Robbie Gamble’s (Poetry/Nonfiction, January 2017/June 2020) poem “Duskeater” is featured in a one-of-a-kind Washington State bird guide/ anthology, Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds. It is available for preorder until early 2026. He also has a prose poem, “Tensile” and a poem, “One Suspect Plate of Tapas in Granada” in On The Seawall. And “November Lambs” appears in 34 Orchard (Issue 12).
KB Ballentine (Poetry, June 2007) has contributed poems: “Ecstasy of Spring” and “An Odd Word: Miracle,” to POETRY, PROSE, & SONG Anthology: Women Speak Volume 11, a publication of the Women of Appalachia Project. It is available for preorder through November 30th.
Tracey Baptiste (WFYP, MFA Writing Faculty) has a new book for young readers The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class: Fia Hosein Finds Her Beat available for preorder.
Rachel Becker has two new poems, “Swim Team” and “My First Best Friend” in the South Florida Poetry Journal (Nov 2025/ Issue #39).
Cassie Seinuk’s play, Close Distance Disappearing Acts, has been selected as a semi-finalist in the 2025 Echo Play Contest, and another is a semi-finalist for the Going It Alone 2025 competition.
Read and listen to Julie Cyr’s (Poetry, January 2017) poem “Plexippus” in Hoot Review (POSTCARD 171/ OCTOBER 2025).
Jasmine Warga’s A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall has been 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.
Cheryl Eagan-Donovan (WSS, January 2012) has been selected for the third time as a Film & TV Mentor for the 2026 SXSW Film Festival. She is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise the finishing funds for her film, All the World’s a Stage, which celebrates the power of theatre as a subversive force of misrule, disrupting conventional ideas about gender, sexuality, politics, race, class, and ethnicity. Contributions to the campaign must be made by December 12th. She also talks about the controversial topic: Shakespeare and Transphobia in a recent post in Shakespeare Identified substack.
Michael Lowenthal (Fiction, MFA Writing Faculty) discusses the cover and his latest book, Place Envy, in ElectricLit.
Jason Reynolds’s (WFYP, MFA Writing Faculty) first original audiobook Soundtrack was released with Listening Library, with a full cast and original score by Grammy-winning composer Justin Ellington. Hardcover and paperback editions of Soundtrack are set for release on April 14, 2026.
Cynthia Platt (WFYP, June 2014) discusses her creative process for her book Turkeys in Disguise with Australian author, Adam Wallace in Publishers Weekly. Kids give their reviews of Turkeys in Disguise on YouTube.
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).
Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz (Nonfiction, June 2018) is featured in the magazine Northhampton Living, where she discusses becoming a storyteller for her culture.
Celeste Mohammed (Fiction, June 2016) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly for her book, Ever Since We Small.
The Butterfly’s Sting by Abbie Harlow (WFYP, June 2019) won the 2025 Hicklebee’s Book of the Year award (MG/ YA) and named a Kobo Best Book of 2025 in Young Adult Literature.
Hester Kaplan (Fiction, MFA Writing Faculty) shares memories of her father and talks about the process of writing her new book, Twice Born: Finding My Father in the Margins of Biography, on the Tell Me About Your Father podcast.
Joey Florez’s (WSS, January 2024) screenplay, Bruja, was selected as the official winner of the 2025 International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival for “Best Screenplay.”
Resources & Opportunities
The American Library Association is still accepting applications for the 2026 Jason Reynolds / Simon & Schuster Travel Grant. Deadline to Apply: December 15, 2025.
Check out these titles available for PRE-ORDER!
Do you have any recent writing successes or news you’d like to share with the Cambridge Common Writers community? Let us know by reaching out to us at lesleycambridgecommon@gmail.com!
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