Poets & Writers has announced the Fall 2025 fiction cohort for Get the Word Out, a publicity incubator for early-career writers. The program gives selected writers an opportunity to work with an experienced book publicist who will guide them in leveraging the opportunity presented by their first or second major book publication.
Continue reading “Announcing the Fall 2025 Poets & Writers Get the Word Out Fiction Cohort”
Phoebe Greenwood is a London-based journalist who was a freelance correspondent in Jerusalem covering the Middle East for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, and Sunday Times between 2010 and 2013. From 2013 to 2021, she was an editor and correspondent at the Guardian specialising in foreign affairs.
Her debut novel, Vulture, is a war satire akin to Catch-22, where an ambitious young journalist is sent to Gaza to cover the war. Throughout it, her writing bites at how tragedy feeds the Western media machine.
We asked Greenwood to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that influenced her life and inspired her debut book.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: Vulture author Phoebe Greenwood believe the birthplace of stories are The Greek Myths”
Rose Keating is an Irish writer who studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, where she was a recipient of the Malcolm Bradbury Scholarship and the Curtis Brown Prize. She also won the Marian Keyes Young Writer Award, the Hot Press Write Here, Write Now Prize, and the Ted and Mary O’Regan Arts Bursary. In 2022, she received an Agility Award from the Irish Arts Council.
Her debut short story collection, Oddbody, features ten stories that feature women who defy societal norms in bizarrely satisfying and mind-bending ways.
We asked Keating to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that influenced her life and inspired her debut book.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: Oddbody author Rose Keating will always read vampire stories”
Larissa Pham follows up her essay collection Pop Song, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, with her debut novel, Discipline. The book will be released by Random House on January 20, 2026, and is now available for pre-order.
In the novel, the main character, Christine, is on a book tour for her book, which is a thinly veiled revenge fantasy based on a relationship she had with a former professor. Her world is turned upside down when he reaches out after years of silence and invites her to visit him on a remote island off the coast of Maine.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Discipline, designed by Rachel Ake, alongside a Q&A with Pham about crafting her enchanting debut and the elegant mystery the cover alludes to.
Continue reading “See the cover for Discipline by Larissa Pham”
In Sam Wachman‘s debut novel, The Sunflower Boys, brothers Artem and Yuri embark on a journey after war kills their family in rural Ukraine. As the journey unfolds, so does a beautifully constructed character study of Artem’s identity, loss of innocence, and blossoming love for his best friend.
Before writing his debut novel, Wachman taught English to primary schoolers in central Ukraine and worked with refugee families in Europe and the United States. His work has also appeared in Sonora Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, and New England Review.
We asked him to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know her and the books that shaped his story.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: The Sunflower Boys author Sam Wachman wants to shoutout Cindy, his neighborhood librarian”
Here are the debut books that caught Debutiful’s eye this month. We think readers will find plenty to love among them.
To see our curated list of standout titles, check out our “12 Noteworthy Debut Books You Should Read This August.”
Continue reading “23 debut books to discover in August 2025”
Lisa Smith’s debut novel, Jamaica Road, is a story about two best friends who grow up, grow apart, and try to find their way back to each other. Set in a close-knit British-Jamaican community, the novel traces one couple’s connection across a decade of upheaval, from the streets of South London to the shores of Calabash Bay.
Smith holds an M.A. in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she won the Pat Kavanagh Prize. She was the recipient of the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize for “Auld Lang Syne” and was named a London Library Emerging Writer in 2020.
We asked the author to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know her and the books that shaped her story.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: Jamaica Road author Lisa Smith was guided by Annie John and Swing Time “
Every now and then, I like to ask writers, “Is there a question you’d like me to ask?” I’m always surprised by the types of questions they’d want to ask themselves, so I decided to take the idea of the self-interview and give writers some restraints.
One. Use Who/What/When/Where/Why-ish questions.
Two. Have fun.
Our next Debuti-Self Interview features Alejandro Puyana, author of the debut novel Freedom Is a Feast, a sweeping multigenerational saga set against the backdrop of revolution, regret, and redemption. From the jungles of 1960s Venezuela to the barrios of early-2000s Caracas, Puyana’s novel traces the emotional and political reverberations of one man’s youthful betrayal across decades—and generations.
Originally from Venezuela, Puyana moved to the United States at twenty-six and received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His work has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, and The American Scholar, and has been selected for The Best American Short Stories. Freedom Is a Feast is out August 5, 2025 in paperback.
But enough from me. Let’s turn it over to Alejandro Puyana.
Continue reading “Alejandro Puyana interviews Alejandro Puyana”
Aisling Rawle’s debut novel, The Compound, is a chillingly prescient exploration of reality TV, desire, and survival in a world teetering on collapse. Set on a remote desert compound where twenty contestants compete to outlast each other for luxury rewards and existential purpose, the story follows Lily, a bored and beautiful twenty-something, as she navigates the blurred lines between performance and reality, safety and spectacle, love and manipulation.
We asked the writer to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know her and the books that shaped her life.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: The Compound author Aisling Rawle’s first book love was The Wind in the Willows”
We’re halfway through the year, and it’s time to check in on the books that left the most significant impact on me. Every year, I keep a running list that leads to the Best Of lists. Some are titles that I recommend the most, others are the ones that challenged me. I look for worlds I would never experience on my own, tantalizing writing, and a dash of sad, weird, or horny. Kudos if they could hit all three.
The debut books below (20 fiction, 5 poetry, and 5 nonfiction) are the books I consider to be the best of the year so far. Of course, I think any of the books Debutiful previously recommended could find their spot on here, but a list has to end somewhere.
Continue reading “The Best Debut Books of 2025 (So Far)”