Amy Stuber wrote the stories and Rebecca Burke edited them to produce the book Sad Grownups that won the 2025 PEN/Bingham Prize for Best Debut Short Story Collection. A big deal in literary circles, the book becomes a milestone for its publisher, Stillhouse Press, a teaching press at George Mason University staffed by students and alums who learn the book business by publishing and selling books. Together, Amy and Rebecca discuss the writing process and editing processes, book production and marketing, the content of this prize-winning collection, and the differences today between major commercial publishing houses and small presses.

Sad Grownups is Amy Stuber’s first book of fiction. Her stories have appeared separately in literary journals and magazines, including Ploughshares, Tri-Quarterly, American Short Fiction, New England Review, Idaho Review, Cincinnati Review, Flash Fiction America, Joyland, and others. She received the 2023 William Peden Prize in fiction from the Missouri Review and the 2021 Northwest Review Fiction Prize, and she was runner-up for the 2022 CRAFT Short Fiction Prize. She has a Ph.D. in English, has taught writing, and has worked in on-line education for several years. Rebecca Burke is editorial manager-production for Science Advances, for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she has worked since 2021, not long after finishing her MFA at George Mason. She received her BA from Mason in 2017, majoring in government and international politics with minors in intelligence analysis and international security. She graduated summa cum laude.

At Stillhouse, Rebecca has been a consulting editor, submissions and acquisitions manager, and graduate professional assistant. In addition to Amy Stuber’s book, she also edited In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (November 2022) and was an assistant editor for Catherine Klatzer’s book You Will Never Be Normal (May 2021), Michelle Ross’s Shapeshifting (November 2021), Phil Goldstein’s How to Bury a Boy at Sea (2022), and Josh Denslow’s Super Normal (2023). As a writer, she has published in several outlets, including Peatsmoke 2021 and Homology Lit 2019, where her work was a Best of the Net nominee. rrburkewrites.com

Amy Stuber’s book Sad Grownups can be ordered directly from Stillhouse Press. The teaching press was established in 2014 as a way for the students in Mason’s MFA, BFA, MA and BA programs in creative writing and publishing to solicit manuscripts, acquire and produce and market works from independent authors, for the educational benefit of the students and alums and also, as it says on the web site, “in an effort to forge lasting relationships and foster the growth of the greater literary community.” Stillhouse Press is part of the Watershed Lit Center for Literary Arts and Publishing Practice at Mason. The other components are the Fall for the Book festival, the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, the Northern Virginia Writing Project, and the Poetry Daily on-line poetry distribution program.

You can purchase a copy of Sad Grownups by Amy Stuber at StillhousePress.org here.

“Small presses can take risks big publishers won’t. That’s where some of the most exciting writing is happening.” — Amy Stuber

Key Takeaways

• Writer Amy Stuber and editor Rebecca Burke walk through the creative evolution behind Sad Grown-Ups, from early drafts to a PEN Bingham Prize–winning debut.

• The episode reveals how collaborative editing, motif mapping, and story sequencing strengthened the collection’s emotional arc and overall cohesion.

• Amy and Rebecca break down the realities of small press publishing vs. big-house expectations, especially when it comes to debut short story collections.

• Several standout stories are explored, including “Day Hike,” “Sad Grown-Ups,” and “Little Women,” touching on themes of loss, reinvention, vulnerability, and identity.

• The conversation offers an honest look at marketing a debut, navigating rejection, and the tension between artistic integrity and marketability.

#ShortStoryCollections

#SmallPressPublishing

#LiteraryFictionInsights

Hosted by William Miller

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom