About Us
Our Mission
The New Commons is a dedicated home for readers who want to go deep into a single book and experience rigorous and focused discussion in a warm, collaborative, and accessible way. We teach books alongside works of art or adaptations, providing readers with meaningful opportunities to deeply understand the text within a broader artistic and cultural conversation.
What We Do
We bring together small reader cohorts focused on slow-reading and close-reading a single text, pairing it with a work of art, and engaging in spacious, collaborative discussion.
What Cohorts Are Like
Cohorts are small, scholarly, and friendly reading groups that go deep into the book through discussion. Participants have called them fun, joyful, silly, and warm, as well as enriching, insightful, excellent, and educational.
We keep them small, accepting only eight students per cohort to make sure every member has ample room to participate in ways that feel authentic to them. Here’s more of what you can expect as a cohort member.
Finally, we love a clear class structure, so we’ve created a comprehensive session design so you know what to expect when you arrive each day.
Our Team
The New Commons was founded by Lauren Frey, MA, who serves as Director and Instructor. She has been joined by writers and educators Marisa Lainson, MFA, and Julian Mammano as Founding Instructors. As a collective, we’ve pooled our passion to create a shared ethos, structure, and teaching philosophy, and as individuals, we bring years of experience in formal study of literature, academic writing, and teaching.
Our Backstory
Lauren, Marisa, and Julian met in college, where they were members of a four-year honors program that taught books using the Socratic method and Oxford tutorial system. Over the years, they’ve been classmates, housemates, theater cast members, co-editors, readers of each other’s poetry, business partners, and in each other’s weddings. Most of all, they’ve remained friends who want to make cool things together.
In 2025, in the midst of a career transition, Lauren had the idea of starting a discussion-based reading program similar to their college program—but with a more inclusive curriculum, an enjoyable reading pace, a focused discussion style, all while centering creative writing and relationship-building. In a miracle of timing, Ris and Jules joined as co-founders, bringing their experiences as educators to the program philosophy and to teach books they know and love.
In June 2026, we launched our first cohorts. We’re so grateful to all our Founding Members and excited to have many books lined up throughout our fall programming.
Upcoming Cohorts: Fall 2026
Join as a Founding Member this year and receive 20% off all future cohorts.
Registration open for:
The Odyssey: Homecoming Myth and Adaptation | Begins August 18 and 19
Pride and Prejudice: Humility, Humiliation, and Happily Ever Afters | Begins September 6 and 7
Coming soon — subscribe to stay updated for:
Slaughterhouse-Five in Conversation with the 1965 film Dr. Strangelove
Reading Jane Eyre
Reading Frankenstein
Antigone in Conversation with the 2019 Deraspe Adaptation
Past Cohorts
Hamlet in Conversation with the 2008 Doran Adaptation | June 2026
Frankenstein in Conversation with the 2023 film Poor Things | July 2026