UW English Professor’s Book Makes Most Anticipated Books of 2025 List

Arielle Zibrak, a professor of English at the University of Wyoming, edited a volume of short stories by American women writers that is forthcoming from Penguin Classics in March.

Zibrak’s collection, “Twelve Stories by American Women,” was listed as a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by The Millions, an online literary magazine and a subsidiary of Publisher’s Weekly.

The list is an annual tradition at the literary magazine. Each year, it selects the books the editors most look forward to reading for each month of the upcoming year.

Zibrak selected the stories for “Twelve Stories by American Women,” focusing on writers who have long been left out of American literary canon, most of them women of color, from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper to Zitkala-Ša. The book also includes a new introduction by Zibrak, contextualizing their work in the historical period and offering a new narrative of American literary history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Specifically, she highlights how the critical understanding of turn-of-the-century American women writers has evolved.

Zibrak began teaching at UW in 2014 and received the College of Arts and Sciences Extraordinary Merit in Teaching Award in 2017 and the College of Arts and Sciences Extraordinary Merit in Research Award in 2020. She is the vice president of the Edith Wharton Society and the director of the Rebecca Harding Davis online archive, which is housed at UW. She also is the recipient of next year’s Seibold Professorship. 

To see the “Most Anticipated: The Great Winter 2025 Preview” list, click here. 

To learn more about Zibrak’s work, visit her website at www.ariellezibrak.com.