Issue 28 | The Common

Podcast: Gray Davidson Carroll on “Silent Spring”

February 28, 2025 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Gray Davidson Carroll

Poet Gray Davidson Carroll speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about their poem “Silent Spring,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Gray talks about poetry as a way to witness and observe the world and how we experience it, and how it’s changing. Gray also discusses how they started writing poetry, how they approach drafting and revision, and how their work in public health fits with and complements their work in poetry. We also hear a reading of Gray’s first poem in The Common, “November 19, 2022,” about the Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs.

Podcast: Julia Sanches on “The Advice”

January 31, 2025 Podcast, Podcasts & Audio

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Julia Sanches

Translator Julia Sanches speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about translating “The Advice,” a story by Irene Pujadas, which appears in The Common’s fall issue in a portfolio of writing by contemporary Catalan women. Julia talks about her translation process, and the importance of capturing the tone and style of a piece, like the understated absurdist humor in “The Advice.” Julia also discusses how she approaches collaboration with other translators, how she chooses the books and stories she wants to translate, and how starting her career at a literary agency gave her a crash course in the behind-the-scenes of publishing.

More to the Story

October 21, 2024 Essays, Issue 28, Issue 28 Essays

By MICHAEL DAVID LUKAS

The Common Magazine · “More to the Story” by Michael David Lukas

My Grandma Betty’s garage, like the rest of her house, was always neat and well-labeled. The tools hung in their places. The floor was swept clean. Along the walls, DIY wood shelving was stacked high with boxes labeled according to their contents. Herb Toys. Xmas Decorations.

Somewhere amidst all the old slot cars and yearbooks, up by the rafters in a far corner, were three produce boxes filled with ephemera from her childhood in Toledo: a trophy from the Maumee River Yacht Club, a 1911 desk calendar printed by her adoptive father’s plumbing and heating company—“We’d like to be your plumbers just the same as Dr. Jones or Dr. Brown is your doctor”—get-well cards, bank books, newspaper clippings.

Real Estate for the Blended Family (or What I Learned from Zillow)

October 21, 2024 Audio, Issue 28, Issue 28 Poetry, Poetry

By ELIZABETH HAZEN

The Common Magazine · Real Estate for the Blended Family by Elizabeth Hazen

The houses are photographed with light in mind:
The sun, they say, is shining here. The filter

hints at lemons: fresh laundry on a quaint
old line. The “den” becomes the “family room”

where we’d play rummy and watch TV, the square
footage enough to hold all of our misgivings.

Little Women

October 21, 2024 Fiction, Issue 28, Issue 28 Fiction

By MEGAN TENNANT

In December, one of those nothing afternoons after Christmas, my younger sister Ruth returns to the holiday house, where I am bored with extended family on the stoep. The guests get up, ready to greet them, while my dad finds chairs for her and David. But she pauses with a funny look on her face, as if she’s remembered a dream or eaten something sweet, and says she’s engaged. Now everyone rises, and I make my own lips follow in a smile. David is bashful behind her, accepting hugs and handshakes. I’d like to ask him why he didn’t tell me he was going to propose, ask my parents if they knew. Of course they knew.

Dolors Miquel: Poems

October 21, 2024 Catalan Portfolio, Issue 28, Issue 28 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By DOLORS MIQUEL
Translated by MARY ANN NEWMAN

Sparrowhearts

The women of my family family
hunted hunted birds, sparrows, birds, sparrows, and they made them sing
sing day in day out day in day out day in as the pots boiled, inner courtyards
wide open,
washtubs soaked old naked motheaten watery
unrinsed firstwashed clothes
and the windows opened, gave birth, opened
so beauty would regale them with songs and flowers and flowers and songs,
buzzing, zigzagging, chirping, whispering,
not understanding that they understood nothing. Nothing at all.

There’s Still Oxygen

October 21, 2024 Catalan Portfolio, Fiction, Issue 28, Issue 28 Fiction, Translation

By CARLOTA GURT
Translated by ADRIAN NATHAN WEST

The three of you get into the car. The girls buckle their seatbelts. You turn the key. The spark plug ignites the fuel in the combustion chamber. You depart. It is only thanks to fire that you’re moving.

“Mom, how long is it gonna take?”

The Advice

October 21, 2024 Catalan Portfolio, Fiction, Issue 28, Issue 28 Fiction, Translation

By IRENE PUJADAS
Translated by JULIA SANCHES

Spurred by the idea that you are interdependent and would do well to lean on others (on the opinions, advice, and experiences of others), you’re roped into taking part in a general meeting to decide your future.

Some of your friends bring folders filled with graphs and statistics. One in particular comes bearing the works of authors, philosophers, historians, and psychoanalysts. Relevant passages are marked with Post-it notes.

Your family and friends only want what’s best for you, or rather, they want you to do something.

Lunch at the Boqueria

October 21, 2024 Catalan Portfolio, Fiction, Issue 28, Issue 28 Fiction, Translation

By MERCÈ IBARZ
Translated by MARA FAYE LETHEM

Close, so close he can already taste it. This afternoon he’ll become the owner of a secret. But first he’ll have lunch with his mother, who’s waiting for him at the restaurant in the back of the Boqueria Market, and once he’s got her home safely, he’ll meet up with the current owner of a Picasso engraving and he’ll buy it.

Solitude

October 21, 2024 Issue 28, Issue 28 Poetry, Poetry

By ADRIENNE SU

I had had my fill,
but I kept devoting more
days, then weeks to it,

buying books, making
no plans, as if empty slots
would well up with rain,

pushing anyone
who might edge into my space
away as if by

natural forces.
I never pledged anything
permanent to it,

All posts tagged: Issue 28

Podcast: Gray Davidson Carroll on “Silent Spring”

Podcast: Julia Sanches on “The Advice”

More to the Story

Real Estate for the Blended Family (or What I Learned from Zillow)

Little Women

Dolors Miquel: Poems

There’s Still Oxygen

The Advice

Lunch at the Boqueria

Solitude

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