Join us in celebrating the commendable community success stories this April! Grubbies were published in literary journals across the country, won awards and prizes, secured book deals, and so much more. Our community is closing April 2025 with twenty-three publications, four awards and prizes, one book deal, and four book publications! Let us celebrate you: submit your good news to GrubStreet’s Department of Congratulations.

Carolyn Zaikowski, longtime Grub instructor in poetry, fiction, and essay, will serve as the 2025-2027 Poet Laureate of Easthampton, Massachusetts. Incubator graduate Ning Sullivan was granted a month-long residency for April 2025 at Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer, Alaska. She was also awarded the Katahdin Fellowship. She thanks short story incubator instructor Ron MacLean, her fellow classmates, and GrubStreet for all their support. Melissa Fraterrigo’s memoir-in-essays The Perils of Girlhood is forthcoming on Sept 1 from the University of Nebraska Press. She thanks E.B. Bartels for her keen eye, thoughtful suggestions, and encouragement.

Memoir incubator graduate Jason Prokowiew's interview with fellow GrubStreet writer Emily May, about her debut essay collection Some Girls, was published in Brevity Blog. Manuscript consultant Cara Benson has a personal essay in the Spring Issue of Sierra Magazine on the joys of becoming friends with a forest. Pete Prokesch's short story "Happy as a Clam" was published in JMWW. He thanks his partner Kaity Mascioli for the beautiful photography for the story. Essay Incubator graduate and Writing to Heal Immersive alumni Jennifer Dines's essay “Teaching in a ‘Sanctuary City’ Under Siege” was published by Current Affairs.

Novel Generator graduate Sophia Carroll published her poem "Bertha" in Stone Circle Review and her creative nonfiction piece "Sojourn" in wildness. Marcia Yudkin’s essay "Who, Me, a Complainer?" was published in Next Avenue. Catherine C Wu’s The Moon Goddess's Smile, a historical/multicultural novel, will debut on Amazon on April 19th. She wants to thank Tim Weed, Tilia K. Jacobs, Maya Lang, Jackie Cangro, Ursula DeYoung, Jessica Bird, Liesl Swogger, Amy Johnson, Anie Onaiza, Pia Owens, Elisabeth Sylvan, Maggie Huff-Rousselle, Marina Werbeloff, Matthew McKay, Trish Ruan, Judy Young, Selena Lin, Julia Horwitz, Amy Heuton, and all their classmates at GrubStreet for making this novel possible.

BWOC member, Incubator graduate, and instructor, Kyra Wilson Cook, is thrilled to announce she will be a member of the Clarion West 2025 6-week Workshop. She is especially grateful to Kit Haggard, her first GrubStreet instructor, Ron McLean for wonderful mentorship during the Short Story Incubator, and her students during last year's “6 Weeks, 6 Speculative Stories” class. Viktoria Shulevich's humor piece "I’m Having a Great Time Talking to You About My Wife on Our First Date" was published in The Belladonna Comedy. Amy Johnson was awarded a 2025 Grant for Creative Individuals by Mass Cultural Council.

Instructor and Novel Incubator graduate Milo Todd's The Lilac People, published by Counterpoint Press will debut on April 29th. The work of historical fiction focuses on a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive while protecting the ones he loves. The book has received praise from such places as Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, Electric Literature and recently became an Indie Next List Pick for May. Donna Minkowitz was inducted into the Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival Hall of Fame in March 2025 for two memoirs, the novel Donnaville, and work as a journalist on queer politics and culture.

Delia Harrington’s long-form personal essay "Billy Pilgrim Has Come Unstuck in Time" was published in Issue 15 of Nude Bruce Review. They are grateful for the Grub essay classes they have taken and Ethan Gilsdorf's kind and patient teaching. GrubStreet consultant Douglas Silver published his short story "Face" in The Short Story Project and his short story "Sanctuary" in the newest issue of Willow Springs. Liam Carnahan’s personal essay “Museum” was published in Metapsychosis, Journal of Consciousness, Literature, and Art.

Claire Berman has been awarded a residency by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) for summer 2025. She will be among approximately 22 Fellows focusing on their own creative projects at this retreat. Incubator graduate Jennifer Dines's essay "I was an Emotionally Absent Mom Until My 10-Year-Old Got Hospitalized for Punching Through a Glass Door" was published in Another Jane Pratt Thing. Pavithra Natarajan’s essay on her experiences working in the Democratic Republic of Congo with Doctors Without Borders, in relation to recent cuts to USAID and CDC, was published by Newsweek. Pavithra wrote the essay for Ethan Gilsdorf’s class, where she received insightful workshop feedback that helped her revise the essay and gave her the confidence to pursue publication.

