Faculty News

If you are a student with publication/production news for us, send the info to Dana Miller, dana at gothamwriters dot com.

January 2021

  • Laura Yeager compares writers to chorus line dancers in Broadway musicals, saying both must "make love to an audience—to make bawdy faces at the crowd as if I know and love them all" in her essay "I'm a Chorus Girl Writer" in Author magazine. 

  • The Broad River Review published Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's poem "Meditation at Laguna Beach." 

  • Pangyrus published Angie Chatman's essay "Ode to Pound Cake" (with the recipe!), and nominated it for a Pushcart Prize.

  • Rebel Satori Press will publish The Root of Everything by Scott Alexander Hess, featuring two novellas, in July 2021.

  • "It feels almost like a real-life 'It Gets Better' montage — actual, visible proof that healing is possible, even for a teen who once was suicidal and involved in self-harm." Rachel Simon reflects on Vanity Fair's fourth annual interview with pop star Billie Eilish, for Shondaland.

  • Michael Leviton's memoir To Be Honest comes out January 5th, from Abrams Books. 

  • Town and Country magazine published Jennifer Keishin Armstrong's essay "How Sex and the City Helped New York Recover After 9/11." 

  • The Cincinnati Review published Casandra Lopez's essay "Erasure: Lineage." 

  • Anni Irish's article "How Amy Coney Barrett's Confirmation Could Affect Queer Americans" is up now at The Body. 

  • We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly has been named to several Best Books for Kids of 2020 lists, including by the New York Times, the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, the Horn Book, and Book Page. 

  • Rachel Simon explains "Why You're Having So Many Nightmares" and has some advice for you, at HelloGiggles. 

December 2020

  • Crocodile bookmarks! Custom library prints! Socks just for reading! Lara Ewen rounded up the perfect gift guide for book lovers over at American Libraries magazine. 

  • "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar," an episode of This American Life written and reported by Tal McThenia, is included on the New York Times list of "Seven Great Episodes for Thanksgiving."

  • The School Library Journal named books by two Gotham instructors to its Best of 2020 list: Erin Entrada Kelly's middle-grade novel We Dream of Space, and Lev A.C. Rosen's young adult novel Camp. 

  • The Rumpus published Angie Chatman's essay "American, Not Blonde." 

  • "Why do we so need to be 'seen' by others, and how do we live with the knowledge that they don’t see us the way we’d like them to?" asks Alanna Schubach in this interview with The Massachusetts Review. 

  • D.X. Varos released Jessica Sticklor's middle-grade fantasy novel Rise of the Hidden Prince, the second book in her series The Pan Chronicles. 

  • Robert Repino's middle-grade fantasy novel Spark and the Grand Sleuth, the second installment in the League of Ursus series, will be released in March 2021 by Quirk Books, a division of Penguin Random House. 

  • Shelf Awareness gave a starred review to Dewaine Farria's new novel Revolutions of All Colors, calling it an "extraordinary debut," written "with vibrant, breathtaking eloquence."  

  • Business Insider published Melissa Petro's essay "I Lost My Job as a Public School Teacher For Having a Provocative Past." 

  • Jennifer Keishin Armstrong's booklet How to Come Up With All Those Words: A Practical Guide to Writing a Successful Nonfiction Book, From Conception to Publication is available now at Gumroad. 

  • Architectural Digest published Mara Reinstein's article about set design for HBO's latest mini-series, "The Undoing Has Drama, Suspense, and Plenty of New York Real Estate Porn."  

  • "It certainly feels like the City of Boston is trying to widow me for the second time," writes Brendan Halpin in his essay "Ventilation Blues," for Medium. 

  • C.C. Webster appeared on the podcast Release Date Rewind to deep dive the 1995 films To Die For and Empire Records, (especially Empire Records). 

  • Tony Conniff examines the classic "Tangled Up In Blue" in his essay "In Praise of Bob Dylan's Narrative Strategies...and His Verbs," for Literary Hub.  

  • Yahoo!Life published Angie Chatman's article "Sex Ed in the Time of Covid: Why Some Experts Are Concerned for LGBTQ Students." 

  • The Milford House Mysteries podcast interviewed Margarat Meacham about her novel The Ghosts of Laurelford, and writing mysteries for young readers. 

