HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

STONECOAST WINTER 2026 RESIDENCY

As we prepare for Stonecoast’s Winter 2026 residency (January 9–18, 2026), we’re excited to share a few highlights we think will make our time back at the Harraseeket Inn especially memorable. We’re delighted to welcome our distinguished guests Brock Clarke, Marianne Leone, Dante Micheaux, Jennifer Militello, Rebecca Turkewitzk, and Catherynne (Cat) Valente, each bringing a great deal of experience and fresh insight to our Stonecoast community.

If you can only attend one event this January, we encourage you to join us for the residency’s cornerstone WISE gathering: The Task Before Us: “Speak up. Speak out. Get in the way.” The Power of Good Trouble. Stonecoast faculty member JJ Amaworo Wilson, along with guests alumna Penny Guisinger (Creative Nonfiction, S’13) and Marianne Leone, will explore how writers have answered Congressman John Lewis’s call to make “good trouble, necessary trouble” in the face of injustice. This discussion highlights how meaningful change often begins when everyday people dare to disrupt the status quo—using story, voice, and art to push for a more just world.

Robin, Justin, and Nikki would like to extend their gratitude for your ongoing support and are looking forward to welcoming all who can join us during the residency. As always, alumni and friends are welcome to attend our evening events.

We hope to see you in January!

Public Schedule

THE STONECOAST ALUMNI OPEN MIC

The Stonecoast Alumni (Virtual) Open Mic will be hosted by Matt Saccaro on January 13th at 7:00 p.m. EST on Zoom. Each participant has the mic to read three minutes of original work. Click here to sign up!

STONECOAST REVIEW

It’s official, Stonecoast Review is launching its 24th Issue on January 11th, 2026, at 7:15 p.m. EST! The theme for this issue is Freedom. Contributors across the board challenged and reimagined our preconceived notions on freedom through story, poetry, and art. Join us over zoom for an open-mic where authors will read excerpts from their published works in the newest Stonecoast Review issue (see Zoom invitation below). We hope to see you there!

Consider supporting us by purchasing your own copy here! At a time when book bans and threats to people’s literacy are rampant, works by independent publishers like ours are more important than ever. If you’d like to donate to Stonecoast Review, you may do so here.

Zoom Invitation:

• Topic: SCR Issue 24 Launch
• Time: Jan 11, 2026 07:15 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
• Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android here 
• Password: Issue24

ALUMS 

In their continued role as Editor of Prose Reviews for The Rumpus, J Brooke (Poetry, S’19) would like to remind writers who have an interest in reviewing a book that they can contact them at J.Brooke@therumpus.net.

Libby Cudmore (Creative Nonfiction/Popular Fiction S’10) has signed a deal with Ruadán Books, “via Jim McCarthy of Dystel Goderich & Bourret LLC, for a novel and a short story collection. The works will continue her award-winning Wade & Jacks series begun with the neo-noir thriller Negative Girl and a series of short stories appearing in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Tough.” Read more here.

Jen Dupree‘s (Fiction, W’15) short story “Watch,”which was published recently in Slippery Elm, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Gro Flatebo (Creative Nonfiction, W’10) won the nonfiction award at the annual Bangor Author’s Awards for her essay “Skim Ice” in the 12 Rivers Press anthology Echoes in the Fog.

Josh Gauthier‘s (Popular Fiction, S’17) story “Christmas in the White and Red” is out now as a part of The NoSleep Podcast Christmas episode which can be found here. 

Kristin LaTour (Poetry, S’07) invites everyone to the Aurora Writers Workshop retreat June 5-7, 2026. Writers choose a track (poetry or fiction) for a four-hour writing course on Saturday. Events also include a keynote address Friday evening, dinner with faculty reading Saturday, and a large group generative gathering Sunday morning. Tuition is $200 for the weekend and includes Saturday’s dinner. This is our third year, and we’re going to open two scholarships in January now that we have 503(c)3 status! This year’s faculty is keynote M. Rae Henry, poetry courses with Faisal Mohyuddin, and fiction courses with Meg Cass. See course descriptions, a full schedule, and a contact form for questions at the website.

A review of Harper Lee’s The Land of Sweet Forever by Acree Graham Macam (Fiction, W’25) appeared in The Rumpus. Additionally, Acree was invited to attend the 2026 Tin House Winter Workshop. 

Nadja Maril (Fiction, W’20) is pleased to share that her creative-nonfiction flash piece “Church Ladies” will be appearing in Winter Quarterly issue of Unbroken, to be released in January. Nadja will also be joining her classmates Leah Siviski (Fiction, W’20), Stephanie Loleng (Fiction, W’20), and Sandy Collier (Fiction, W’20) presenting a panel discussion at the January Stonecoast residency on the importance of creating supportive relationships with writing colleagues, particularly in grad school.

