This year, our debutantes are: Senaa Ahmad (The Age of Calamities), Lily Berlin Dodd (The Last Ember), Stephen Fishbach (Escape!), Cay Kim (The Future Perfect), and Lior Torenberg (Just Watch Me).

Tickets are on sale now for the Ball, which is happening April 24, 2025, at Roulette in Brooklyn.

In the coming weeks, you can get to know them through a series of interviews conducted by our readers. And we’re thrilled to be partnering with Debutiful for a live virtual reading with all the Debutantes on April 9th at 7pm ET. It’s free, and all are welcome to join.

Read more about these incredible debut authors below!

Senaa Ahmad, author of OS issue #331, “Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune”

Senaa Ahmad is the author of The Age of Calamities, a short story collection forthcoming in January 2026. Her fiction has previously appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, McSweeney’s, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Best Canadian Stories. She’s received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Speculative Literature Foundation. Her work was also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the Sunburst Award, and a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction.

Lily Berlin Dodd, author of OTS issue #30, “A Eulogy for Pretzel”

Lily Berlin Dodd is a Brooklyn-based, California-born author. Her first novel, The Last Ember, was a New York Times Bestseller, a NYPL best book of 2025, and a Kids’ Indie Next pick. The First Flame will be released in November 2026.

Stephen Fishbach, author of OS issue #273, “To Sharks”

Stephen Fishbach is a Pushcart Prize-winning writer and former television executive. A two-time Survivor contestant (voted onto the show the second time by millions of fans), he’s worked on the network side as a Vice President at MTV and freelanced for a reality producers’ trade group. He cohosts the Survivor Know-It-Alls podcast and hosts the literary podcast Paraphrase. Stephen graduated with honors from Yale and received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction at New York University. His short story “To Sharks”—the opening to Escape!—was published by One Story, which garnered Stephen the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two daughters.

Cay Kim, author of OS issue #336, “Secret”

Cay Kim is a writer from Seoul, Korea. She received her BA from Stanford University, where she won the Urmy/Hardy Poetry Prize, and her MFA from Columbia University. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta. The Future Perfect is her first novel.

Lior Torenberg, author of OS issue #292, “Etymology”

Lior Torenberg’s debut fiction novel, Just Watch Me, was published by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in January 2026. Her work has been published by One Story, MAYDAY, december Magazine, The Poetry Society of New York, and others. She received her Masters in Creative Writing from New York University and is a member of the Lighthouse Book Project. She is represented by Aram Fox at MMQ Literary. Learn more at www.liortorenberg.com.