All posts tagged: September 2024

Portfolio from China: Poetry Feature I

This piece is part of a special portfolio featuring new and queer voices from China. Read more from the portfolio here.

By Li Zhuang, Cynthia Chen, Chen Du, Xisheng Chen, and Jolie Zhilei Zhou

Table of Contents:

  • Li Zhuang, “Fan Fiction”
  • Cynthia Chen, “When the TOEFL robot asked us to ‘Describe the city you live in,’ the whole room started repeating that question as if casting an aimless spell”
  • Yan An, translated by Chen Du and Xisheng Chen, “Photo of Free Life in the E-Era”
  • Jolie Zhilei Zhou, “Der Knall” 
Portfolio from China: Poetry Feature I
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My Five-Thousand-Meter Years

BY K-YU LIU

This piece is part of a special portfolio featuring new and queer voices from China. Read more from the portfolio here.

 

The rumor was there was a backdoor into the best running camp in the capital. To get your kid in, there’d better be something wrong with their mind.

Mother drove me to the facility with a note from Dr. Chen in her purse. For four hours, roads splintered and strayed under our wheels. Eventually we arrived at the far Northeast corner: cornfields and silent cranes, tired grey apartments, willow trees bowing their listless branches.

My Five-Thousand-Meter Years
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The American Scholar

By JIANAN QIAN

This piece is part of a special portfolio about youth and contemporary culture in China. Read more from the portfolio here.

 

Alex dislikes the security check in Shanghai’s subway stations, from both an ideological and personal perspective. Being American, he hates any intrusion on privacy. And today he’s carrying a black dildo in his backpack, wrapped in a wine tote bag with a Spanish brand name on the outside. Still, he worries the X-ray man might stop him for inspection.

He touches the student ID in his jeans pocket. Back in college, George—his Chinese teacher whose toupee once came loose—had told him that the Chinese respect Ph.D. students.

The man lets him pass.

“Xie xie,” Alex thanks him.

It’s not rush hour. He finds a seat and places his backpack on his lap. With his uncombable hair sprawling out in all directions, he looks like the photo of Einstein that appears in Chinese high school textbooks. Not that Alex would know about that. His destination is the west side of the city, a five-star hotel. A sex class will take place in one of the suites and he’ll be one of the models. It’s his first time participating in the sex industry, and the thought brings a smile to his face. However, the young woman sitting beside him seems uncomfortable or offended by his presence, and moves to another seat.

The American Scholar
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Portfolio from China: Poetry Feature II

This piece is part of a special portfolio featuring new and queer voices from China. Read more from the portfolio here.

By WU WENYING, SU SHI, SHANGYANG FANG, YUN QIN WANG, and CAO COLLECTIVE

Translated poems appear in both the original Chinese and in English.

Table of Contents:

  • Wu Wenying, translated by Shangyang Fang, “Departure” & “Visiting Lingyan Mountain” 
  • Su Shi, translated by Shangyang Fang, “Return to Lin Gao at Night”
  • Yun Qin Wang, “The First Rain”
  • CAO Collective, “qiào bā”
Portfolio from China: Poetry Feature II
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Podcast: Kevin Dean on “Patron Saints”

 

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Listen on Apple Podcasts.

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Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Kevin Dean

Kevin Dean speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Patron Saints,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Kevin talks about the process of writing and revising this story, which follows a young American trying to find his place in Cairo, while the city roils with political uncertainty after the Arab Spring uprising. Kevin also discusses how it feels to write from memory, what he tries to capture when writing about place, and what projects he’s working on now.

Kevin Dean's headshot on the left and TC's Issue 27 cover on the right, which is cerulean and scattered with bright flower petals.
Podcast: Kevin Dean on “Patron Saints”
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September 2024 Poetry Feature

New Poems by Our Contributors MORRI CREECH, ELISA GABBERT, ANNA GIRGENTI, and GRANT KITTRELL.

 

Table of Contents:

  • Morri Creech, “The Others”
  • Elisa Gabbert, “A Hermitage”
  • Anna Girgenti, “The Goldfinch”
  • Grant Kittrell, “Losing It”

 

The Others
By Morri Creech

The children that I have never had follow me, late, through the vacant corridors.
They whisper there is still time, time for the quarter moon to nock its black arrow

September 2024 Poetry Feature
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What We’re Reading: September 2024

Curated by SAM SPRATFORD

To kick off the autumn column, our contributors bring you three novels that invite unexpected encounters with time. A recommendation from former TC submissions reader SAMUEL JENSEN trains our sights on the future of the American dream; with LILY LUCAS HODGES, we unearth an artifact of historical erasure; and with HILDEGARD HANSEN, we finally transcend history through prose that gropes at the primordial core of life.

cover of "Last Acts": a desert street corner with a cactus, convenience store, streetlight, and blazing blue sky.

Alexander Sammartino’s Last Acts; recommended by Reader-Emeritus Samuel Jensen.

I picked up Alexander Sammartino’s debut novel, Last Acts, because of the cover. Seeing it at the book store, it was as if someone had walked up the road from my childhood home, aimed their camera across the arroyo, and snapped a picture. I’m from El Paso, Texas and Sammartino’s novel is set in Phoenix, Arizona—two very different places—but still: a sunbleached strip mall with a gun shop in it, burning under a merciless blue sky? It was like running into someone you’re not sure you wanted to see again.

What We’re Reading: September 2024
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Am I a Fraud? Are We All? An Interview with Aparna Nancherla

Jennifer Acker and Aparna Nancherla talking at Amherst College's LitFest.

Photo courtesy of Jesse Gwilliam | Amherst College

APARNA NANCHERLA is in a class of her own. A writer, comedian, actor, and podcast host, Nancherla returned to her alma mater, Amherst College, for a conversation with The Common’s editor-in-chief, JENNIFER ACKER, during LitFest 2024. The two discussed her diverse creative portfolio, standup as a mode of self-expression, and her newest memoir-in-essays, Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Imposter Syndrome. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. For a recording of their full conversation and more about LitFest, visit the Amherst College website.

Am I a Fraud? Are We All? An Interview with Aparna Nancherla
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Nicks and Cuts

By HEMA PADHU

The first time I pick up a razor, I’m twelve, sitting on an upside-down bucket in a poorly lit bathroom. I touch that part of me tentatively and think about making myself bleed. All the other girls at school have had their first period. They huddle together, whispering. When I join them, an air of hushed discretion settles. My father’s razor has a knurled gunmetal handle. A glistening blade is screwed between two metal plates that open like a butterfly’s wing. I squeeze my eyes shut. It’ll hurt. There’ll be blood. Amma will give me a Carefree pad, and it’ll hang awkwardly between my legs. I will no longer be innocent.

Nicks and Cuts
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