New Books In Literature

Mariah Rigg speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Target Island,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. “Target Island” is a story from her short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, out August 5 from Ecco; both focus on the islands of Hawai’i. Mariah talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the collection as a whole, and why reflecting contemporary Hawai’i is important to her work. Mariah also discusses playing with time and narrative flow in her stories, and working on a new project—her first novel. Mariah Rigg is a Samoan-Haole who was born and raised on the island of O‘ahu. She is the author of the short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, which is forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins on August 5th. Her chapbook, All Hat, No Cattle was published by Bull City Press in 2023. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MASS MoCA, Oregon Literary Arts, VCCA, The Mount, and Lambda Literary, among others. She ho