  • "This book has wide appeal and offers something we all desperately need: light and laughter." Erin Entrada Kelly reviews the middle-grade novel Lupe Wong Won't Dance for the New York Times Book Review.  

  • Cold Wars Conversations, a podcast preserving the history of the Cold War, featured Carmen Bugan and her memoir Burying the Typewriter in its episode "A Childhood Under the Eyes of the Secret Police."

  • Angie Chatman performed her story "Taking A Long Time" on the RISK! storytelling podcast's Learning episode. 

November 2020

  • "Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez and I were in prison at the same time during the 1990s, though our stories are remarkably different," writes Cullen Thomas for the Rumpus, the latest in his Conversations With Literary Ex-Cons series.

  • The film production company Anonymous Content announced it is developing Tom Cooper's novel Florida Man (released by Random House in July) as a limited series. 

  • Fordham University Press announced it will publish Marie Carter's narrative nonfiction book Mortimer and the Witches in fall 2022. 

  • Ben Obler wrote about his ugly, beautiful porch for Upstate House magazine's A Savored Place column. 

  • Dewaine Farria won the inaugural Veterans' Writing Award, sponsored by Syracuse University Press, for his forthcoming novel Revolutions of All Colors. He'll be reading from his book, along with novelist Tobias Wolf, at the Veterans Writing Award event on November 12th, which will be held virtually. 

  • Edward Einhorn's play The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley is out now as a four-part radio-play-style podcast. 

  • Libro.fm named Jennifer Marie Brissett's novel Elysium to its monthly list of Reading Recommendations. 

  • The Sewanee Review named Alanna Schubach a semi-finalist in its annual Fiction Contest. 

  • Two Gotham instructors have been named 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellows in Nonfiction Literature: Shahnaz Habib and Stacy Parker LeMelle. 

  • Stacy Pershall appeared on Anthony Padilla's I Spent A Day With... 

  • Business Insider published Angie Chatman's article "Segregation Has Been Embraced, Mandated, and Maintained in the United States By Law and By Policy — Here's How." 

  • Rachel Simon finishes at least one jigsaw puzzle a week, and she's compiled a list of the best ones for grownups who like a challenge, in HelloGiggles. 

  • Lara Ewen's article "A Case for Radical Retail Reinvention" is up now at Retail Dive. 

  • The Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison named Erin Entrada Kelly's novel We Dream of Space as its Book of the Week. 

October 2020

  • Business Insider published Melissa Petro's article "Why His-And-Hers Chores Don't Work." 

  • Angie Chatman traces the fraught relationship between Black Americans and the banking industry to the promise, frauds, and ultimate collapse of Freedman's Bank, in an article for Business Insider. 

  • Love's Executive Order published Matthew Lippman's poem "It's the Best America We've Got." 

  • Nelsie Spencer's one-woman show Day of the Dead Daddy will be staged by the Marsh Theater in San Francisco as part of the MarshStream 2020 International Solo Fest. 

  • An excerpt of Scott Alexander Hess' novel The Root of Everything appears in Words After Dark: A Lit, Lyrics, and Liquor Anthology. 

  • Erin Entrada Kelly appeared on the Newbery Tart podcast to talk about the challenge of writing YA heroines who  "don't get up to shenanigans." 

  • "COVID-19 is doing a number on our brain," writes Laura Yeager for PsychCentral.

  • The Believer published Teresa Wong's comic "This Is Not a Feel-Good Movie." 

  • NBC News THINK published Rachel Simon's essay on why Schitt's Creek deserved all of its Emmy awards, and the particular joy of watching underdogs win. 

  • Kristin Rockaway and her latest novel, She's Faking It, are featured in a roundup in Publishers Weekly, of 2020 authors finding creative new ways to connect with readers. 

  • War on the Rocks published Dewaine Farria's essay "Despite the Yoke." 

  • The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviewed Tom Cooper's latest novel Florida Man, calling it fresh and surprising, and saying that in "capturing how development erased much of the state’s oddball authenticity...Cooper shows nostalgia for “Old Florida” without being sentimental about, say, roadside zoos packed with miserable animals."

  • "I have a shelf in my office that holds copies of all my work that has appeared in print: my novels, magazines, short story anthologies, and my poetry chapbook. Whenever I get discouraged about my writing career, I look at that shelf. It reminds me that I can do this," says Kirsten Imani Kasai in a featured interview with Shoutout SoCal.

