Throughout the year, it has been our great pleasure to shine a spotlight on the many accomplishments of our talented authors who make up this wonderful community. From numerous awards, film festivals, and grants to audiobooks, poetry collections, and debut novels, we have all worked hard this year to send our writing out into the world. As 2025 comes to a close, it’s time for our annual tradition of taking a moment to reflect on the work that’s behind us, as well as look forward to the work that is yet ahead. Take some time to acknowledge the efforts of your fellow authors by reading through their writing successes, maybe adding a few of their books to your holiday shopping lists, and placing those always-important pre-orders for next year!
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Celebrating Our Writing Successes
We love celebrating writing triumphs and achievements through our Publication News and Announcements posts. Check out some of these highlights from the past year!
Jody Hobbs Hesler (Fiction, June 2017) received the 2025 Independent Press Award in the category of literary fiction for her novel Without You Here.
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Rosalind Kaplan’s (Nonfiction, July 2020) essay collection, still healing, was the winner of the Minerva Rising Press memoir contest.
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Sharisse Zeroonian’s (WSS, January 2024) play, “Glass Child,” was accepted for the 2025 Palace Theatre Short-Play Festival at The Rex Theatre in Downtown Manchester, NH.
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Candice Iloh (WFYP, June 2017) was a recipient of a 2024 Leeway Transformation Award, one of 12 grants awarded to women, trans*, and/or gender nonconforming artists and cultural producers in the Greater Philadelphia region, working at the intersection of art and social change for the past five years or more, demonstrating a long-term commitment to social change work.
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Hayley Krischer (Fiction, June 2009) had an excerpt from her recent novel You Belong to Me, featured in Cosmopolitan.
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Rachel Becker (Poetry, January 2025) had a poem “The day after the last school shooting” in The Tusculum Review.
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An adaptation of Jason Reynolds’s (WFYP, MFA faculty) YA novel Long Way Down was nominated for the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical Adaptation. He also released Soundtrack, an original, YA audiobook with Penguin Random House Audio and Listening Library.
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Andrea Ballou’s (Poetry, June 2015) debut poetry collection, Other Times, Midnight, was the winner of the 2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Prize, with Persea Books.
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Kevin Prufer’s (Poetry, MFA Faculty) novel Sleepaway was a finalist for the Foreword/Indie Award for Best Novel. He also had a craft talk “Sentimentality & Dogma” published in the Southeast Review.
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Eileen Cleary (Poetry, June 2017) was longlisted for the 2025 Mass Book Award in Poetry, for her book Wild Pack of the Living.
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Enzo Silon Surin (Poetry, 2012) was a 2025 Mass Cultural Council grant recipient in literature.
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Bonita Lee Penn (Poetry, January 2015) served as a judge for the ACT-SO Achievement Program, a local/national NAACP competition at Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh.
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Jasminne Paulino’s (WFYP, June 2023) debut novel-in-verse, The Extraordinary Orbit of Alex Ramirez, was published by Penguin Random House. The book was reviewed in Diario Libre USA: “El Extraordinario Orbitar de Alex Ramírez”: Una Nueva Página en la Literatura Dominicana.”
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Axie Oh’s (WFYP, June 2017) new YA fantasy novel, The Floating World, was published by Macmillan. She was interviewed about her book in Publishers Weekly: “AAPI Heritage Month 2025: Q&As with Children’s Authors on Writing About Culture and History.” She also appeared in an interview on The Well-Read Podcast, discussing characters and setting in her books.
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Boston Gordon (Poetry, January 2015) interviewed fellow poet July Westhale (June 2013) about July’s latest poetry book, moon moon, for The Common. July was also interviewed by Poets & Writers in “Ten Questions for July Westhale.”
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Jodi Sh. Doff (Nonfiction, January 2013) published “She’s Not Dead, So We’re Buying New Things” on her Substack the long goodbye: dementia caregiving & other stories.
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Hunter Liguore’s (Fiction/WFYP, 2012) short story, “The 10th Daughter of Mnemosyne,” appeared in The NonBinary Review.
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The Butterfly’s Sting by Abbie Harlow (WFYP, June 2019) was selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection book, won the 2025 Hicklebee’s Book of the Year award (MG/ YA) and was named a Kobo Best Book of 2025 in Young Adult Literature.
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Steven Cramer’s (Poetry, MFA faculty) chapbook As If: Variations on Enrique Anderson-Imbert, was published by Lily Poetry Review Press. Two poems from that collection, “Two Ghosts” and “The Eye That Desires to Look Upward,” appeared in the July 2025 issue of Plume.
