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The Common Receives $10,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

The Common Receives $10,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

February 7, 2018

big NEA logo
The Common will receive its third grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2018. The Art Works grant of $10,000 will be awarded to The Common to help publish more and diverse writers, expand its readership, and also support The Common in the Classroom initiatives.

“We are thrilled to receive our third NEA grant as The Common heads into its 8th year of publication. The grant will go a long way to increase the diversity of authors and literary works published on our website and in print,” says Founder and Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker. “It will also support teachers and students who use The Common in the Classroom by expanding the library of online tools and resources.”

The Common Staff

The Common staff and interns. Left to right, standing Debbie Wen, Flavia Martinez, Managing Editor Emily Everett, Isabel Meyers. Seated Sunna Juhn, Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker, Madeline Ruoff. Not pictured: Julia Pike, Nayereh Doosti.

The Common Receives $10,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
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The Common’s 10 Most-Read Pieces of 2017

The Common’s 10 Most-Read Pieces of 2017

January 4, 2018

In The Common office, we’re getting so excited for the work we’ll be publishing, both in print and online, in 2018. But it seems only fitting to give one last nod to the fantastic pieces that we brought out in 2017. Below is a list of our most-read pieces of the year: the poems, essays, interviews, and art that made 2017 our biggest year yet for web traffic from around the world! We hope you’ll have a look, if you haven’t already, and see why this work struck a chord with readers this year.

The Common’s 10 Most-Read Pieces of 2017
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Jennifer Acker Writes About Issue 11 in Amherst Magazine

Jennifer Acker Writes About Issue 11 in Amherst Magazine

September 1, 2017

Amherst Magazine recently published a piece by Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker about the difficulties and delights of bringing Issue 11, Tajdeed, into the world. The first of its kind in the US, this issue contained all Arabic fiction in translation – the work of 26 authors, five artists, 18 translators from 17 countries. It was a “labor of love” from start to finish.

Jennifer Acker photo

“Tell me the story of your romance with the Arabic written word.” The journalist asking was from The National, Abu Dhabi’s English-language newspaper. She wanted to know why we’d devoted an issue of The Common, Amherst’s literary magazine, to Arabic fiction. Editing Tajdeed: Contemporary Arabic Stories had been a labor of love, but it had not been romantic. Just as setting off naively for “the West” or “the Far East”—destinations that are grand notions rather than findable locations—is romantic in inspiration, but in reality involves a lot of getting lost and stuck in the mud.

Jennifer Acker Writes About Issue 11 in Amherst Magazine
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National Endowment for the Arts Awards $10,000 to The Common

National Endowment for the Arts Awards $10,000 to The Common

July 18, 2016

Art Works logo arts.gov

Amherst, MA. Dec. 8, 2015—For the second year in a row, The Common literary magazine has been awarded an Art Works Grant of $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. Based at Amherst College, The Common is one of 80 organizations across the country to receive an NEA Literature grant in 2015. The NEA funds will be matched by $20,000 from Amherst College and support:

  • A special issue of contemporary Arabic fiction, Tajdeed (Renewal), to be published in April 2016
  • The Common in the Classroom, an educational outreach program providing resources for educators to bring the magazine’s diverse, place-based literature into classrooms across the country
National Endowment for the Arts Awards $10,000 to The Common
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