Did you know that BookEnds has an endowment? You can donate to the Founders’ Fund to ensure that this visionary program will continue to cultivate the next generation of literary voices, who will redefine the landscape of contemporary fiction and carry forward the standards of craft and camaraderie so foundational to this immersive program.
This summer, with bittersweet gratitude, our program bid farewell to our co-founding director Susan Scarf Merrell. Susie worked tirelessly to develop the BookEnds novel revision fellowship from a pilot cohort of six students in 2017 to a program going into its tenth year, with seventy-five alums who have published and continue working tirelessly on their BookEnds novels and beyond in our alumni community. Susie was intrinsic to the selection process for BookEnds novels each year, and read draft after draft from every fellow. We celebrate her work, and she will be deeply missed!
We are overjoyed to introduce our new co-director, Alison Fairbrother, who claimed the mantle from Susie this summer after a lengthy and competitive search amongst many accomplished authors, editors, and teachers. A lecturer in the Department of Creative Writing, Television and Film, Alison is the author of the novel The Catch (Random House), a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a People magazine “Best New Book.” She was an associate editor at Riverhead Books before coming to Stony Brook, where she worked with New York Times bestselling and award winning authors. A graduate of Stony Brook’s MFA program, she was a BookEnds fellow during the program’s inaugural year.
This summer also saw the publication of 2022 Fellow Giano Cromley’s BookEnds novel American Mythology with Doubleday! And we are delighted to announce the following forthcoming novels:
2023 Fellow Miranda Shulman’s BookEnds novel Harmless is forthcoming with Dutton on April 14, 2026. Preorder here!
2021 Fellow Marian Mitchell Donahue’s BookEnds novel Backstitch is coming out with Galiot Press on March 3, 2026.
2021 Fellow Rachel León’s BookEnds novel How We See the Gray will be published by Curbstone on May 15, 2026. Preorder here! Rachel is also the editor of The Rockford Anthology (Belt), forthcoming this month.
2022 Fellow Kelly Anderson’s BookEnds novel The Wild Beneath will be published by HarperCollins/Park Row Books on August 4, 2026, as well as with Harper Canada, with foreign rights acquired in fifteen other countries.
2022 Fellow Jennifer Yeh’s BookEnds novel Migratory Creatures is forthcoming with William Morrow in early 2027.
2019 Fellow Sheena Cook sold her BookEnds novel Men Would Kill for This in a two-book deal to HarperCollins in the U.K. and Hachette in the U.S., for publication in early 2027.
Many other BookEnds novels are represented by agents and out on submission—so we expect much more happy news to come! Fellows from our recent and incoming cohorts have also signed with agents over the past months.
Further honors and doings:
2024 Fellow Sam Corradetti was awarded the Giuseppe Velli Creative Prize by the American Boccaccio Association for a zombie retelling of Tancredi and Ghismonda (Decameron 4.1), and has a short story coming out with Mississippi Review this winter.
2025 Fellow Jules Donne will hold an artist residency at Dorland Mountain Arts next year.
2019 Fellow Kathleen Gibbons was in residence at Hedgebrook this past summer.
2023 Fellow Suzanne LaFetra was in residence in Westfjords, Iceland, in September, working on a new novel.
2021 Fellow Coco Picard was named Associate Publisher at City Lights in San Francisco.
BookEnds alums are also busy and active in our ongoing writing community, with new works in progress; supporting one another through daily and weekly Zoom writing sessions; giving each other advice, feedback and support on query letters and the query process; and—of course—through our BookEnds blog. We are excited to announce a Giving Day Write-a-Thon in spring 2026! Please stay tuned for details and how you can follow along and support the BookEnds fellows in their ongoing writing journeys.
We look forward to bringing you more great news soon. To learn more about BookEnds, join us for our Fall 2025 Open House to meet co-directors Alison Fairbrother and Meg Wolitzer, as well as mentors, alums and fellows! Register here.