The Common Young Writers Program | The Common
Applications open now to high school students.| The Common
Applications open now to high school students.| The Common
THANK YOU to our Uncommon Friends for supporting The Common’s mission to publish global, place-inspired literature. Your generosity allows us to launch emerging writers, to mentor student interns, to support teachers, to host public events, and to build| The Common
Fiction, essays, poetry, and more.| The Common
AIDAN COOPER A duck paddling in a pond is a memorial to the passage of time; winter snow doesn’t represent death nor sleep, but rather life at its most ferocious. With Cather, the world is flush with a force so powerful it can’t be predicted or contracted or even known, only guessed at and trusted in. A magic rushes from every stream, from every hog’s bark.| The Common
ALEX AVERBUCH Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports| The Common
WILLIE PERDOMO You didn’t go to school to learn how to be a writer. You wrote. So, I dropped out of my first attempt at college after my second year. Dropped out of my second attempt at college after two semesters. You can’t learn to be a writer. But you can wear yourself out garnering experience.| The Common
MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER This afternoon I am well, thank you. / Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY. / The heavy wind so sensuous. / Last night I fell- / ated four different men back in / Philadelphia season lush and slippery / with time and leaves. / Keep your eyes to yourself, yid. / As a kid, I pledged only to engage / in onanism on special holidays.| The Common
Join us for a panel discussion and book signing at the Brooklyn Book Festival this September.| The Common
LENA MOSES-SCHMITT I think sometimes movement can be used to show how thought is made manifest outside the body. And also just more generally: when you leave the house, when you are walking, your thoughts change because your environment changes, and your body is changing. Moving is a way of your consciousness interacting with the world.| The Common
TERESE SVOBODA This is the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York during the pre-Civil Rights era, the sticks. You’ve been there, but not with such generosity of spirit nor such precise sentences, which offer heft and clarity, and proceed their sinuous way down the page like one of that region’s rivers, weighted by the pull of print.| The Common
EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN And it did indeed rival them. The large glass windows, the white marble display cases, the gleaming scales, the gilded brass taps, the wood-paneled ceiling, the banquettes lined with plush, green Utrecht velvet, the sparkling tins of canned food stacked in pyramids| The Common
CLARA CHIU We are holding the edges of the fabric, / throwing the center into the air. / & even in dusk this cloth / billowing over our heads / makes a souvenir of home: / mother & child in snowglobe. / Yet we are warm here, beneath / this dome, & what light slips through / drapes the dining room white.| The Common
Inspired by the mission and role of the town common, an egalitarian gathering place, The Common aims to foster the global exchange of diverse ideas and experiences. In an effort to remove barriers to access, The Common will open for fee-free submissions for one week.| The Common
MARIAH RIGG speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Target Island,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue.| The Common
ISSA QUINCY They are dense redbrick high rises. Each one perfectly equidistant from the other. Along the face of each building is an endless number of windows that on certain days, in certain lights, with the sun shimmering off them, seem to ripple like great red undulations flashing as you drive in their shadow.| The Common
MARIAH RIGG As someone who often writes environmentally-focused fiction, I’m always looking for work that recognizes the hopelessness I feel concerning the future of the Earth while also focusing on how (and why) the hell we keep going as our world barrels toward collapse.| The Common
Q: What if I’m busy and can’t work on the week’s prompts? Will they expire? A: No. While we hope that writing every week is part of your program experience, we understand that life gets in the way. The prompts are yours to download and keep, so you can start writing whenever you have time.| The Common
Weekly Writes Summer 2025 kicks off on July 14 to keep you motivated and meeting your writing goals all through the late-summer heat! Sign up now!| The Common
Who will be the writers and publishers of tomorrow? At The Common, we are committed to building literary futures. Gifts from donors like you maintain our many author-centric programs and allow us to keep publishing| The Common
NINA SEMCZUK That morning Irina Pychenko found herself in the ditch, again. It was the fourth time in a month. “Third time this week I’ve found someone right here,” said the gentleman outside of her window, who was hooking a chain to the tow hitch under the back bumper.| The Common
We're throwing a party in New York, and you're invited! Join us for an evening of refreshments, conversation, and mingling in honor of our 15th year in print.| The Common
JULY WESTHALE I decided to write a modern epic about space travel, but I wanted it to be about a place we didn’t know anything about, something that perhaps wasn’t entirely astronomically true...A moon is familiar to us; the moon of a moon is less so.| The Common
LILY LLOYD BURKHALTER By this point, Albert was holding my shoulders in a tight grip. Neither of us spoke. In the museum’s subdued light, time sputtered to a halt—as it must have for the boy years ago, facing down the snake or the village elder, depending on what one believes.| The Common
HISHAM BUSTANI Without the above diverse groups, there would have been no Amman. This mosaic of people, languages, traditions, and tastes created Amman, transforming it in four decades from a khirbeh to a city. All cities are birthed, shaped, and formed by migrants.| The Common
ERICA DAWSON This is a fundamental memory. / The signs pointing to doing something right / and failing. Educated and I lost / my job. Bipolar and I cannot lose / my mind. The first responder says I’m safe. / Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital. / I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheet...| The Common
MARIAH RIGG His boss didn’t want to give him this assignment, preferring to send Harrison to the Big Island to oversee the grading of coastal land for a resort. But Harrison fought for this job, promised that it would provide more contracts for the company in the future.| The Common
G. C. WALDREP According to rule. The terrible safeguard / of the text when placed against the granite / ledge into which our industry inscribed / itself. We were prying choice from the jaws / of poverty, from the laws of poverty. / But what came out was exile.| The Common
ILAN STAVANS I have lapsed; / I have been arrogant; / I have rallied my people to the battlefield; / I have built alliances based on self-interest. / Yet I have also rebuilt Texcoco from the ashes, / erecting temples, gardens, and libraries, / all designed to erase our enemies.| The Common
A. NATASHA JOUKOVSKY There is something post-decadent about Versailles in winter. The fountains are off; there are not many tourists. Everything is still fiercely geometric and over-the-top, but in this gray, expired kind of way, at least most of the day; the crisp chill of nighttime being an exception.| The Common