  • The Massachusetts Review published Alanna Schubach's short story "Iris."

  • Lara Ewen's article "Virus-Responsive Design," about libraries redesigning themselves to simultaneously socially-distance patrons and make them more digitally connected than ever, appears in American Libraries magazine. 

  • Hasty Book List interviewed Jessica Sticklor about writing her new novel, how she became a writer in the first place, and the literary character she thinks she's most likely to be friends with. 

  • Female film critics make up only 35 percent of all reviewers, they review twice as many women-directed films as male critics, and they receive exponentially more online harassment—Mara Reinstein and fellow critic Christy Lemire talked about all that and more on the podcast Rachel's Reviews. 

  • Publishers Weekly gave Michael Montlack's new poetry collection Daddy a starred review, calling it "rewarding and accomplished." 

September 2020

  • Jessica Sticklor suggests three ways you can get to know your characters better in her article "How to Create Complex, Dynamic Characters in Fiction," up now at The Writer magazine. 

  •  "We All Need a Personal Cheerleader Right Now," Mara Reinstein's essay about running with her 12-year-old nephew, is up now at Runner's World.

  • Blaise Kearsley is now a contributing editor at the Vestal Review. 

  • Angie Chatman, with co-author Joanne Lozar Glenn, won a 2020 Apex Grand Award for Excellence in Writing, for an article published by the National Business Education Association. 

  • Kate Angus' poem "The Plants Are Happy" appears in the literary journal Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action. 

  • The New York Times included Edward Einhorn's plays The God Projekt and Performance for One in its roundup of live performances streaming online in "Appointment Theater, Now Coming to a Screen Near You." 

  • NYQ Books will release Michael Montlack's poetry collection Daddy on September 7th. 

  • Thrillist named Tom Cooper's new novel Florida Man to its list of Books We're Excited to Read, calling it "an off-kilter noir." 

  • "For years, the traditional reading has been that we’ve given too much power to the crowds, but no one considers the far more dangerous implication—that we sure are handing over a lot of undue power to corporations," writes Jon Gingerich in his op-ed "Companies Should Stand Up to Cancel Culture" for O'Dwyer's magazine. 

  • Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's short story "Pool Fishing" is included in the new anthology Crossing Borders, jointly published by Down & Out Books and Sisters In Crime-San Diego. 

  • In response to a photo that went viral recently, Carmen Bugan published her poem "Do Not Point Your Gun at a Child." 

August 2020

  • Madeline Valentine's picture book I Want That Nut! is a winner of the 2020 Praire Bud Awards, sponsored by the South Dakota Library Association. The award is selected by South Dakota readers in kindergarten through second grade, who vote for a book after they have read it. 

  • "Sometimes the connection on Zoom or WhatsApp becomes blurry and I have this strange sense that we are losing each other in the ether," writes Carmen Bugan in her essay "Stony Brook," for the Harvard Review.

  • The Horn Book named Erin Entrada Kelly's middle-grade novel Lalani and the Distant Sea one of its 2020 Mind the Gap Award winners, for excellent children's literature overlooked by the American Library Association Awards. 

  • Random House released Tom Cooper's novel Florida Man on July 28th. 

  • The Center for Fiction named Chelsea Bieker's novel Godshot to the longlist for the 2020 First Novel Prize.  

  • Clemintine Guirado's short story "Reliable Witness" is a finalist for the Master's Review Fall Fiction Prize. 

  • Rachel Simon tried Kim Kardashian's new loungewear collection and wrote about wanting "to live in these clothes forever," for HelloGiggles. 

  • Melissa Petro's article "I Found My Flow Working From Home in the Pandemic" is up now at Businss Insider. 

  • Architectural Digest published Mara Reinstein's article "Creating the Strange World of Eurovision for Netflix's New Hit Comedy." 

  • Aubrey Poole is the new acquisitions editor for the book-subscription service Literati. 

  • Scott Alexander Hess launched his new Hot Lit newsletter in July, featuring an interview with author Sarah Gerard. 

  • Tor Books announced it will publish Jennifer Marie Brissett's novel Destroyer of Light in fall 2021.  

  • Cure Today published Laura Yeager's article "There Are No Hugs with Telehealth."

