Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 45
March 8, 2023
The Common Young Writers Program Opens Applications for Summer 2023
Applications are now open for The Common Young Writers Program, which offers two two-week, fully virtual summer classes for high school students (rising 9-12). Students will be introduced to the building blocks of fiction and learn to read with a writer’s gaze. Taught by the editors and editorial assistants of Amherst College’s literary magazine, the summer courses (Level I and Level II) run Monday-Friday and are open to all high school students (rising 9-12). The program runs July 17-28.
March 3, 2023
Friday Reads: March 2023
Welcome to the March round of Friday Reads! As we wait for the weather to warm up (and for our twenty-fifth issue to come out), The Common’s Literary Publishing Interns bring you book recommendations that explore love, identity, hope, and flaws.
March 2, 2023
Two Poems from The Spring of Plagues
ANA CAROLINA ASSIS
a dead bird is not war // and that is why you cannot / hang it like an / ox / or shelter flesh / in shells // a dead bird is not war, i told you / and your feet groaned up the staircase / so many maggots already / gnawing its tiny body // yes, the sooty aigrette / about its tiny eyes / black
a dead bird is not war // and that is why you cannot / hang it like an / ox / or shelter flesh / in shells // a dead bird is not war, i told you / and your feet groaned up the staircase / so many maggots already / gnawing its tiny body // yes, the sooty aigrette / about its tiny eyes / black
March 1, 2023
2023 Festival of Debut Authors
Join The Common's team on March 22nd at 7:00pm for our 2023 Festival of Debut Authors, an evening devoted to emerging talents! This virtual celebration will highlight poets and prose writers Carey Baraka, Farah Ali, Stella Wong, Jordan Honeyblue, Jennifer Shyue and Cheryl Collins Isaac.
Two Poems: ”Trenches at ShowBiz, Kuwait City” and ”Coming Home”
RANA TAHIR
If you look now, / the beaches are full. / People wading in the open gulf, / picnics, bonfires. / The sand whole, / not broken like an
eye dangling out / the socket. / The soldiers my father / misled must have found / the trench by the amusement / park
If you look now, / the beaches are full. / People wading in the open gulf, / picnics, bonfires. / The sand whole, / not broken like an
eye dangling out / the socket. / The soldiers my father / misled must have found / the trench by the amusement / park
February 23, 2023
February 2023 Poetry Feature
ZUZANNA GINCZANKA
I’m searching my thoughts for a man’s lips, to bind his arms in a braid, / When in the stifling sleeplessness of a second a sob breaks out— / —and now purse your lips and coolly, firmly condemn me: here you have my nights—bare, shelled like peas.
I’m searching my thoughts for a man’s lips, to bind his arms in a braid, / When in the stifling sleeplessness of a second a sob breaks out— / —and now purse your lips and coolly, firmly condemn me: here you have my nights—bare, shelled like peas.
February 22, 2023
Review: SAINT OMER
HANNAH GERSEN
The film’s dual focus—on both Rama, the writer, and Laurence, the young woman accused of infanticide—turns the trial into something other than pure spectacle and results in a story that looks closely at the frighteningly powerful bond between mother and child.
The film’s dual focus—on both Rama, the writer, and Laurence, the young woman accused of infanticide—turns the trial into something other than pure spectacle and results in a story that looks closely at the frighteningly powerful bond between mother and child.
February 21, 2023
Excerpt from Tell Me How It Ends
VALERIA LUISELLI
“Why did you come to the United States?” That’s the first question on the intake questionnaire for unaccompanied child migrants. The questionnaire is used in the federal immigration court in New York City where I started working as a volunteer interpreter in 2015. My task there is a simple one: I interview children, following the intake questionnaire, and then translate their stories from Spanish to English.
“Why did you come to the United States?” That’s the first question on the intake questionnaire for unaccompanied child migrants. The questionnaire is used in the federal immigration court in New York City where I started working as a volunteer interpreter in 2015. My task there is a simple one: I interview children, following the intake questionnaire, and then translate their stories from Spanish to English.
Excerpt from We All Want Impossible Things
CATHERINE NEWMAN
“What do you think happens after you die?” she says. “Oh!” I say. “Gosh.” I was raised in a fully atheist household, so not much is the short answer. I was raised in a fully atheist household, so not much is the short answer. “Just toss me in the dumpster when I go!” my dad likes to announce, and when I’m like, “Um, Dad, I think funerals are actually more about—” he interrupts me. “In the dumpster!” “Okay!” I say. “The dumpster it is!”
“What do you think happens after you die?” she says. “Oh!” I say. “Gosh.” I was raised in a fully atheist household, so not much is the short answer. I was raised in a fully atheist household, so not much is the short answer. “Just toss me in the dumpster when I go!” my dad likes to announce, and when I’m like, “Um, Dad, I think funerals are actually more about—” he interrupts me. “In the dumpster!” “Okay!” I say. “The dumpster it is!”
Excerpt from Wildseed Witch
MARTI DUMAS
The next day, a woman with a little pink umbrella showed up at my house at the crack of dawn. My mother always gets up that freakishly early, and I was up because something kept dinging even though my phone was on silent.
The next day, a woman with a little pink umbrella showed up at my house at the crack of dawn. My mother always gets up that freakishly early, and I was up because something kept dinging even though my phone was on silent.
