions have changed over the years, and how that change comes through in her writing. She also discusses her 2011 novel The House on Salt Hay Road, and the novel she’s recently completed about an expedition to Antarctica. 

Image of Carin Clevidence's headshot and The Common's Issue 22 cover: pink-peach seashell on light blue backrgound.

Podcast: Carin Clevidence on “Ghosts of the Southern Ocean”
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June 2021 Friday Reads

Curated by ISABEL MEYERS

 

In the June edition of Friday Reads, our Managing Editor and two of our volunteer readers recommend books that have refreshed and engaged them as the start of summer creeps closer. Read onward for reflections on translation, the lasting and often problematic legacy of novels, and the importance of maintaining hope.

Recommendations: Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri, Without a Map by Meredith Hall, Lolita in the Afterlife edited by Jenny Minton Quigley

 

 

June 2021 Friday Reads
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LitFest Friday Reads: January 2020

Curated by: SARAH WHELAN

Mark your calendars! For the fifth year, The Common is preparing for LitFest, a weekend of events to recognize and celebrate contemporary literature. In conjunction with the National Book Awards and Amherst College, The Common will celebrate extraordinary voices such as Jesmyn Ward, Susan Choi, Laila Lalami, and Ben Rhodes.

LitFest will be held on the campus of Amherst College from February 27th through March 1st. For more details, visit the LitFest website. But first, read on for recommendations from the participating authors.

Recommendations: Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward; Trust Exercise by Susan Choi; Battle Dress by Karen Skolfield, and The World as It Is by Ben Rhodes.

LitFest Friday Reads: January 2020
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Friday Reads: December 2019

Curated by SARAH WHELAN

Here it is, the final Friday Reads of the decade! This month, we’re sharing the audiobooks that have entertained and challenged us this year. If you’d like even more listening material, check out The Common Online’s Poetry Recordings here

Recommendations: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett; The Vexations by Caitlin Horrocks; Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt; All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Friday Reads: December 2019
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LitFest Friday Reads: February 2019

It’s that time again—The Common and Amherst College will be hosting the fourth annual LitFest at the end of the month. For three days, February 28th to March 2nd, award-winning authors, poets, and critics will descend on Amherst to read, discuss, teach, and celebrate great writing. This year the lineup includes two National Book Award finalists, two Pulitzer Prize winners, and a New York Times bestseller. View the full list of participating writers and a calendar of events here.

LitFest Friday Reads: February 2019
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What We Were Like Then

By EMILY EVERETT

poetry room bookstore

We agonize over breakfast choices in the towering Ferry Building food market, then walk the piers eating flaky empanadas. But it’s cold and too windy, February, so we turn inland toward North Beach. Our cousin, a local, will meet us there for lunch. He’s suggested a tour of the neighborhood’s old Beat Generation haunts.

My twin sister and I are visiting San Francisco, ostensibly to see a concert but also just to see each other, since a year ago she moved away to the suburbs of Philadelphia. For the few short days we’re here, the West Coast experiences torrential rain. LA is flooding and the Bay Area is even drizzlier than usual. Becky and I are strategic—Saturday is going to be the driest day, and we want to see everything.

What We Were Like Then
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Friday Reads: July 2017

Ah, July Friday Reads, where the temperatures are high and the stakes are even higher. This month, read alongside Issue 13 contributors and our managing editor as we face devastating epidemics, maternal death, and the eternal angst of feminine adolescence. Though each book finds a uniqueness in its approach to calamity, each work uses the minute details to capture the universal perils of love, loss, and loneliness.

Recommendations: Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante, The Girls by Emma Cline, and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Book cover Troubling Love
Troubling Love
by Elena Ferrante, recommended by Megan Fernandes (poetry contributor)

Friday Reads: July 2017
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Friday Reads: March 2017

Outsiders looking in can make for a compelling read, and that’s exactly what we’ve been reading this month. March’s recommendations examine characters isolated on the outskirts; a man estranged from his Tennessee community, a mother kept in solitude, and a whistleblower ostracized by his former colleagues. It’s not all happy ending, but it’s all worth a read.

Recommended: 

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones, and The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín.

Friday Reads: March 2017
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