The Common Reader

05/29/2026

“The women climbing down from the big charter bus parked next to the cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois, were from Lota, a small city on the Bay of Arauco, six hours south of Santiago, Chile. For 150 years, Lota was the center of Chilean coal mining…”
—John Griswold, The Common Reader

Thank you for sharing the recent residency of a special group of women from Lota, Chile, who were visiting Krannert Art Museum as part of "Memorias de la Mujer Lotina: Arpilleras, Women, and Coal in Chile" (on view through Sep 5). The exhibition and residency were presented in partnership with the University of Illinois Climate Jobs Institute and others.

The women of Lota, Chile, or Lotinas, represent a long feminist movement to preserve cultural memory and reinvigorate the economy of their city. At the end of March 2026, they flew more than 20 hours to be in residency for a week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where they led....

05/19/2026

Who knew reading and gardening had such overlap?

05/19/2026

In the end, the only thing to be done with a movie like this is to throw it to the wolves of Reddit.

05/14/2026

Some read tea leaves, but you can learn more about a marriage from its coffee rituals.

05/07/2026

This was not how I understood myself. I grew up playing everything: basketball, volleyball, soccer, but mostly swimming, where competition felt clean and measurable. You either touched the wall first or you did not.

05/07/2026

I left Congo. But Congo did not leave me entirely. I came to the United States not long after. There were moments when the fear came back. But I had learned something in Congo about fear. Get closer. Look at it. It is never quite what it appears to be from a distance.

05/07/2026

The French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, writing in “Of Friendship,” imagines friendship as a bond so complete it resists explanation. It is difficult to read that text now without noticing how much it assumes proximity, continuity, and a shared life that does not fracture across distance.

The French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, writing in “Of Friendship,” imagines friendship as a bond so complete it resists explanation. It is difficult to read that text now without noticing how much it assumes proximity, continuity, and a shared life that does not fracture across distance. ....

05/07/2026

The women of Lota, Chile, or Lotinas, represent a long feminist movement to preserve cultural memory and reinvigorate the economy of their city. At the end of March 2026, they flew more than 20 hours to be in residency for a week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where they led workshops on art “as a tool of historical storytelling and civic activism.”

The women of Lota, Chile, or Lotinas, represent a long feminist movement to preserve cultural memory and reinvigorate the economy of their city. At the end of March 2026, they flew more than 20 hours to be in residency for a week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where they led....

05/07/2026

Not since Prohibition has there been such a strong and widespread public warning. It feels a little odd.

05/06/2026

A few days ago, a man in Memphis messaged me by LinkedIn to ask if I was the person who had offered to help him market his book. When I said no, he showed me the email that offered to make his novel a smash hit.