  • Elle magazine named Lev A.C. Rosen's new YA novel Camp one of its Best Books of 2020 (So Far). 

July 2020

  • The New York Times published Rachel Simon's article "Is Pickleball the Perfect Pandemic Pastime?" in its Sunday Styles section. 

  • The Missouri Review published Seth Fried's short story "Trezzo," which also won the magazine's 2020 Editor's Prize. 

  • Melissa Petro's essay "I'm a Recovering Alcoholic and My Husband Loves Beer. Here's How We Are Making It Work" is in Business Insider. 

  • The blog of the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities at Brandeis University published Laura Yeager's "Bipolar Mother Makes the Best of It During COVID-19." 

  • The arts magazine Monk published Carmen Bugan's essay "Lumina Mea." 

  • NBC's Today show named books by two Gotham instructors to its list of Best Summer Reads for Kids: Erin Entrada Kelly's middle grade novel We Dream of Space and Lev A.C. Rosen's YA novel Camp.   

  • Business Insider published Angie Chatman's essay "Redlining May Be 'Officially' Over, But I Know All Too Well That Black Families Still Face Housing Discrimination."  

  • The Body published Anni Irish's article "How America's Longest Continuously Operating Bar for Queer Women is Fighting to Keep Its Doors Open." 

  • Thomas + Mercer has released Carole Bugge's novel Edinburgh Midnight, the third in her Ian Hamilton Mysteries series. 

  • Stowe Story Labs selected two Gotham instructors for its 2020 Workshop program: Tatjana Soli for the limited series adaptation of her novel The Removes, and C.C. Webster for her feature screenplay Little Buffalo.  

  • Laura Yeager is blogging for Pysch Central, and one of her most recent posts is "COVID-19 and Autistic Children."

  • Seventeen magazine's "Twelve Most Anticipated YA Books Coming Out Summer 2020" includes Lev A.C. Rosen's forthcoming novel Camp.  

June 2020

  • Pendemic published Jon Reiner's essay "Synchronicity." 

  • "In 1984, we had everything and still wanted more...You can see how that fits into now." Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot talks to Mara Reinstein about how the '80s are still relevant, if the fashions are not, for Parade magazine. 

  • "I'm Struggling Because of the Coronavirus. Why Won't My Landlord Lower the Rent?" Alanna Schubach's answer involves Albany, negotiation tactics, and collusion, for Brick Underground. 

  • Divya Sood's novel Find Someone to Love is a finalist for the Golden Crown Award in the General Fiction category.

  • Magnet Box Films has optioned C.C. Webster's screenplay Blue Ball, PA.  

  • Scholastic released Kody Keplinger's latest middle-grade novel Lila and Hadley. 

  • Michael Montlack's poems "One Sparrow" and "Green Beans and Mashed Potatoes" appear in the literary journal The Offing.

  • Bookshop featured Kirsten Imani Kasai's novel House of Erzulie on its "Dark and Delicious Reads by Women of Color" quarantine reading list.

  • Pleiades: Literature In Context reviewed Nina Boutsikaris' memoir I'm Trying To Tell You I'm Sorry, calling Nina and her book, variously, "a sieve," "a performance," and "a flytrap," but we're pretty sure in a good way.  

  • Rachel Simon's essay "Rodham Is a Frustrating but Fascinating Look at an Alternate-Universe Hillary Clinton" is up now at Marie Claire. 

  • Lara Ewen's article "A Civilized Term for Hate Crime," about librarians fighting back against Zoombombing and its chilling effect on free speech and assembly, appears in American Libraries magazine. 

  • HBO Max has optioned Lev A.C. Rosen's new YA novel Camp for production as a feature film. Little Brown Books for Young Readers released Camp on May 26th. 

  • Writers Weekly published Laura Yeager's article "Increase Your Freelance Writing Income with Your Own 'Editing Group.' "

  • Seth Fried and graphic designer Julia Mehoke, who is also Seth's wife, have launched the podcast Running Out of Movies, in which they discuss quarantining in a studio apartment with nothing good to watch. 

  • To mark the end of its 40th season and the approach of its 20th anniversary, Mara Reinstein collected the 100 Most Iconic Moments of Survivor, for The Ringer.  

  • Business Insider published Melissa Petro's article "Couples Are Fighting More During Quarantine, but my Husband and I Have Used the Time to Get Better at Handling Conflict."

