Congratulations to all the Grubbies who were published in literary journals across the country, won awards and prizes, secured book deals, and so much more. Our community is closing December 2025 with thirteen publications, four awards and prizes, and two book publications! Let us celebrate you: submit your good news to GrubStreet’s Department of Congratulations.

Short Story Incubator graduate Daniel Cohen's story "Another Fish" appeared in the December edition of Does It Have Pockets? He'd like to thank instructors Ron MacLean and Courtney Sender for their valuable guidance and the small army of GrubStreet members who read and commented along the way. Ayoung Kim's nonfiction essay "Enfant Terrible" was published in The Razor. Melanie Winklosky’s humor essay “It's Me: The Nickel. And I'm About to Be HUGE” was published by The Weekly Humorist.

Instructor Yu-Mei Balasingamchow's debut novel Names Have Been Changed is available for preorder from Bookshop.org and other online retailers. It will be published by Tiny Reparations Books on June 23, 2026. Signed and personalized copies can be preordered from Papercuts Bookshop in Jamaica Plain. Hope Whynot published, for the first time, their essay "Diplomas” in Severance Magazine. They would like to thank their Essay Incubator class, especially Priya and Steffi for workshopping this piece with them. Yvonne Liu received one of the inaugural James Patterson "Go Finish Your Book" Grants and was named a Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar in nonfiction. She thanks her Advanced Memoir instructor Javier Sinay for his encouragement.

Stephanie Y. Yang's debut novella, Strak’s Bad Day, was recently published in the first cohort of the Spotify's Audiobook Selects program. Essay Incubator graduate Randi Stern’s "The Ballad of Billy Latreuil," which appeared in Literally Literary Magazine in September, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is grateful to Rolando Lopez and her classmates in "Advanced Revision & Submission: Nonfiction," and Bessie, Brandon, and Mathilde for their feedback and encouragement.

BWOC member Ashley D'Souza's short fiction story "Unholy" was nominated by The Margins for a Pushcart Prize. They wrote and workshopped the story in Maggie Cooper's "6 Weeks, 6 Stories" class in 2023. Also, their poems, "Shiny White Boy" and "Request: A Two-Inch-Thick Glass Box Around My Body at All Times", were published in the Writers Without Margins ten year anniversary literary journal Volume X, The Artifact: New & Selected Edition and their audio journalism story “Sounds from a Mini-Forest” was featured in full in the Brookline.News podcast. Memoir Incubator graduate Iris (Yi Youn) Kim published a Q&A with Jaquira Díaz about her new novel, This Is the Only Kingdom, in the LA Review of Books.

Alyssa House Rosemartin's first short story, “The Sisters of the House of Life-Giving Blood,” was published in After Happy Hour and nominated by the journal for a Pushcart Prize. She thanks GrubStreet, especially Naphisa Senanarong, Michael Zendejas, KW Onley, and the powerful ongoing support of her peers. Marcia Yudkin’s personal essay "What Women?" was published in print and online in Philosophy Now. Additionally, her essay "On the Spooky Road" published in a special intuition-themed issue of Halfway Down the Stairs. Writing to Heal Immersive student Jackie Herbach was recently published in Changing Skies (Issue IV). The journal focuses on climate change and environmental issues.

Essay Incubator student Claire Berman's essay "A Love Story All the Same" was selected as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2025. She thanks her writing group for their support with this essay. B. B. Garin's short story "Take Me to the Water" was published in Roanoke Review. She'd like to thank Colin Corrigan and his Advanced Fiction class for their helpful advice on this story. Karen Lee Boren’s short story, "Bush League" from her recent collection of short fiction Ways Home, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 

Julie Brill would like to thank fellow Memoir Incubator alum Tamara MC for the recent interview in Literary Mama, “Mother, Daughter, Memory Keeper: Julie Brill’s Triple Role,” about her recent book Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia. Tamara MC writes about the sensory joys of the holiday season from the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with Christmas for Motley Bloom. Memoir Incubator graduate Nadia Ghent's essay "Cleaning the Augean Stables" published in Under the Sun, and winner of their Readers' Choice Award, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Joseph Sidari was one of three winners in the Writers of the Future third quarter writing contest. His story "A Girl and Her Dragon: A Life in Four Parts" will be featured in their upcoming anthology of fantasy and science fiction, set to release in April 2026.

Memoir Incubator graduate Lorena Hernández Leonard's essay "Life is Sweet in the Belly of the Beast," published in Pangyrus, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. Lorena is extremely grateful to editors Anri Wheeler and Susannah Borysthen-Tkacz for their intuitive feedback and support. Essay Incubator instructor Ethan Gilsdorf fulfilled a lifelong dream of making it into the Merriam-Webster Dictionary with the definition of the word "LARP" and quoting his writing (even if the dictionary did spell his name wrong – "Gildsorf," not "Gilsdorf"). Polly M. Ingraham’s book Unconverted: Memoir of a Marriage was named a finalist in the 2025 Independent Author Network (IAN) Book of the Year Awards, in the category of Nonfiction: Religion/Christian. She is grateful for her 2017-18 Memoir Incubator class: Garrard Conley, Alysia Abbott, Ethan Gilsdorf, Linda Button, Kristen Paulson-Nguyen, and Molly Howes.

Instructor Tim Weed's novel The Afterlife Project is a Library Journal Best Books of 2025 pick. He would like to thank all his current and past GrubStreet students for continually reminding him that fiction is a noble art, writing is revision, and it's worth putting in the time to allow our stories to come fully alive on the page. Essay Incubator graduate Brandy E. Wyant's essay "St. Peter's Bones" was published at The Turning Leaf Journal. She thanks instructor Ethan Gilsdorf and her colleagues in the 2021-22 Essay Incubator for helping to shape earlier drafts of the piece. Caroline Wampole's flash essay "Background Music" was published in Pangyrus. She thanks the folks at Tell-All Boston for the theme, “What Made You Who You Are?”, which inspired the piece, and for the opportunity to read it on stage before submitting it to magazines.

Essay Incubator student Claire Berman was awarded a 2026 residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts' Le Moulin à Nef location in Auvillar, France. While there, she will work on her young adult novel about pediatric HIV. She thanks her writing group, The Electric Eel, and Annie Hartnett for their encouragement and support. Pete Prokesch's flash fiction "Don't Cry for Me" was published in Black Fork Review. Instructor Cam Terwillinger’s novel White Flame won The Black List's inaugural Unpublished Novel Award in the Literary Category. For the last twenty years, The Black List has compiled a list of Hollywood's favorite unproduced screenplays, and it's become now a major platform for writers to connect with industry professionals and seek production of their work. This year, the Black List expanded into promoting unpublished fiction manuscripts.