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.

Instructor Fin Leary was selected as the 2026 Young Adult Writer-in-Residence at Porter Square Books. They will also attend a Sundress Academy for the Arts writing residency in March. Kendra Stanton Lee’s essay “Girl Missing, Bay Village, OH – 1989” was published in the How I Learned series. She often draws inspiration from the flash creative nonfiction she reads with Ethan Gilsdorf in the Essay Incubator. Memoir Incubator graduate Nadia Ghent’s memoir Music Is Mostly Longing was shortlisted for the Unleash Press Fall/Winter 2025 Work-in-Progress Award. Memoir Incubator graduate Ann MacDonald's essay "Learning to ice skate – at 67" was published by WBUR's Cognoscenti. She thanks her beloved Bees in her long-time writing group the Hive for their comments on earlier drafts and their encouragement to submit.

Ellen B. Cutler’s biography From the Depths: Dyslexia, Bipolar Disorder, and the Triumph of Art was published by LNWYD Press in February 2026. She worked on it for two years, and GrubStreet’s Manuscript Month was instructive in many ways. Essay Incubator student Claire Berman was awarded a 2026 Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals in Literature. Steffi Gauguet’s first Op-Med essay has been published on Doximity. She’s grateful to her Essay Incubator classmates—especially Claire Berman and Pavithra Natarajan—for their extra support, as well as to instructor Ethan Gilsdorf and mentor Cat Parnell for their guidance and encouragement.

Joseph Sidari’s surrealist flash fiction piece “The Weight of Silk” was published this month in Utopia. It was originally workshopped in “6 Weeks, 6 Stories” with John Cotter. Advanced Memoir graduate Yvonne Liu’s essay “Why a Baby Monkey’s Rejection Broke the Internet — and Me” was published in MS Now. Like Punch, the Japanese macaque whose rejection and eventual acceptance went viral, Liu was abandoned as a newborn. She is currently writing a memoir about overcoming physical and emotional abandonment. Ayoung Kim's nonfiction essay "The Order of Events" was published in Feels Blind Literary.

Instructor Lori Goldstein's seventh novel, Kiss, Marry, Kill, will be released on April 7 from Harper Collins/Park Row. Marcia Yudkin’s essay "Just Looking" was published in the inaugural issue of Hollow and Sky. Ayoung Kim's humor piece "Spinach Around the Cyst: You're Going to Want My Badass Invention" was published in Defenestration Magazine.

Instructor Tim Weed's novel The Afterlife Project is a finalist for the Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award in Science Fiction. Winners will be announced in June. Ellen Holtzman’s essay “The Advice I Almost Gave" was published in the Psychotherapy Networker. She would like to thank her former classmate, Marie Cahalane, for her suggestions and encouragement. Instructor Deborah Sosin shared her journey of self-publishing her book, Escape Velocity: How One 70-Year-Old Push-Pulled Her Way Out of Her Too-Much-Not-Enough Family (70 Micro-Memoirs, 70 Words Each) in The Brevity Blog.

Instructor and Consultant Cara Benson was interviewed for the Oldster Substack about being a “sober oldster.” The interview is in conjunction with the release of Benson's upcoming memoir, An Armsful of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment. Benson also interviewed memoirist Fatima Bhutto about her new book, The Hour Of The Wolf, for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Caroline Wampole's humor piece, "Memoirs RX: A Cure for the Ailing Writer," was published in The Brevity Blog. A. D. Metcalfe's novel Street Brotherhood-Rise of the Underground is a finalist for the Forward Indies Book of the Year award in Thrillers.

Heidi Gómez’s essay “Dissed-abled” won first place in the commentary category in the annual competition hosted by the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Instructor Rhonda DeChambeau received a 2026 creative individual grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Alexandra Grabbe is pleased to share that Koehler Books will publish the home care memoir Seeing Joy, A Story of Life, Death, and What Comes Next this year.  The manuscript was workshopped in classes with Howie Axelrod and Joanne Wyckoff, and it was written in 2007. 

Incubator graduate Jennifer Dines's essay "My Addiction Lured Me Into Inadvertently Supporting MAGA - And Then I Couldn't Get Myself Out" was published in Another Jane Pratt Thing. She thanks Essay Incubator alums Randi Stern and Lourdes Fernandez for their support with revision. BWOC member and instructor Yu-Mei Balasingamchow’s debut novel, Names Have Been Changed, has received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. It will be published on June 23 and is available for preorder. Laura Garden's debut novel, Queenslander, comes out from Merrimack River Press on April 21 and is an epic queer love story set on a sheep farm near the Outback. BWOC member Jamal Ali Hussein's essay “At the Interview” has been published in River Teeth, and is an excerpt from his ongoing memoir project.

Instructor and consultant Cara Benson has a personal essay, "In Hard Times, Remember to Take It One Step at a Time," in Sierra Magazine's Spring issue. Catherine C. Wu's debut novel, The Moon Goddess's Smile, has been awarded first place in the Fiction Book category of the 2026 Biennial Letters Competition, National League of American Pen Women. She is forever grateful for the support from the GrubStreet community, especially Tim Weed, Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, Ursula Deyoung, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Jackie Cangro, Anie Onaiza, Maggie Huff-Rousselle, Amy Johnson, Jessica Bird, Liesl Swogger, Pia Ownes, Elisabeth Sylvan, Fran Cronin, Kumkum Amin, and all her fellow classmates. BWOC member Kristin T. Lee's debut book, We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter's Reckoning with American Christianity, is coming out April 7 with Broadleaf Books.

BWOC member, GrubStreet instructor, and staff member, Mariona Lloreta is supporting an upcoming event, ALTARS: Cinema as Collective Memory & Future Reimagining, with a grant she received from the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the City of Boston. Jenn Bouchard is the recipient of a Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals. BWOC member U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo’s latest poem, “Her Voice in the Wind,” was recently published in Mom Egg Review. She is grateful to be included among such powerful voices reflecting on motherhood and legacy and thanks Marjorie Tesser and the curators Anna V. Q. Ross and Cindy Veach. Essay Incubator graduate Roberta Holland had her essay "The Toughest Age" published in SmokeLong Quarterly. Roberta first drafted the essay with her Incubator cohort in 2021-2022. She is very grateful to Essay Incubator instructor Ethan Gilsdorf her fellow incubees, and her Memoir-in-Progress instructor Dorian Fox.

Memoir Incubator graduate Linda Schlossberg received a 2026 Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals. Instructor Leslea Newman's newest children's book, Something Sweet: A Sitting Shiva Story, illustrated by Sarita Rich, has just been published by Charlesbridge Publishing.

Karen Robinson's short story "What I Learned from Weddings" was published by L.O.L. Comedy. The story grew out of a “6 Weeks, 6 Stories” GrubStreet class taught by Calvin Hennick. Instructor Catherine Parnell reviewed Madelaine Before the Dawn by Sandrine Collette, translated by Alison Anderson (Europa Editions), for Compulsive Reader.