John Christopher Nelson‘s (Fiction, S’15) short story “Nosegay” will be published next year in the UK’s own Schlock! Webzine. This piece is John’s take on Cowboys & Aliens, and serves as a tribute to his late father, who was likely the only person to actually enjoy that movie. As a diversion from fiction, John wrote a piece about one of his favorite neo-noirs, Robert Altman’s adaptation of The Long Goodbye. You can find it in the Adaptations issue of The Frida Zinema, The Frida Cinema‘s volunteer-run film zine. Check out Issue #16 here.

Roxanne Ocasio’s (Popular Fiction, W’15) short story “Fragile” was a contest finalist and will be featured in the inaugural Tightwires Anthology, due out in 2026. She is planning to read her story as part of the Tightwires reception occurring at AWP in March.

Marisca Pichette (Popular Fiction, S’21)is starting 2026 strong with new genre-bending stories coming out in Lightspeed, The Deadlands, and Uncharted. In February, she will also have new horror fiction published in Nightmare Magazine and Little Red Flags, an anthology from Dark Matter INK. She’s also thrilled to share that her piece “Soft Fire,” published in Strange Wilds Press’ BOREAL anthology, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize!

Bruce Pratt (Fiction, S’04) has a short memoir, “Two Gregs, a Bill, a Bruce, and a 1960s Epiphone Texan,”forthcoming in Portland Magazine next fall.

J. Stephen (Steve) Rhodes (Poetry, W’11) will offer an online presentation for the Stonecoast Winter Session, January 13th: Writing with Integrity—Memoir as Poetry.

Internationally-known novelist Tea Obreht chose the stories for the first issue of Tumbleweed Creative Arts’ new journal, Granite, and sid sibo (sidney woods; Fiction, W’19) is honored to share the flash fiction “Diversion” at the January 13th launch party at the Pink Garter Theater in Jackson Hole. This story is dedicated to the memory of Tortuguita, a young transgender immigrant killed in defense of a forest in Georgia that has since been developed as a police training ground, despite ongoing public opposition.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz (Fiction, S’09) interviewed two independent bookstores for Regal House Publishing’s Book Bound blog: Dockside Books, an Up-North Haven for Thinkers, Adventurers and Creatives, in Charlevoix, Michigan, and Books, Bites and a Big Dream: Inside Rochester, Michigan’s Charming Indie Bookstore, which is in Linda’s hometown. BTW, interviewing bookstore owners is a great way to build community and establish yourself with them as an author if you have a new book coming out.

Robin Clifford Wood (Creative Nonfiction, S’15) will have her essay “Cardinal Virtues” published in Club Plum Literary Journal this month (January). Also, she has in hand the first hand-type-set print for a small collection of poems dedicated to Sutton Island. They are the fruit of a collaboration between Robin (poetry), Jeff Wahlstrom (artwork), and Walter Tisdale (craft printmaker). Here is an image of their first production, in broadside form:

FACULTY  

JJ Amaworo Wilson will have a short-story collection published by PM Press in Spring 2027, provisionally entitled Sonatas for the Dead.

John Florio (Popular Fiction, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction Faculty | Fiction/Popular Fiction, S’07) and Ouisie Shapiro’s YA book MARKED MAN: Frank Serpico’s Inside Battle Against Police Corruption has been selected for the nonfiction reading lists of the Texas and Missouri Library Associations. John is continuing his doctoral (DFA) studies at the University of Glasgow; in the spring, he’ll be defending his dissertation, “King of the World: How the U.S. Government Targeted Performance Artists During the Second Red Scare.”

Raina León received a 2025 Leeway Foundation Transformation Award. The Leeway Foundation wrote, “You are one of 12 artists and cultural producers selected on the basis of your ongoing commitment to art and social change and the power of your practice to move and inspired others to create change. As a Leeway Transformation Award recipient, you have joined a powerful community of artists and cultural producers who have had meaningful impact in this region and beyond.” Raina is also a finalist for Philadelphia Poet Laureate.  

Elizabeth Searle’s new book—The Drama Room: A Collection in Three Acts—was praised by Kirkus Reviews for “Daring plots with evocative language and complex characters.” Elizabeth will be discussing her book on author Michelle Hoover’s podcast The 7AM Novelist in January. Elizabeth is now Coordinator for the Theater for Democracy project for Writers for Democratic Action-MA. The theater project performs staged readings and discussions of one-act plays addressing timely political issues, written especially for WDA. Elizabeth is directing one of the premiere Staged Readings of the newest WDA play: January 6, 2021: A Day Forever. The play will be performed January 6th, 2026, at Newtonville Books at 6:30 p.m. Learn more about the Theater for Democracy project on the WDA website.