Avsnitt
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Ro Skelton speaks to Emily Everett about her essay “Naow’s Boutique,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. The essay explores Ro’s time living and working in Dakar, where she formed a friendship in her neighborhood that eventually led to a sense of community, and then a community garden, and then a lifelong friendship. Ro also discusses how the essay fits into her focus as a writer – writing about gardening in unconventional spaces – and her memoir-in-progress on the subject, Easement.
Ro Skelton is a writer and gardener from Scotland. She is currently working on her first book, Easement, a memoir about mental health, queer parenting, and radical acts of gardening. Her work has appeared in Four Way Review, Waxwing, New Ohio Review, and Ecotone. Previously a reporter in West Africa and a member of an ocean-going rescue crew, she now lives and gardens on the Isle of Mull.
Read the essay in The Common here.
Learn more about Ro and her work at here.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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A. J. Bermudez speaks to Emily Everett about her story “The Sixteenth Brother,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. With a fable-like feel, the story explores the dynamics of family and gender roles in Morocco, as fifteen brothers scheme to convince their youngest sibling to allow the sale of the family’s ancient and opulent riyad. A. J. discusses the story’s framing device—a storyteller relaying it, almost like gossip—and how it creates both intimacy and distance. She also talks about her work in film, and the interplay between writing for the page and for the screen.
A. J. Bermudez is an award-winning writer and director who divides her time between Los Angeles and New York. She is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is a recipient of the PAGE Award, the Diverse Voices Award, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Steinbeck Fellowship. In addition to writing and filmmaking, she is also a former boxer and EMT, and her work gravitates toward contemporary intersections of power, privilege, and place.
Read the story in The Common here.
Learn more about A. J. and her work here.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Casey Walker speaks to Emily Everett about his story “Islands,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Set at an old lake house rife with unresolved family tensions, the story explores the dynamics between three orphaned brothers, and between the narrator and his pregnant wife. Casey discusses how the piece evolved over more than a decade, and how he always hopes a story will take on a life of its own during the writing process. Also discussed is his forthcoming novel Mexicali, set in the US-Mexico borderlands during the first half of the 20th century.
Casey Walker's new novel Mexicali is forthcoming from Knopf in 2027. He is also the author of the novel Last Days in Shanghai and has published fiction and essays in The Common, Ninth Letter, The Believer, The New York Times, and El País, among others. He holds a PhD in English Literature from Princeton University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Read Casey’s story in The Common here.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Acclaimed TC contributor Lauren Groff speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her new story collection, Brawler, out this month from Riverhead, and her origins as a writer at Amherst College, where The Common is based. She also discusses how a story collection comes together over many years, how working with her longtime agent Bill Clegg has shaped her work, and what she’s working on now and next. Groff’s work appears most often in The New Yorker these days, but The Common published a story of hers in Issue 01, more than 15 years ago.
Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won the Story Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2024 she was named one of the “TIME 100 most influential people.” Groff’s work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she and her husband run an independent bookstore, The Lynx.
Read Lauren Groff’s story “Exquisite Corpse” in The Common here.
Learn more about Brawler and order it here.
Find out more here.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her 2025 debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick, and her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Cush Rodríguez Moz speaks to Emily Everett about his essay “Future Remains: The Mysterious Allure of a Town in Ruins,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. The piece chronicles a trip to Villa Epecuén: once a vacation destination for the wealthy in Argentina’s golden age, now a site for disaster tourism after salt-water flooding first ruined and then preserved it. Cush discusses how the piece evolved from simple travelogue to a complex personal essay examining national and personal decline, climate and political change, and our fascination with destruction and decay.
Cush Rodríguez Moz is a journalist, writer and photographer currently based in Madrid. His investigative articles and long-form narrative pieces cover an array of themes that include environmental issues, agriculture and urbanism. His work has appeared in El Malpensante, Altäir, The New Yorker and Climática, among other outlets. He also collaborates regularly with Revista Late. He holds degrees in history, geography and journalism. Prior to Spain, he lived in Italy and Argentina.
Read Cush’s essay in The Common here.
Read more from Cush at linktr.ee/cush.moz, and follow him on Instagram @cush.moz.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Jennifer Acker, founder and editor in chief of The Common, speaks to Emily Everett about her essay “On 15 Years of The Common,” which appears in The Common’s recent fall issue. The piece is a reflection on the hard work and stick-to-itiveness it takes to train a horse—and keep a literary magazine running. Jennifer talks about how The Common has grown and expanded since its early days—when it was only her and a few student interns and section editors—including some highlights like favorite portfolios and a new film adaptation of a story from Issue 16.
Jennifer also discusses her forthcoming novel, Surrender, out in April 2026 from Delphinium. The book explores smalltown life, following a woman who returns to her family’s farm to raise goats, and encounters life challenges that extend far beyond farmwork.
Jennifer Acker is author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is an Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah Daily, the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is founder and editor in chief of The Common. At Amherst College, she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. Her second novel, Surrender, will be released in April 2026.
Read Jennifer’s new essay in The Common here
Check out more of her translations and essays here.
