Liz DeWolf speaks to Emily Everett about her story “Ex Situ,” which appear in The Common’s spring issue. The story follows an American living in Istanbul, navigating the end of a relationship, alongside the appeal and alienation of living abroad in a layered, complex city. Liz also discusses her process and revision methods, the themes she often returns to, and her work as a nonfiction book editor.

Liz DeWolf writes fiction and edits nonfiction books about politics and culture. Originally from Massachusetts, she lives in Los Angeles and is currently at work on a novel and a collection of short stories. Her fiction has appeared in The Common, New England Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere.

­­Read Liz’s story in The Common here.

Learn more about her work here.

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The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.

Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a 2025 Reese’s Book Club pick and longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.

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DON’T FALL IN LOVE.

That’s the only rule.

In this world, everyone knows their death date. If you’re rich, you can check in to a resort to have the greatest final few weeks of your life, in five-star luxury.

Regan works at one of these resorts as a “Juliet”. Her next client is Jude, who has a week to live. Regan’s job is simple: make Jude feel as though he has found true love before he dies.

But when a fake romance starts to become something else, can they take on Fate together – before Jude's death date catches up with them?

Tune in to this interview about Just Another Dead Boy (Walker Books, 2026)

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Wastelands and Wonderlands: Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature with Matthew Leggatt (SUNY Press, 2026) is an edited collection exploring utopias ad dystopias in films and literature. It challenges readers, in these uniquely dystopian times, to reevaluate their ideas about utopia and dystopia.

The book brings together film, literary, and utopian studies scholars from across the world. As an interdisciplinary collection, it covers a wide range of utopias and dystopias, from those of visionaries as varied as William Morris and George Lucas to such fresh new and distinctive voices like Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and N. K. Jemisin.

Contributors dismantle myths about utopian and dystopian film, literature, and television. Several chapters analyse the nature of utopian and dystopian fiction and its important relationship to our present moment. What's the future of utopia? What does it mean to be a utopia today? Do we still need the warnings of dystopia?

Whether through ecocritical work, work aimed at decolonizing utopian studies, debates about our relationship with technology and the nonhuman, forms of utopian hope and pessimism, or new thinking about cinematic and literary techniques and production, the essays offer fresh insight into the subject area and something to interest any reader.

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