It's our monthly celebration of the successes of our community members! In October, Grubbies were published in literary journals across the country, won awards and prizes, secured book deals, and so much more. We are proud to announce in October 2023 we had twenty-nine publications, seven awards and prizes, and six book publications! Let us celebrate you: submit your good news to GrubStreet’s Department of Congratulations.

Instructor Xujun Eberlein's personal essay "Ms. Daylily" has been selected by Vivian Gornick for The Best American Essays 2023. The essay was originally published in The Iowa Review. Xujun thanks her writing group "Nonfiction Narwhals" for their support and feedback. Sofia T. Romero's short story collection We Have Always Been Who We Are will be published on October 10. Sofia would like to acknowledge Rita Zoey Chin, who was her instructor for the "Jumpstart Your Writing" workshop where several of these stories began to take shape.

Essay Incubator graduate Sara Schreur has published her essay "33 Going on 13: The Return of My Period" in HerStry. Kristen Paulson-Nguyen's braided essay "Blight" will be published in the writing craft textbook Letting Grief Speak: Writing Portals for Life After Loss, forthcoming in 2024 from Columbia University Press. She thanks instructor Ethan Gilsdorf for keeping the Essay Incubator community connected. Memoir Incubator graduate Ann MacDonald recently published her essay "Tiny Love Stories: ‘Skin to Skin, We Are Drinking Beers at 3 p.m.’” in The New York Times. She is grateful for her Incubator-alumni writing group, the Hive, for their comments on an earlier draft and moral support.

Sara Fraser's novel Just River was recognized as a Distinguished Favorite by the NYC Big Book Awards. Kiran Kaur Saini's weapons escalation satire “The Thin Rising Line” appeared in the anti-war military SciFi journal Bullet Points in September. Brandon Clippinger's short story "New" was published in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Callie Jenning's poem "Four Months to Coming Out Again" has won the 2023 Bennett Nieberg Transpoetic Broadside Prize. She thanks Bea and Caedra, who she met in Breezy Janae's spring poetry workshop.

Boston Writers of Color member Umeleni Mhlaba-Abebo is one of the 2023 Brother Thomas Fellows. She is grateful to The Boston Foundation, Lee Pelton, Catherine T. Morris, the jurors and the Pucker Gallery for the incredible support. Chandreyee Lahiri’s short story made it to the shortlist of the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and will be published in their next anthology. Brenden Layte's essay "Dusk, Summer 1994" was published in Waxwing.

Margarita Barresi's debut novel, A Delicate Marriage, is now available. She participated in the second cohort of the Novel Generator program with Lisa Borders, where the book was born. Tommie Ann Bower's flash poem “The Edge of Days" appears in the October issue of Visual Verse. She is grateful for the craft and encouragement from instructors Aimee Seiff Christian, Shuchi Saraswat, and her writer's group.

Instructor A.J. Rodriguez was awarded a 2024 residency from Yaddo. He will be at their campus in Saratoga Springs during April and May and plans to continue working on his first novel. Instructor Lesléa Newman was recently featured on MSNBC's "The Eleventh Hour," discussing banned books and her latest book, Always Matt: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard with Stephanie Ruhle. Boston Writers of Color member Marchaé Grair was accepted as a 2024 Roots. Wounds. Words. Fellow for their “Writing Wellness for Us” concentration. The fellowship is for the Winter Writers’ Retreat for storytellers of color.

Muse Attendee Mimi Manyin's short story "Whenever You're Ready" will be published in Meridian.T.H. Forest recently published her second novel, Kelly's Folly (free for a limited time with Kindle Unlimited).This book was a direct result of the class "Novel Essentials: Narrative Perspective" she took with Ursula DeYoung. BWOC member Malavika Shetty's short story made it to the shortlist of the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and will be published in their next anthology. Dr. Tamara MC, a memoir incubator graduate, published a book review/essay in the Los Angeles Review of Times comparing her experience in her Sufi cult to Guinevere Turner's experience in When the World Didn’t End. Also, in The Los Angeles Review of Books, BWOC member Rani Neutill has published an essay titled "Prohibition and Hope: The Politics of Jhumpa Lahiri's Writings."

Instructor and BWOC member Tatiana Johnson-Boria's debut poetry collection, Nocturne in Joy, will be released in fall 2023 and is now available for pre-order. She'd like to thank all of her students who she's had the honor of working with for the past six years for reminding her of the power of language and motivating her to believe in her own work. Rebecca Grossman-Kahn published “Dinner Party '' in Complete Sentence, a magazine of single-sentence prose. This piece was written during the “6 Weeks, 6 Essays” class taught by Kristen Paulson-Nguyen. Kristen has been named Producer of the annual Boston in 100 Words writing contest, which opens January 15, 2024. She'd love to see submissions from the GrubStreet community.

An excerpt from instructor Tim Horvath's novel-in-progress The Spinal Descent will appear in the anthology Ten Piscataqua Writers 2024, available in early November. Instructor and Boston Writers of Color Member Kayla Degala-Paraíso's experimental memoir piece, "A History of Skin," was nominated for Best of the Net. It was published in ANMLY Magazine #35 earlier this fall. Rachel Zimmerman's essay "Our lives had been shattered. Now something extraordinary was happening" was published in The Washington Post. She'd like to thank fellow Memoir Incubator alum Doug Smith for his superb editing guidance. Susan Phillips' short story "Northern Lights,” its first draft conceived in a “6 Weeks, 6 Stories” class, is online in the fall issue of October Hill Magazine. Patricia Harney published her personal essay "He Was Just Here" in this month's issue of Dorothy Parker's Ashes. The material for this piece was generated in Alysia Abbott's Memoir Incubator class.

Instructor Tim Weed has a new short story, “Under the Highway,” in Fairlight Shorts. The story also won a top ten award in this year's Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition. Gil Israeli's story "Witness Seven" is now available in the print (only) Anthology, Polyphony, from the Journal of Experimental Fiction. Catherine Parnell was interviewed by Ann Fisher for the Mud Season Review about life as a writer and editor and her story "Sisters of the Sacred Well."

Mary Carroll Moore, instructor and author of her recently published second novel, A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO SEARCH & RESCUE, was a featured guest on the podcasts Literary Aviatrix and Writers' Craft. BWOC member Lynn Marie Foy is celebrating a ten-year anniversary since she self-published her book Twelve Days Later: Discovery of Ultimate Love. Current Affairs published the essay "Why I'm Preparing to Die — And Why You Should, Too" by incubator graduate Jennifer Dines. Alexis Wright's essay "Which One is the Lifeline?” was published in The Common and was selected as a Notable Essay by Best American Essays 2023.

Jeffrey M. Feingold’s debut short story collection, The Black Hole Pastrami, won the PenCraft Seasonal Book Award in the Short Story/Anthology category. Incubator graduate RJ Taylor recently published the short story "Vanishing Point" in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She also published the short story "Upgrade Day" in the magazine Clarkesworld. The story appears on the 2023 Nebula Recommended Reading List.