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S.E. Clark (Fiction, January 2015) had a short story “Tellings” in The Orange & Bee.
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Andrea Wang (WFYP, June 2011) received the 2025 Ohio Book Award in the Middle Grade category, for her novel Summer at Squee.
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Robbie Gamble (Poetry/Nonfiction, January 2017/June 2020) published over 27 poems in 2025, which appear in in 34 Orchard, Rawhead Journal, and The Nomad, among others. He also published essays in Consequence, Boudin, and (Spanish translation) Las Nueve Musas. Robbie won 2nd place in the Midway Journal 2025 Action/Words contest with his poem “Altitude.”
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Jon D. Lee (Poetry, January 2017) received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest for his epic poem “Perpetual Motion.”
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Katie DeBonville’s (Nonfiction, January 2023) musical memoir Grace Notes was accepted for publication by Sibylline Press, to be published in spring of 2026.
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“For the Portuguese Community, Southern Massachusetts Is a Hub of Festas, Food, and Family” by Nathan Tavares (Fiction, June 2011) was published on Condé Nast Traveler as part of their “A Place at the Table” series about diasporas around the country.
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Thato Mwosa (WSS, June 2017) was selected as a 2025 Brother Thomas Fellow by the Boston Foundation. This fellowship recognizes artists across disciplines who are working at the highest levels of excellence and provides them with resources to continue their creative journey.
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Jacqueline Berkman (Fiction, June 2023) published her essay, “The Mother is Me” in Mutha Magazine.
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K.B. Ballentine (Poetry, June 2007) published “Harbingers” and “The Underside of Leaves” in the poetry corner of Tapestry Journal, Issue 1, “An Offering” in the Fall 2025 issue of The Gilded Weathervane, and “Ghost Hour” and “Peace” in Issue 3 of The Zest of the Lemon.
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Cassie M. Seinuk’s Just Doing My Job Right Now: A 10 Minute Postpartum Play appeared on NPX’s featured content: Scripts with Unnamed Characters.
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“These Roots Run Deep” by Julia Leef (Fiction, June 2018) was published in the anthology Dark Speculations: Tales of Various Shapes & Shadows Volume 2.
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Patricia Lynn’s (WSS, June 2023) play “The Untitled Spinster,” was one of the winners of the 8th Annual Emerging Playwright Competition, and was read along with the other winners at Phillips’ Mill Community Association in New Hope, PA on November 22nd.
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Jasmine Warga’s A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall was selected for The Texas Library Association’s (TLA) 2026-2027 Texas Bluebonnet Award (TBA) List. Another of her books, The Unlikely Tale of Chase & Finnegan, received a starred review in Kirkus.
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Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz (Nonfiction, June 2018) was featured in the magazine Northampton Living, where she discussed becoming a storyteller for her culture.
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Celeste Mohammed (Fiction, June 2016) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly for her book, Ever Since We Small, which was released in the Caribbean first in late April 2025 to emphasize that Caribbean readers are not an afterthought, and to celebrate the many Caribbean artists and institutions who helped produce the book.
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Kent Neal’s (Poetry, January 2023) poem “16th Street Flight” won 6th place in the 94th Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (non-rhyming poetry).
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Revisit these 2025 interviews with alumni!
Cindy House
“Being in the Work”
Jana Van der Veer
“Finding a Creative Community”
Mckensi Scy Pascall
“Being Gentle With Yourself”
Holiday Gift Guide
CCW authors published 37 books in 2025 across a variety of genres, themes, and formats. You’ll find all kinds of stories listed below, such as…
Narratives about the bonds we forge with others, whether through family, love, or grief (oftentimes all three)…
Memoirs and historical accounts, scientific tales that instruct and inspire…
Fantastical worlds and thriller-filled plots of magic and mayhem…
Poetry collections that infuse life and emotion into every word…
Prose that celebrates the joy of music through the power of words…
And colorful, imaginative picture books to enjoy with the children in your lives.
You can read about all these books and more on our Bookstore pages for Alumni and Mentors!
‘Tis the Season for Pre-Orders!
One of the best ways to support a fellow author is to help build up the hype around an upcoming release by pre-ordering their book. Consider adding some of these 2026 titles to your shopping carts!
*Ever Since We Small is currently available in Caribbean and UK & Commonwealth bookstores. It will reach US bookstores in January 2026.
That’s a wrap for 2025! We can’t wait to see and share your incredible experiences next year! If you have a writing success you’d like to share with the CCW community, make sure to reach out to us at lesleycambridgecommon@gmail.com!
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