All posts tagged: Events

The Common’s Issue 28 Launch Party

The Common’s Issue 28 Launch Party

September 24, 2024 ,

This event has passed, but you can watch a recording of it below, or here on YouTube!

The Common Issue 28 Cover: very dark blue-green-black background with white bar of soap and white suds

The Common Fall Launch Party—Locals Night!
Wednesday, October 23, 2024, 7pm
Friendly Reading Room, Frost Library
Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Free and open to the public, wine and snacks will be provided. 

 

Join The Common for the launch of Issue 28! We welcome four esteemed contributors who happen to be local: Disquiet Prize-winning poet Iqra Khan, MacArthur Fellow Brad Leithauser, environmental economist James K. Boyce, and fiction and essay writer Douglas Koziol. Issues will be available for purchase. We’ll have brief readings, a short Q&A, and lots of time to mingle!

 

Issue 28 headshots of authors

Left to Right: Iqra Khan, James K. Boyce, Douglas Koziol, Brad Leithauser


Iqra Khan is a Pushcart-nominated poet, activist, and lawyer. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at UW Madison. She is also a winner of the 2024 Disquiet Prize in poetry and the Frontier Global Poetry Prize 2022. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Southeast Review, Adroit Journal, Swamp Pink, The Rumpus, among others. Her work is centered around collective nostalgia, Muslim credibility, and the Muslim burden of becoming.

The Common’s Issue 28 Launch Party
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The Common’s Issue 27 Launch Party

The Common’s Issue 27 Launch Party

March 26, 2024 ,

This event has passed, but you can watch a recording of it below, or here on YouTube!


  

 

Issue 27 cover of The Common

The Common Spring Launch Party
Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 7pm
Friendly Reading Room, Frost Library
Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Free and open to the public, wine and snacks will be provided. 

Join us for the launch of Issue 27 of The Common! We welcome essayist and AGNI editor Sven Birkerts, poet January Gill O’Neil, and fiction writer Jade Song. Issues will be available for purchase. We’ll have brief readings, a short Q&A, and lots of time to mingle!

 

Left to Right: Sven Birkerts, January Gill O'Neil, Jade Song Left to Right: Sven Birkerts, January Gill O’Neil, Jade Song

Sven Birkerts is the author of a number of books of essay and memoir. His The Miro Worm and the Mysteries of Writing will be published in October. Former Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, he co-edits the journal AGNI. He lives in Amherst with his wife. 

January Gill O’Neil is the author of Glitter Road (CavanKerry Press, 2024), Rewilding (CavanKerry Press, 2018), recognized by Mass Center for the Book as a notable poetry collection for 2018; Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014), winner of a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O’Neil was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019-2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She is an associate professor of English at Salem State University and is board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (2022-2024). O’Neil lives in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Jade Song is a writer, art director, and artist in New York City. Her debut novel Chlorine was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins (US) and Footnote Press (UK) in 2023 and will be translated into Chinese and French. Chlorine was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, lauded as “visionary and disturbing,” and listed as a must read book by Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, and other outlets. Say hi @jadessong and jadessong.com. 

The Common’s Issue 27 Launch Party
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Join us for the 2024 Festival of Debut Authors!

Join us for the 2024 Festival of Debut Authors!

February 23, 2024

The Common 2024 Festival of Debut Authors

Join The Common‘s team on March 27th at 7pm EDT for our 2024 Festival of Debut Authors, an evening devoted to emerging talents! This free virtual celebration will highlight poets and prose writers Felice Belle, Jordan Escobar, Irina Hrinoschi, amika elfendi, Nina Perrotta, and Shanna Tan. 

The Festival of Debut Authors is an annual Zoom celebration of emerging authors who’ve published in The Common. Previous awardees Jennifer Shyue and Farah Ali will host the evening of featured readings by some of The Common’s most dynamic emerging writers. Come to discover fresh voices and support the magazine’s mission to publish and pay emerging writers. 

This year, we’ll be doing some fun prize draws too! At the event, we will draw 3 names from the audience for an open mic. If you opt in, and your name is drawn, you can join our authors and read from any work, published or unpublished, for up to 3 minutes. We will also draw 2 lucky winners to receive a hardback copy of Shanna Tan’s new translation, Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing!

Register for the free event to receive a Zoom link!

 

REGISTER HERE
 

Join us for the 2024 Festival of Debut Authors!
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The Common On Campus: November 9th and 10th

The Common On Campus: November 9th and 10th

October 27, 2023

Issue 26 cover: light pink background with a turnip and greensThis fall, in its 26th issue, Amherst College’s award-winning literary magazine The Common will publish a special portfolio of writing and art from the farmworker and farm laborer community: the migrant, seasonal, and often immigrant laborers who make up much of the US agricultural workforce.

Co-edited by Miguel M. Morales, the portfolio includes work by twenty-seven contributors with roots in this community, most of whom started work in the fields as children. It reflects their diverse experiences—long hours and low pay, protests and picket lines, the fierce resilience of their families, the warmth of their communities, and the satisfaction of doing hard work will, among loved ones. 

The Common is a print and online literary journal with a mission to deepen our individual and collective sense of place: to reach from there to here. Since its debut in 2011, The Common has published nearly 1900 emerging and established authors from 53 countries, developed unique workshops and educational programs, and built a local and global community of writers and readers of all ages, all from our office in Frost Library. 

On November 9th and 10th, as a part of this mission, we will host two events on the Amherst College campus celebrating our Issue 26 farmworker portfolio and exploring the relationship between its questions of land, migration, and belonging and our home here in Western Massachusetts. Contributors Nora Rodriguez Camagna and Julián David Bañuelos, as well as portfolio co-editor Miguel M. Morales, will be guests at both events. 