NmaHassan Muhammad has recently joined the Canadian flash fiction journal NuNum as a volunteer reader. He also recently published two micro stories: “Father’s Shoes” in the Ultramarine Literary Review and “Time To Turn Into Earth” along with its Nupe translation, in Flash Frontier. Thatcher Carter is celebrating the forthcoming publication of her novel Razed by Inlandia Books. She thanks instructors Matthew Salesses and Meghan Lamb. The book launch is on May 4th with a panel of authors who have all had their first book publications after the age of 50.

Yvonne Liu was featured as the opening adoptee writer in the 2025 Adoptee Literary Festival Sizzle Reel. She thanks instructors Javier Sinay and Julia Fine for helping her refine her voice. Julie Brill's essay "Publishing Companion Pieces Served My Memoir Well in Unexpected Ways" was published in The Brevity Blog. Sarah Mullens published an essay with Oxford American, “Welcome to the Home of the Millionaires,” which began in Nancy Agabain's Personal Essay class. Additionally, her essay "The Mirror Operator," which she started in Shuchi Saraswat's Advanced Essay class, won the Mayday Magazine Creative Nonfiction Contest. Another of her essays, "The Midnight Cry," which was also workshopped in the Advanced Essay class, is forthcoming next month in The Missouri Review.

Yvonne Liu was awarded a Sewanee Writers' Conference Tennessee Williams Scholarship in Nonfiction. She is thankful for fellow Advanced Memoir alum Armand Cerbone and the tutelage of Javier Sinay. Memoir Incubator graduate Jason Prokowiew was invited to the inaugural Spring YA workshop at Tin House, where he'll work with Jonny Garza Villa. Instructor Ron MacLean's story "Apocalypso," the title story from a forthcoming collection, is out in the Spring issue of The Baltimore Review. Memoir Incubator graduate Rachel Zimmerman's essay "The odd couple? Nope. My mother and daughter roommates are vibing" appeared in the Boston Globe's Ideas Section. She'd like to thank Grubbies Patty Caya and Miriam Glassman for their feedback.

Memoir Generator graduate Iris (Yi Youn) Kim was accepted into the Kenyon Summer Workshop to study under Grace Talusan this summer. BWOC member Rani Neutill will be publishing her memoir Do You Know How Lucky You Are? with HarperCollins India. Julie Brill's memoir Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia, published by Amsterdam Publishers, debuted on April 23. The book was reviewed by Tamara MC for Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature. Julie workshopped her memoir in the Memoir Incubator program and is grateful for support from Grub instructors and peers, especially her mentor Linda K. Wertheimer and fellow incubee Tamara MC.

Instructor Tina Tocco's flash fiction "Alive" was published in the South Dakota Review Issue 59.2. An excerpt from Julie Brill’s new memoir, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia, was published in Cognoscenti. Tom Elliott's flash piece "Thought Experiment" has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. BWOC member Patrice Gopo is excited to share the release of her second picture book, Ripening Time, illustrated by Carlos Vélez Aguilera (WorthyKids/Hachette Book Group).

Olivia Kate Cerrone reviewed Milo Todd's debut novel, The Lilac People, for The Boston Globe. Amory Rowe Salem’s essay about what she packs in her ludicrously capacious bag when she heads to the field to coach her high school team was published in Cognescenti. Polly M. Ingraham has an essay about her aunt, Mary Ingraham Bunting Smith, in the new flash fiction anthology, Fast Famous Women, edited by Gina Barreca and published by Woodhall Press. Linda Button's essay about Lizzie Borden is also in the anthology.

An interview with Ronald-Stéphane Gilbert about his book, Conversations With My Mother, A Novel of Dementia on the Maine Coast, appears in the March-April 2025 issue of Alzheimer’s Today, the Magazine of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America. Memoir Incubator graduate Jason Prokowiew was named a 2025-2026 Fulbright Scholar to Germany, where he'll conduct additional research for his memoir War Boys. He thanks Alysia Abbott and Dorian Fox for their recommendation letters and support, and fellow Grubbie Kristin Amico for reading his application. Randi Stern’s hermit crab humor piece, “The Bed Bylaws,” which began in Maggie Cooper’s “6 Weeks, 6 Short Stories” class, was published on Little Old Lady Comedy. She thanks Brandon and Bessie for their helpful feedback.