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 July 2025 with twenty-four publications, four awards and prizes, and four book publications! Let us celebrate you: submit your good news to GrubStreet’s Department of Congratulations.

Instructor Deborah Sosin's 70-word micro essay "Bosom Buddies," drawn from her manuscript This Is 70: A Life in Micro-Memoirs, appeared in Short Reads, a flash nonfiction magazine (art credit: Anna Hall). B.B. Garin's short story "After the End" was published in Lunch Ticket. She'd like to thank her writing group, formed at the 2024 Muse, for all their help in making this story shine. Essay Incubator and Memoir Incubator graduate Thuy Phan's essay “Accepting My Dad’s Adidas Shirts” was chosen as a nonfiction prize finalist for the 2025 swamp pink Prize in Nonfiction, judged by Grace Talusan.

Essay Incubator and Writing to Heal Immersive graduate Jennifer Dines’s essay “I Thought I Had Fallen Into a Deep Depression. It Took Me Months to Figure Out My Actual Mystery Illness” was featured in Another Jane Pratt Thing. Claire Berman's essay "When your boyfriend's mother gifts you bras" was published in Little Old Lady Comedy. Boston Writers of Color member Jim Washington's poem "Black Lit" was published in the Touchstone Journal, May 2025 issue, by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Novel Generator and Short Story Incubator graduate Divya Babin’s short story “Carmilla, or the Making of a Girl” was published in Baffling Magazine. She would like to thank instructors Annie Hartnett and Ron MacLean for their encouragement along her writing journey, as well as all her Grubbie friends for their generous support.

BWOC member Rob Macaisa Colgate's debut poetry collection, Hardly Creatures, was published by Tin House. You can read the many glowing reviews in the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Electric Lit, and The Rumpus. Additionally, Rob's verse drama My Love is Water was just released by Ugly Duckling Press. Claire Berman’s essay “My Father’s Daughter” was published in The Sunlight Press. She thanks Ethan Gilsdorf, her classmates, and her writing group for their invaluable feedback. Carroll Beauvais's debut poetry collection, Preverbal, was published by Lit Fox Books. The poems explore the lasting effects of childhood trauma as it echoes throughout development and adulthood. Viktoria Shulevich's humorous op-ed "I Tried This New Abomination at Whole Foods so You Don't Have to" was published in the Los Angeles Times Voices section.

Michael Ansara’s memoir The Hard Work of Hope (Cornell University Press) will be officially launched at the Harvard Book Store on July 15th. He thanks Rani Neutill and the members of GrubStreet's "Advanced Memoir" workshop. BWOC member Phil Kongtcheu is excited to share the release of his poetry collection D 'nviziblz under the pen name Obi-Wan Yoda. You can also listen to the poems/songs on Spotify, Apple Music or Pandora. Some of the poems were initially drafted in the "Advanced Poetry" workshop with Breezy Janae. Tiffany Tai's prose poem "In My Dreams, We Understand Each Other" was recently published in The Margins. She first drafted the piece in a “6 Weeks, 6 Stories" class taught by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow.

Writing to Heal Immersive graduate Laura Petrovich-Cheney’s personal essay, “Jaws — the unlikely glue that binds my estranged siblings and me,” was published in the Opinion section of The Boston Globe. Memoir Incubator graduate Tamara MC’s flash essay “Barbie’s Blue Leather Case” was published by The Citron Review.

Jen Shepherd participated in a video chat with Lee Gutkind and Dinty W. Moore about crafting flash fiction hosted by Narratively. After the talk, writers were encouraged to write an essay for a special flash essay contest to the prompt: "A Moment I Regret." Jen's essay, based on the prompt, was chosen for publication by Narratively. She would like to thank her mentor and GrubStreet instructor Katie Bannon for her ongoing support and guidance.

Essay Incubator instructor Ethan Gilsdorf published a craft essay "How They Did It: Scene Creation in Lee Martin’s ‘Bastards’” in the Brevity Blog. Peter Thorlichen's essay "Changing the World One Song at a Time" was recently published in The Brussels Review. Picture book author Toni Buzzeo's first middle grade novel, Light Comes to Shadow Mountain, was awarded the Cardinal Cup Medal for Historical Fiction from the Virginia Library Association and has been nominated for three other awards: the Triple Crown Award, the Kentucky Blue Grass Award, and the (Arkansas) Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award.

