Growing Pains: Stories by Pushcart Prize-Winning Authors

Talent

J.K. Simmons is considered one of the most prolific and well-established actors of his generation. He has amassed over 200 screen and stage credits since his debut in 1986. Simmons achieved international fame in the 2000s thanks to his role as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man trilogy. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Terence Fletcher, an abusive jazz instructor, in the 2014 film Whiplash. He was also nominated for portraying William Frawley in the 2021 film by Aaron Sorkin called Being the Ricardos. His other various accolades include a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Thomas Sadoski is an American stage, film, and television actor known for playing Don Keefer in HBO’s The Newsroom and Matt Short in Life in Pieces, with extensive theater credits including Broadway’s Reckless and Reasons to Be Pretty, earning Tony nominations for the latter. A graduate of Circle in the Square Theatre School, he’s also recognized for roles in films like John Wick and Wild, and for humanitarian work with organizations like War Child and INARA.

Xander Berkeley is an actor who began his career in the early 1980s. Since then, Berkeley has appeared in over 200 film and television projects, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Candyman, Apollo 13, Heat, and The Walking Dead. In 2013, Berkeley won the Streamy Award Best Male Performance, Drama for his starring role in the acclaimed web series The Booth at the End.

Tedra Millan is an American stage and screen actress known for her work in television, film, and theatre. She plays Dr. Emery Walsh on the TV series The Pitt. She has appeared in shows such as A League of Their Own, Fosse/Verdon, and The Goldbergs, and has performed in stage productions including Leopoldstadt, Marcel on the Train, Present Laughter and The Wolves, earning Drama Desk and Obie Awards as part of the ensemble.

Authors

David Means is an American short story writer and novelist who first came into the scene in 1991 with his highly praised short story collection titled A Quick Kiss of Redemption. He has authored 6 short story collections spanning from 1991-2022 including titles such as Assorted Fire Events (2000), The Secret Goldfish (2004), The Spot (2010), Instructions for a Funeral (2019), and most recently Two Nurses, Smoking (2022). David Means has won awards such as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2000), The Pushcart Prize (2001), O. Henry Prize (2006, 2011), and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (2005).

Jess Row is a short story writer and novelist based in New York. He is a professor of English at NYU. Row’s writing has been featured in many publications, including The New Yorker, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, The Atlantic, and Kyoto Journal. He completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. He has received many awards for his work, such as a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mary Gordon is the author of seven bestselling novels, including Final Payments and The Company Women for which she won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in 1978 and 1981, respectively. Gordon is also known for her literary criticism and memoirs. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York. Gordon currently resides in New York City, where she is the McIntosh Professor of English and Writing at Barnard College. Her latest books are The Love of My Youth (2011), a novel, and The Liar’s Wife (2014), a collection of novellas.

Brian Doyle was a celebrated essayist and poet, who was born in New York City. He was a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and three Pushcart Prizes. His essays and poems have appeared in prestigious publications including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The American Scholar, Orion, Commonweal, and The Georgia Review. Doyle was an editor of the University of Portland alumni magazine, a book reviewer for The Oregonian and a contributing essayist to both Eureka Street magazine and The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.

Musician

Antonique Smith is an American actress and singer known for portraying Faith Evans in the film Notorious and for her starring role as Mimi Marquez in the Broadway production of Rent. She has appeared in television series including Shots Fired and Luke Cage, and has released music blending soul, R&B, and pop influences.

Arcoiris Sandoval is a jazz pianist, composer and Fulbright award recipient currently residing in New York City and originally from Arizona. She obtained her Master’s degree in jazz piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music, and has won 2013 and 2015 ASCAP young jazz composer awards in addition to being a semifinalist at in the Montreux Solo Jazz Piano competition in 2012, a participant in the Mary Lou Williams Festival, Betty Carter Jazz Ahead and the Metropole Orkest Arrangers Workshop directed by Vince Mendoza featuring Richard Bona.