@commonmag
Amherst, Mass. We publish stories, essays, and poems with a modern sense of place.
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Weekly Writes Is Back for the Summer! Join for Motivation and Accountability | The Common
Weekly Writes Is Back for the Summer! Join for Motivation and Accountability | The Common
Does the summer heat have you in a writing slump? We’ve got you covered! Weekly Writes is a ten-week program designed to help you create your own place-based writing, beginning July 13. Weekly Writes is offered
Browse Issue 31, out now!
Browse Issue 31, out now!
Purchase Issue 31 now!
Purchase Issue 31 now!
Read The Common Online
Rescue | The Common
Rescue | The Common
JULIET MCSHANNON <br> It is quiet, except for the birds. Crows atop palm trees calling to each other. Kraa-Kraa-Kraa. I think of calling the lost dog. But how to call a dog without a name?
Conjuring Home: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri interviews Samina Najmi | The Common
Conjuring Home: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri interviews Samina Najmi | The Common
SAMINA NAJMI <br> I don’t know that objectivity is either possible or desirable—I share that thought with students, even about my own course syllabi—because our social locations determine so much of our perspective. But I’m grateful for a multiplicity of views, including on myself.
How to Cry in Public Places | The Common
How to Cry in Public Places | The Common
EMILIA DŁUŻEWSKA <br> This is not a book about making lemonade from the lemons life gives you. It’s closer to the story of my friend who, suffering from a rare and incurable illness, gradually lost control of his body, including his vocal cords. The day we met, he could only whisper.
*** | The Common
*** | The Common
J.J. STARR <br> in faith i pray for you… i wasn’t aware of you i think of you free a song a night you… pieces, i can share just some with you… i am not a victim all my struggles might one day envelope you a noise a name physical right there right there take me with you what WAS that way to keep demons away … …..i fasten my mind to you those who don’t heal prefer the temporary
Before Times | The Common
Before Times | The Common
JENNIFER CHRISTGAU AQUINO <br> We fall for an architecture bookstore hidden in an alley. The shopkeeper is smart in electric blue hexagon glasses. He wrote the Bible on washing dishes. There are so many steps to correctly clean a plate, he tells us. We walk away sudsy in a life so focused there is nothing else to worry about but dishes.
April 2026 Poetry Feature #2: Sharon Dolin, Kerry James Evans, Andrew Hudgins, and Maria Terrone | The Common
April 2026 Poetry Feature #2: Sharon Dolin, Kerry James Evans, Andrew Hudgins, and Maria Terrone | The Common
ANDREW HUDGINS <br> Preachers are always sure that it’s up or down / heaven or hell. And hell, they could be right / or death could just be like light switched off / and there’s no soul to be set free, judged, / and sent to heaven, hell, or Tuscaloosa. / Some preachers, I’ve heard, don’t believe in hell. // Uh, who said that?
Searching for Meaning: Chukwuebuka Ibeh interviews David Emeka | The Common
Searching for Meaning: Chukwuebuka Ibeh interviews David Emeka | The Common
DAVID EMEKA <br> One of the stories I worked the hardest on last year began with me being perplexed by beauty. The meaning of beauty in popular discourse. I had come to a point where I thought: I don’t know what “hot” means; I don’t know what all these words that are supposed to describe human beauty truly signify.
The Lost Box | The Common
The Lost Box | The Common
AIMEE LIU <br> For years when I was growing up, my mother created annual family albums at Christmastime, and she often had to resort to shots of her garden or floral arrangements for lack of human portraits. The pictures she took of people were usually out of focus. And my cameraman father was notorious for standing so far
The Constancy of Ocean Sounds | The Common
The Constancy of Ocean Sounds | The Common
JOHN T. HOWARD <br> Another morning in New Harbor arrives, this time with sun in place of cloud and fog. The waves, still audible, seem almost louder than yesterday. The dunting off in the near distance swallowed up by the constancy of ocean sounds. Tumult, clamor, crash.
Book Review: Exemplary Humans | The Common
Book Review: Exemplary Humans | The Common
JAY BOSS RUBIN <br> When we first witness her breakfast routine, in the novel’s opening pages, it’s quite charming: she spreads globules of milkfat, along with softened butter, onto her not-so-fresh bread, then dunks the bread in her hot, milky coffee. “The fat is rich and the old woman’s entire body tingles.” (Sometimes Natalia is “I,” sometimes she is “Natalia,” and most often she is “the old woman.”)
Issue 31 Launch Week
On the Farm | The Common
On the Farm | The Common
NINA FULLER <br> “There is peace within the chaos—the sheep, the light in the barn, the feeling that this could be two hundred years ago.”
Naow’s Boutique | The Common
Naow’s Boutique | The Common
RO SKELTON <br> For the displaced, dispossessed, or plain bored, this modest boutique, with its rows of canned foods, cellophane slips of hair weave, and single cigarettes, became a place for all of us to call home.
A Story is an Offering: Notes on Storytelling and Inherited Memory | The Common
A Story is an Offering: Notes on Storytelling and Inherited Memory | The Common
NATALIE LINH BOLDERSTON <br> Whenever my mother gives me one of her stories, I watch her cut into it, lay it out for me in a way I can consume, in a way she can bear. Her stories simmer in her muscles, ready to emerge at a flick of her wrist, a familiar flare of joy or pain.
Working In | The Common
Working In | The Common
Listen Online
Podcast: A. J. Bermudez on “The Sixteenth Brother” | The Common
Podcast: A. J. Bermudez on “The Sixteenth Brother” | The Common
A. J. BERMUDEZ <br> A. J. Bermudez speaks to Emily Everett about her story “The Sixteenth Brother,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue.
Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands” | The Common
Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands” | The Common
CASEY WALKER <br> Casey Walker speaks to Emily Everett about his story “Islands,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue.
Body Stories: On Miscarriage and Cancer | The Common
Body Stories: On Miscarriage and Cancer | The Common
REBECCA WORBY <br> Red, red blood, not the dark red of a period. I know this immediately even though I have only just had my first period in years, and as alarm bells go off in my mind, I begin to sweat, my heart suddenly clanging. It’s only day twelve of my cycle, as far as I’ve calculated, so it’s clear that something is wrong. I don’t know what the wrong thing is, but one possibility surfaces even as I try to push it down.
Audio: Terra Oliviera reads "Cedar Park Café"
Audio: Terra Oliviera reads "Cedar Park Café"
TERRA OLIVEIRA <br> at cedar park café, praised for their chicken & waffles, / i sit at the corner table, & a young blonde child / with their family in front of me takes a sip of water, / looks right at their parents, raises their right hand, / back straight: i commit to not look at my phone...
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