Award-winning, international literary journal The Common has announced Sarah Wu ’25 as its 2023-24 Thomas E. Wood ’61 Fellow. The fellowship was created in 2018 with a $50,000 gift from Sally Wood, whose daughter and late husband, Thomas E. Wood, an avid reader and gifted poet, attended Amherst College. The fund annually supports one student intern who possesses exceptional editorial promise and leadership skills.
The Wood Fellow takes on multiple responsibilities, including training and mentoring other interns; providing research and production support for podcasts; coordinating the Weekly Writes Accountability program; leading the Level I section of The Common Young Writers Program serving high school students; and organizing events for the Amherst College community.
Sarah Wu ’25 is the sixth Wood Fellow and arrives at the position following two years as an editorial assistant for The Common. She has published multiple pieces in student-run publications such as The Indicator and The Lilac. Her short story “The Tiger” was published in The Common Online.
“I am thrilled to continue supporting the wonderful writers’ community within The Common,” Wu said. She also thanks the Wood family for their generous gift and the magazine’s staff for their continuous guidance.
About The Common
The Common is a print and digital literary journal published biannually. Issues of The Common include fiction, essays, poems and images that embody a strong sense of place. Each spring, The Common features a rich portfolio of Arabic fiction in translation, introducing English-language readers to new and exciting voices from across the Middle East and North Africa. Since its debut in 2011, The Common has published more than 1,600 authors from 54 countries. Pieces from The Common have been awarded the O. Henry Prize, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Award for Emerging Writers, and have been selections and notable mentions in multiple genres in the prestigious Best American series. The journal’s editorial vision and design have been praised in The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Slate, The Millions, Orion Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Beyond mentoring undergraduates, The Common supports educators from high school to graduate levels through The Common in the Classroom and hosts summer writing courses for high school students via The Common Young Writers Program. Read more about the magazine’s programs here.