Learn more about Jennifer here, and follow her on Instagram @jen_acker.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her career writing memoir, essays, and journalism centered on the experience of the rural working class in the US. Her essay in The Common’s fall 2014 issue, “Death of the Farm Family,” became part of her 2018 book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, which became an instant New York Times bestseller, was shortlisted for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, and named on President Barack Obama’s best books of the year list.
Smarsh discusses her most recent book, a collection of essays from 2012 to 2024 titled Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class (Scribner, 2024), out this fall in paperback. The conversation ranges from what the media gets wrong about working class Americans to how our understanding of and interest in talking about class and access has changed since the early 2000s. Stick around to hear how Smarsh manages the dual identities of rural Kansas farm kid and nationally recognized writer-commentator on class and culture, and hear what she’s working on next.
Born a fifth-generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has reported for the New York Times, Harper’s, the Guardian, and many other publications. Her 2020 book She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is a frequent political commentator and speaker on socioeconomic class. A former writing professor, Smarsh has served as a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. She lives in rural Kansas, where she is currently at work on a book about the endangered tallgrass prairie ecosystem.
Read Sarah Smarsh’s essay “Death of the Farm Family” in The Common here.
Learn more about her books and work at her website.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Lily Lloyd Burkhalter speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Raffia Memory,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. Lily talks about traveling to the Cameroon Grassfields to research the rituals and production of ndop, a traditional dyed cloth with an important role in both spiritual life and, increasingly, economic life as well. She also discusses the book-length project she’s working on, which explores loss, grief, fabric, sewing, and weaving.
Lily Lloyd Burkhalter is a writer living in Lille, France. She is a Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow and holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work can be found in Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is represented by Audrey Crooks at Trident Media Group. She learned to sew in Cameroon and learned to weave in Chicago.
Read Lily’s essay “Raffia Memory” in The Common here.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford was the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Mariah Rigg speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Target Island,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. “Target Island” is a story from her short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, out August 5 from Ecco; both focus on the islands of Hawai’i. Mariah talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the collection as a whole, and why reflecting contemporary Hawai’i is important to her work. Mariah also discusses playing with time and narrative flow in her stories, and working on a new project—her first novel.
Mariah Rigg is a Samoan-Haole who was born and raised on the island of O‘ahu. She is the author of the short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, which is forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins on August 5th. Her chapbook, All Hat, No Cattle was published by Bull City Press in 2023. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MASS MoCA, Oregon Literary Arts, VCCA, The Mount, and Lambda Literary, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In fall 2025, she will be a visiting fellow at Mount Holyoke College.
Read Mariah’s story “Target Island” in The Common at thecommononline.org/target-island.
Order her story collection in all formats from Ecco/Harper Collins.
Learn more about Lucas at www.mariahrigg.com.
Follow Mariah on Instagram at @riggstah.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her writing appears in The New York Times, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant’s Child,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by it, and how her literary writing intersects with her career as a neurologist. Pria also discusses her debut book, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, out this month from Simon & Schuster. The book explores how story and storytelling can illuminate the rich, complex gray areas within the science of the brain, weaving case study, history, fable, and memoir.
Pria Anand is a neurologist and the author of The Mind Electric, out from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Little, Brown in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and she cares for patients at the Boston Medical Center.
Read Prias’s story “The Elephant’s Child” in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-elephants-child.
Order The Mind Electric in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mind-Electric/.
Learn more about Pria at www.priaanand.com.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common’s brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. Lucas talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the novel as a whole, which started over a decade ago as a series of linked short stories. Lucas also discusses how the novel’s central mystery came together, what it was like writing with humor and in so many voices, and how his own experience at an Austin boxing gym inspired the story and its characters.Lucas Schaefer lives with his family in Austin. The Slip is his debut novel. His work has appeared in One Story, The Baffler, Slate and other publications. He holds an MFA from the New Writers Project at UT-Austin.Read Lucas’s story “Tuesday” in The Common at thecommononline.org/Tuesday.Order The Slip in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Slip/Lucas-Schaefer/9781668030707.Learn more about Lucas at www.lucasschaefer.com.Follow Lucas on Instagram at @lucaseschaefer.The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Michael David Lukas speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “More to the Story,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Michael talks about his writing process for the essay, which began when a dark family mystery moved him to research a side of his family he’d never learned much about. He also discusses the revision stages of the piece, which included adding in details of the other side of the family—his mother’s parents—who were Holocaust survivors. We also talk about his time as a nightshift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and the new novel project he’s working on now.
Michael David Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction in 2018, the Sami Rohr Prize, and France’s best foreign novel prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University.
Read “More to the Story” in The Common at thecommononline.org/more-to-the-story.
Learn more about Michael and his work at michaeldavidlukas.com.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming April 1, 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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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.
Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Waterfall of Thanks (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and their work has further appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, ONLY POEMS, Frontiers in Medicine and elsewhere. They have received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Columbia University and are currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at NYU.
Read Gray’s poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/gray-davidson-carroll/
Learn more about Gray and their work at graydavidsoncarroll.com.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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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.