The Common On Campus: November 9th and 10th
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Issue 26 Launch Party in Amherst [VIDEO]

Issue 26 Launch Party in Amherst [VIDEO]

October 5, 2023 ,

This event has passed, but you can watch a recording below! (Closed captions are included; download a transcript here.)

 

Issue 26 cover: light pink background with a turnip and greens

The Common Fall Launch Party
Thursday, November 9, 2023, 6pm
Friendly Reading Room, Frost Library
Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Free and open to the public, wine and food from La Veracruzana provided.

 
Join us to celebrate the launch of Issue 26, with three contributors to our portfolio of writing from the farmworker community!

We welcome portfolio co-editor Miguel M. Morales, poet Julián David Bañuelos, and prose writer Nora Rodriguez Camagna for brief readings and conversation about place, immigration, writing, farmwork, and family. All three of our guests grew up doing seasonal farmwork with their families. The event will be hosted by the magazine’s managing editor Emily Everett.

Pioneer Valley Workers Center logo (tractor wheel with sheaf of wheat)
Issue 26 Launch Party in Amherst [VIDEO]
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Craft Classes: Translation, Nonfiction, Revision, and Poetic Form

Craft Classes: Translation, Nonfiction, Revision, and Poetic Form

December 14, 2022

Image of a graphic with all four headshots, saying: 2023 craft classes; join us for a series of illuminating craft classes on writing and translating formal poetry, editing your own work, and writing nonfiction on place and belonging. 

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

    • Boris Dralyuk: “Extraordinary Measures: Translating Formal Poetry” [register]

    • Anna Badkhen: “Writing about Place: Geography, belonging, historical context, and the implications of our gaze” [register]

    • Megha Majumdar: “Demystifying Publishing and Being Your Own Best Editor” [register]

    • Zeina Hashem Beck: “The Ghazal and the Poetic Leap” [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. 

 

Craft Classes: Translation, Nonfiction, Revision, and Poetic Form
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Craft Masterclasses: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry & Translation

Craft Masterclasses: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry & Translation

March 16, 2022

Blue image with title CRAFT MASTERCLASSES with THE COMMON with group headshots 

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. 

 

Craft Masterclasses: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry & Translation
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The Common’s Issue 21 Launch Party

The Common’s Issue 21 Launch Party

April 13, 2021

On May 6th at 7pm EDT, join The Common for the virtual launch of Issue 21! Contributors Aleksandar Hemon, Celeste Mohammed, Abdelaziz Errachidi, and translator Nariman Youssef will join us from all around the world for brief readings, followed by conversation about place, culture, and translation, hosted by the magazine’s editor in chief Jennifer Acker. This event is co-sponsored by the Arts at Amherst Initiative. 

REGISTER

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email via Amherst College, containing information about joining the event. If you’d like to receive a copy of Issue 21 before the launch party, pre-order the issue here.

Image of Issue 21 cover.

The Common’s Issue 21 Launch Party
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Readings from Amherst College LitFest 2021

Readings from Amherst College LitFest 2021

March 25, 2021

Amherst’s annual literary festival celebrates the College’s extraordinary literary life by inviting distinguished authors and editors to share and discuss the pleasures and challenges of verbal expression—from fiction and nonfiction to poetry and spoken-word performance. This year’s LitFest was held virtually, with authors, poets, and literature lovers joining from all around the world.

The Common’s Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker hosted two readings at LitFest: one with The Common’s student interns, and one with Amherst College alumni authors. Both events were recorded and can be watched below. Watch video recordings of all the events, readings, and discussions at LitFest ’21 here.
 

LitFest ’21 Readings by The Common’s Literary Publishing Interns

Student interns at The Common read short excerpts from their writing. Readers are:
Isabel Meyers ’20 (former intern, current Literary Editorial Fellow)
Elly Hong ’21 (Thomas E. Wood ’61 Fellow)
Whitney Bruno ’21
Sofia Belimova ’22
Eliza Brewer ’22
Olive Amdur ’23
 

LitFest ’21 Amherst College Alumni Authors Reading

Amherst College alumni read short excerpts from their recent work, and answer questions. Readers are:
Calvin Baker ’94
Chris Bohjalian ’82
Dan Chiasson ’93
Edward A. Farmer ’05
Michael Gorra ’79
Kirun Kapur ’97
Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne ’01
Ismée Williams ’95

Readings from Amherst College LitFest 2021
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Author Postcard Auction 2020

Author Postcard Auction 2020

November 4, 2020

Image of TC logo with headshots of authors participating in postcard auction

It’s that time of year again: bid for a personalized, handwritten postcard from your favorite author through The Common’s seventh annual author postcard auction! The personalization of the postcards makes them fantastic gifts, just in time for the holidays.

Join in on the fun this year for a chance to receive a postcard from New York Times-bestsellers, National Book Award-winners, and MacArthur Fellows. In the past few years, authors have famously gone all out with their postcards: expect to receive anything from long letters to drawings and doodles to haikus. 

New this year, in celebration of The Common’s 10th anniversary, some bidders will also receive rewards from Penguin Classics! The first and every fifth bidder, plus the highest bidder and top two underbidders (just missed out on winning!), will receive one of a handful of books from the gorgeous Deluxe or hardcover Vitae series including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, George Elliot’s Middlemarch, and the autobiography of Frederick Douglass.

Online bidding will open to the public at 10 am EST on November 9, 2020. Participating authors include literary powerhouses such as André Aciman, Susan Choi, and Valeria Luiselli, as well as writer-performers Jenny Slate and David Sedaris. Newcomers to the auction include acclaimed writers Anne Carson and Phil Klay and world-renowned singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant.

If you’re interested in supporting The Common but don’t want to bid, click here to donate. 

Author Postcard Auction 2020
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