MCW Year in Review 2025 - Andrea Coelho;Sarah Matthews

What happens when a writing group decides to put their best year on paper? You get Memphis Creative Writing: Year in Review 2025 - eight short stories that refuse to stay in one lane.

A teenage girl discovers connection in a chip sandwich while her popular friend dominates the cafeteria. A perpetually calm man finally loses it when God sends a Discord notification and an angel shows up at his diner. A divorcing father navigates the worst possible restaurant conversation while the table behind him gets progressively more unhinged. A grieving father sees a light in his missing son's playhouse and can't look away. A Renaissance faire squire dictates a sworn medieval chronicle that gradually becomes a statement for the district attorney. A brave bacterium strikes a deal with a virus and escapes the petri dish entirely. A 68-year-old divorcée accidentally books a male stripper instead of an exterminator and ends up with something better than either. And a gambling addict delegates his life to his clone until the clone becomes the better man.

Comedic and horrifying, mundane and speculative, domestic and cosmic - this debut anthology from Memphis Creative Writing showcases six distinctive voices bound together by wit, craft, and the kind of creative community that makes all of it possible.