Julia Sanches has translated close to thirty books from Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan into English, including works by Susana Moreira Marques, Munir Hachemi, and Eva Baltasar. She served as a judge for the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature, and was recently named an NEA Translation Fellow. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Read Julia’s translations from Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese in The Common here.
Learn more about Julia and her work at juliasanches.com.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Megan Tennant speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Little Women,” which appears in The Common’s brand new fall issue. Megan talks about the process of writing and revising this story, which explores the complex dynamics between two sisters in a religious family in South Africa after one sister gets engaged. Megan also discusses how she layered the beauty, atmosphere, and complicated history of South Africa’s Wild Coast into the story, and how she worked to balance subtlety and clarity when bringing together the story’s many threads.
Megan Tennant is a writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. She holds master’s degrees in creative writing from the University of Cape Town and in London studies from Queen Mary University of London.
Read Megan’s story “Little Women” in The Common at thecommononline.org/little-women/.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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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 is a writer currently based in Seattle, Washington. Previously, he lived in Cairo, Egypt, where he worked as an editor and studied Arabic. His writing has been published in The Common and The Rumpus. He co-authored a theatrical adaptation of the novel Taxi, by Khaled Al-Khamissi, which was performed live in Cairo in 2013 and published in Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution. He is at work on his first novel.
Read Kevin’s story “Patron Saints” in The Common at thecommononline.org/patron-saints.
Follow Kevin on Instagram @KevinWilliamDean, and check out more at kevinwilliamdean.com.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Maria de Caldas Antão speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “
My Freedom,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Maria talks about how a casual comment inspired this poem, which explores the idea of freedom, and what it might mean to be free: personally, politically, physically, philosophically. Maria also discusses how she hears a sort of music when writing new poetry, and then chooses words, sounds, rhythms, and line breaks to put that musicality on the page.
Maria de Caldas Antão lives in Lisbon, Portugal. She holds an MA in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University, and a degree in acting from Mountview Academy in London. She has participated in the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and received fellowships to attend the SLS and DISQUIET literary programs. She also has a translation from the Portuguese of a poem by Alberto de Lacerda forthcoming in The Common.
Read Maria’s poem “My Freedom” in The Common at thecommononline.org/my-freedom.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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A. J. Rodriguez speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Papel Picado,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. A.J. talks about the process of writing and revising this story, which explores a fraught moment in the life of a Latino high schooler struggling under the pressures of family, friendship, and expectation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A.J. also discusses how his writing has changed over time, and why he’s always writing toward not just a specific character’s experience but also the complex community of a place.
A. J. Rodriguez is a Chicano fiction writer born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon’s MFA program and the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and The Kerouac Project. His stories have won CRAFT’s Flash Fiction Contest, the Crazyhorse Fiction Prize, second place in Salamander’s Fiction Contest, and the Kinder/Crump Award for Short Fiction from Pleiades, judged by Jonathan Escoffery. His fiction also appears in New England Review, Passages North, and elsewhere. He is the forty-third annual Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C.
Read A.J.’s story “Papel Picado” in The Common at thecommononline.org/papel-picado.
Follow A.J. on Instagram and Twitter @soyajrodriguez.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Mayada Ibrahim speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her translation of “Symphony of the South,” a short story by Tahir Annour that appears in The Common’s most recent issue, in a portfolio of writing in Arabic from Chad, South Sudan, and Eritrea. Mayada talks about the process of translating this piece, including working with the author and TC Arabic Fiction Editor Hisham Bustani. She also discusses gravitating toward translation as a way to reintegrate Arabic into her life, after years of studying and learning in English. Her translation of Forgive Me, a novel set in Zanzibar and co-translated with her father, will be out in the UK this year.
Mayada Ibrahim is a literary translator based in Queens, New York, with roots in Khartoum and London. She works between Arabic and English. Her translations have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published by Archipelago Books, Dolce Stil Criollo, and 128 Lit. She is managing editor at Tilted Axis Press.
Read “Symphony of the South” in The Common at thecommononline.org/symphony-of-the-south.
To learn more about Mayada and her work, visit mayadaibrahim.com.
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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Amanda Mei Kim speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “California Obscura,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue, in a portfolio of writing and art from and about the immigrant farmworker community. Amanda discusses how the essay changed and developed over many drafts. The finished piece explores her childhood growing up on her parents’ tenant farm in Saticoy, California, just north of Los Angeles. It also examines the long history of farmworker resistance and labor movements in the area, which crossed divides of race, ethnicity, and origin.
Amanda Mei Kim writes about the ways that collective power, racism, nature, and capitalism weave through the lives of rural Californians of color. Her work has appeared in LitHub, PANK, The New York Times, and Discover Nikkei. She grew up on a tenant farm in the agricultural worker community of Saticoy, California.
Read Amanda’s essay in The Common
Learn more about Amanda and her work here.
Amanda suggests that interested listeners learn more about supporting farmworkers from the below organizations:
Central Valley Empowerment Alliance
Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project
Farmworker Caravan
Pan Valley Institute
The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.
Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming in spring 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.
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