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
The Reading Life: Reconsidering My Weirdo Hero | thecommononline.org
Review by BRITTA STROMEYER The novel, both broad in its scope and delicate in its intimacy, explores the repercussions when personal lives intersect with wider societal currents. It unfolds with a quiet yet remarkable sense of pacing, each moment carefully weighted, drawing the reader deeper into the rich inner lives of its characters.| The Common
Fiction, essays, poetry, and more.| The Common
By CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ| thecommononline.org
MELISSA FEBOS I had done so much work in that year to change my thinking and myself and my ideals and my relationship to love, but I couldn't really grow much further without actually practicing it with a person. It's like reading and thinking about dancing in a new way, but you can't get good at it until you actually start dancing.| The Common
TED CONOVER It seemed to me the most mysterious, imaginative thing I had ever come across. The narrator, in language as simple as the poem I had read, describes life in a small community where... There are statues of vegetables and the sun shines a different color every day.| The Common
SHANLEY POOLE I’m asking for a new geography, / something beyond the spiritual. // Tell me again, about that first / drive up Appalachian slopes // how you knew on sight these hills / could be home. I want // this effervescent temporary, here / with the bob-tailed cat // and a hundred hornet nests.| 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
By CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ| thecommononline.org
By CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ| thecommononline.org