BWOC member and Memoir Incubator graduate Shirley A. Jones-Luke was accepted into the Simmons University Dual Degree Program in Children's Literature and Writing for Children. She will use the time to work on her middle grade novel titled The Ebony Guild: Book One - Rise, and The Well Maker. Anne Dean’s historical novel Far Side of Revenge: Brian Boru, Future King of Ireland, published by Gladeye Press, is now available. Instructor and BWOC member Kayla Degala-Paraíso's ekphrastic micro-poem "Breakfast Tacos" was recently published by Carmen et Error. This poem was inspired by Chuck Ramirez's photograph of the same name.

Essay Incubator graduate Akemi Ueda's essay "How 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' Changed How I See My Hair" was published in Mochi Magazine. She wrote the first draft of the essay in the Essay Incubator. She'd like to thank her classmates and instructor Ethan Gilsdorf for their feedback. Instructor Heather Nelson’s first book of poetry, Motherland, was published by Kelsay Books in May. Christopher Vrountas’s essay “Speaking of the Dead" was published as the feature essay on July 16, 2025, in bioStories Magazine. The essay would not have happened were it not for Nora Corrigan's thoughtful encouragement and insight. He is tremendously grateful for her patient guidance.

Novel Generator graduates Sophia Carroll, Disha Trivedi, Michaella Sangiolo, and Stacia Sheputa have released the inaugural issue of Menace, a magazine for the literary weird. They would like to thank fellow Novel Generator graduate Anna Hundert for contributing her short story, "Queen of Calvary." Menace is open for submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art for publication in Autumn 2025. Molly Akin's New Women's Voices in Poetry award-winning debut collection, Hospice, is currently available as a preorder through August 31. The poems catalog a decade marked by becoming a mother while supporting a terminally ill parent and reckon with the intimate work of caregiving. Molly thanks Angela Siew and Aimee Suzara for their thoughtful instruction and Tatiana Johnson-Boria for the generous blurb.

Pavithra Natarajan recently completed Ethan Gilsdorf's "Writing and Publishing Personal Essays for Mainstream Publications" class. She had two essays published this week – “This is Skin Color” in Pangryus and “Returning to triathlons in midlife helped me return to myself” in WBUR’s Cognoscenti. Essay and Novel Incubator graduate Karen Wilfrid's essay "I’m An Adult And I'm Playing With American Girl Dolls Again (And You Can Too)" was published in the HuffPost. She would like to thank her GrubStreet writing group, which began in a "Novel in Progress" class and has been together for nine years. Instructor Catherine Parnell interviewed Amie Souza Reilly, author of Human/Animal, for Cleaver Magazine.

Virginia DeLuca’s essay “He Took my Story, So I Made a New One” was published in The New York Times Modern Love section. She thanks Alysia Abbott and her 2020 classmates of the Memoir Incubator and all the alumni who have supported, encouraged, edited, and cheered her on. Instructor Tim Weed's new novel The Afterlife Project was a New Scientist Best New Science Fiction Book of the Month. It's been reviewed widely, including in the Library Journal (starred review), the Toronto Star, and Seven Days. Interviews surrounding the book's publication have appeared on Vermont Public Radio, The Colorado Sun, and elsewhere. Tim would like to thank his present and past GrubStreet fiction students for their inspiration and shared experience.

Nadia Ghent's essay "Cleaning the Augean Stables" was published in the summer issue of Under the Sun and was honored with the Readers' Choice Award. She would like to thank her Memoir Incubator cohort from 2022-23 and Alysia Abbott for their encouragement, fabulous feedback, and support. Instructor Martine Bellen’s poem "Shadow Wolf" was published in the Haunted Passages section of the Heavy Feather Review. Mai-Linh Hong's debut poetry collection, Continental Drift, won the 2025 Trio Award and will be published by Trio House Press in July 2026.