You know, state representative work. [smiles, turns to line of people, nods] Civil service, folks, we’ve got to help when we can!

I’m going out to get the mail, she called, and no one responded. She put on the boots by the front door. The hydrangea drooped bloomy branches over the front step. Her clippers were in the shed. The b...

Here’s the thing about indie lit: it’s full of problems everyone complains about and almost nobody has the time, money, or spreadsheet stamina to solve. How can lit mags get more subscr…

Bad habits and secret pleasures.

Translated from Hungarian by Tímea Sipos and Ádám Dániel Németh.

& the Edinburgh Award for Flash Fiction Info and Links!

Let’s be honest about something: the fact that writing is hard has nothing to do with how talented you are, how many ideas you have, or how much you want to have finished your novel. Writing …

Podcast Episode · Writers on Writing · May 18 · 55m

The health of a society can often be measured by the freedom of its books. Every society that has tried to control its people has started by controlling its books. And every society that has expand…

A new generation tries its hand at publishing “the unusual, the difficult, the lengthy.”

living in her cheek. Every once in a while, she’d place a seed on her tongue to sustain me.

Many people have business ideas, but no idea how to get started. That’s where the libraries step in!

thing—this is the conspiracy of death

Dirigible Balloon - Poetry for Children

NOR: Embrace Your Conjunctions

Podcast Episode · Writers on Writing · 12/01/2025 · 53m

A Journal of Brief Literature

Cathexis Northwest Press November - December 2025 Poetry Anthology Cathexis Northwest Press: Publishing Poetry Since 2018

Robins spend months / harvesting crab apples. Didn’t // they used to migrate? In February, / they think it’s spring…

For Teju Cole, prose, poetry, and photography tug against and bleed into one another. At the tenth anniversary of Amherst College’s LitFest, on March 1, 2025, Cole spoke with The Common’s Editor in…

Drumroll, please – today we’re announcing a brand new prize for children’s fiction

Podcast Episode · Page Count · 10/07/2025 · 40m

In elementary school I was cast as MLK for a short play on his life. I didn’t want the role, the pressure of being a focal point. I would’ve rather been a nondescript townsperson or even a tree. But t...