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. Let us celebrate you: submit your good news to GrubStreet’s Department of Congratulations.

Memoir Incubator alum Jason Prokowiew's personal essay "Wound Care" won third place in the 2026 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, (nonfiction category). He thanks his Grub-formed writing group members, Emily May and Kristin Amico, for looking at this essay many times over the past three years. Instructor and consultant Joy Deva Baglio's short story "We Are Sorry For Your Suffering" — a sci-fi epistolary tale about AI, consciousness, parenting, and the end of the world — is the December 2025 issue of One Story. You can listen to an excerpt and an interview with her on the process on their website. Advanced Speculative Fiction Workshop student and Muse attendee Lauren Harkawik's hybrid/experimental piece "If I click within 38 minutes I can be the first ghost" was published in Same Faces Collective. Additionally, Lauren's essay "A Computer Free Day" was published in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers.

Elizabeth Wellington Rollins met her agent, Haley Heidemann, through Manuscript Mart in 2023. Her debut novel, The Three Graces of Pearl Street, was bought by Laura Brown at Atria for a fall 2026 release. Rights also went to Klett-Cotta (Germany), at auction; Mozaiek (the Netherlands), at auction; and to Muza (Poland.). She's thankful for the myriad of ways GrubStreet helps writers discern next steps, not only in their craft but in the business of writing. Viktoria Shulevich's humor piece "When to Cry Over Spilled Milk" was published in Points in Case. Additionally, Viktoria's humor piece "Team Sports Made Me the Perfect Candidate for This Job" was published in the Weekly Humorist. BWOC member J.L. Higgs’s short story "A Family Thanksgiving" was published in Euphemism. The story was written and revised based on feedback from instructor Yu-Mei Balasingamchow and classmates in her “Developing Your Short Fiction” class.

BWOC member Marchaé Grair’s essay "She/Not Her" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Torch Magazine. Pete Prokesch won a grant from the City of Boston Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture (MOAC) to work on his novel and teach a novel-writing workshop in a Boston Public Library this summer. Essay Incubator instructor Ethan Gilsdorf's essay "50 years on, 'Rocky Horror' is still for us freaks and geeks" was selected as one of Cognoscenti's best stories of 2025. Works by two Essay Incubator graduates were also chosen: Thuy Phan's "In ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ there’s something ‘Golden’ for all of us" and Jennifer Serafyn's "Saturdays with my grandmother, and Hulk Hogan." Maggie Huff-Rouosselle’s poem "Couples Therapy 101" was published in The Examined Life Journal, a Literary Publication of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

Viktoria Shulevich's humor piece "The diary of a casual, not-at-all-obsessed ‘Heated Rivalry’ fan" was published in the Sunday edition of the LA Times. Simon (C.M.) Green's flash fiction piece "Beauty" was featured in fifth wheel press. They workshopped this piece with their writers group, which was formed out of an Advanced Fiction Workshop at GrubStreet. Martha Elizabeth Shetnon is the first place winner of the 2025 Dreamers Flash Contest. Grace Massey's three poems, "My Father's Room," "My Mother Becomes a Mermaid," and "A Future with Bromeliads," from her collection A Future with Bromeliads, were nominated by River Glass Books for a Pushcart Prize.

Essay Incubator alum Randi Stern’s creative nonfiction essay "The Mystery of the Parking Lot Doll Hair" was published by Eclectica Magazine. She is grateful for the feedback and support of her Essay Incubator classmates and instructor Ethan Gilsdorf. Also published in Eclectica Magazine is Marcia Yudkin's essay, "Hi, Cousin!" After finishing the Novel Generator program, Victor Young has published his book, Landing: When the Water Serpents Stop Holding Up the Earth.

Essay and Memoir Incubator graduate Button’s essay, “The Wada Test,” winner of the Annie Dillard Prize, is featured in this year’s Bellingham Review. She’s grateful to Grub’s instructors and community of writers who cheer, support, and teach her to be a writer. Marjee Chmiel published her first non-flash fiction story, “Norwood Park Novena” in Maudlin House, after workshopping it in the summer 2025 Advanced Short Fiction Workshop with Caroline Belle Stewart. She works as a writer, researcher, and documentarian and reads for Split Lip Press, Flash Fiction Online, and The Masters Review. Amy Asherah’s essay about the unpaid work of mothering will be published in the anthology Search Work: A Collective Inquiry into the Job Hunt forthcoming in April by OR Press. Jen Hallaman's poem “Total Eclipse, April 2024” was published in the latest edition of the Orange Blossom Review. She also had two poems in the December 2025 issue of RockPaperPoem.

Mathilde Piton’s “The Long and Twisty Road to Naming a Baby” was published in the Boston Globe. She’s thankful for her fellow Essay Incubator cohort (2024-2025) for their thoughtful feedback and encouragement. Susan Finch's debut collection of short stories, Dear Second Husband, will be published by Carnegie Mellon University Press in February 2026. She took GrubStreet's class on marketing and publicity, "Nobody Will Care About Your Book as Much as You Do." Instructor and consultant Cheryl Eagan-Donovan will be speaking at the World Shakespeare Congress 2026. She will be presenting her research on the song "Greensleeves" as part of the seminar "Shakespeare and the Musical Planet.” Her new documentary film, All the World's a Stage: Shakespeare and the Invention of Modern Theatre, is in post-production. Mira Wilczek's short story "Molto Bene" was published in Uncharted Magazine. She wrote it to bust through writer's block during Hanna Halperin's “Novel In Progress” class.

BWOC member and Essay and Memoir Incubator graduate Thuy Phan has been selected for a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) in Amherst, Virginia. She will attend the residency in August 2026, where she’ll work on her memoir-in-essays. Lynda Rushing’s essay “Harvey,” published in the Fall 2025 issue of River Teeth, was featured on The Humble Essayist as the January 23, 2026 “Paragraph of the Week.” She is grateful to Dorian Fox for his excellent ear and patient coaching and to the editors of River Teeth for their guidance on the final draft. Douglas Silver's story "Return to Sender" was published in the Winter/Spring issue of Gulf Coast.

Writing to Heal Immersive Instructor Jennifer Crystal's memoir One Tick Stopped the Clock won the 2025 Independent Book Publishers of New England (IPNE) Silver Award for Narrative  Nonfiction. BWOC member Neema Avashia's second essay collection, Another Motherhood, will be published by Beacon Press in the spring of 2027. Memoir Incubator graduate Dr. Tamara MC published her first piece with National Geographic – a dream she's had since being a child – about the world's wackiest festivals. Instructor Catherine Parnell's review of Sea Now by Eva Meijer, translated from Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo, appeared in MicroLit.