  • "I don't know when the beige began," begins Jennifer Marie Brissett's short-story "Through the Veil," in Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. 

  •  WOW—Women on Writing published Laura Yeager's essay "The Coronavirus Coffee Kit.

  • The New York Times published Joselin Linder's essay "Dancing With My Mortality." 

  • The Paris Review pubished Chelsea Bieker's essay "Fathers Sway Above It All."

May 2020

  • Nina Boutsikaris' memoir I'm Trying to Tell You I'm Sorry is a small-press top 10 bestseller for the first quarter of 2020. 

  • Window shades, video games, and co-working spaces, and "other recent Lobbying Disclosure Act Database filings suggest that what constitutes an 'essential' business is, for better or worse, open to interpretation." Jon Gingerich does a deep dive into the industries trying to persaude the federal government that they're essential during the coronavirus outbreak, for O'Dwyers. 

  • Pulp magazine published Elane Johnson's essay "50, And a Reluctant Porn Star." 

  • For Parade magazine, Mara Reinstein interviewed actors Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker about marriage, Broadway, and co-starring in the (postponed) Broadway revival of Plaza Suite.

  • It Gets Better featured Lev A.C. Rosen's short story "On the Corner of Iris and Hartz" in its Moments of Joy series. 

  • D.X. Varos announced it will release Jessica Sticklor's middle grade fantasy novel Nod on June 2nd. 

  • Chelsea Bieker's essay "Motherloss, That Thing You Cannot Escape" is up now at Literary Hub. 

  • Lara Ewen's article "How to Sanitize Collections in a Pandemic," in American Libraries magazine, has advice for librarians and non-librarians alike. 

  • The Internet Void published Jennifer Marie Brissett's poem "Remember." 

  • Joselin Linder appeared on The Dr. Oz Show to discuss her memoir The Family Gene and taking action against diseases. 

April 2020

March 2020

  • Library Journal gave a starred review to Chelsea Bieker's forthcoming novel Godshot, saying protagonist "Lacey May's is an irresistible voice, part gullible believer, part whip-smart independent spirit who surprises at every turn."

  • Rolling Stone published Melissa Petro's op-ed "Michael Bloomberg Wants to Silence Those Who Discuss Their Past — Including Me." 

  • NYQ Books will publish Michael Montlack's poetry collection Daddy in April. 

  • Carment Bugan has been shortlisted for the International Beverly Prize for Literature for her memoir Life Without a Country.

  • "Surrender," an essay by Nina Boutsikaris, is a Sunday Short Read selected by Creative Nonfiction. 

  • The New York Times published Rachel Simon's essay "My Mom, My Dad and Amazon's Alexa" in its Ties column. 

  • Laura Yeager's essay "Leaving New York" appears in WOW! Women on Writing, as part of its Friday Speak Out series.

  • DC Comics has released Matthew Cody's graphic middle-grade novel Zantanna and the House of Secrets. 

  • Robert Repino talked about the Democratic Presidential primaries on the podcast The Devil Advocates. 

  • The Newslette interviewed Amina Akhtar as one of the "women we admire" for its article "We Found Love: How to Make the First Move in Career, Romance, Friendships." 

  • Lara Ewen looks at what's behind (and ahead for) NYC's many vacant storefronts in her aricle "How Chain Stores Are Rightsizing New York City Retail" for Retail Dive.  

  • Kirkus reviewed Lev A.C. Rosen's forthcoming middle-grade novel Camp, saying "This novel has the appeal of a rom-com movie-makeover but with more substantive explorations of self-betrayal, self-evaluation, and eventual awakening."

  • Print Club Ltd. published Anni Irish's article "Four Shows To See In New York City This Winter." 

  • Alanna Schubach's short-story "Next Door" appears in the current issue of Juked, a literary magazine. 

  • Seth Fried won the Missouri Review Editors' Prize for his short story "Trezzo."

  • "When my father was taken to prison for his public protest against Ceausescu in 1983, I wrote poems to his pictures...He 'came back' in my descriptions, and I articulated a sense of grief and loss for my mother and sister, too. This is how I knew that there was something special about writing." Carmen Bugan talks more about the transcendant power of writing in an interview with Pulp. 

February 2020

  • Columbia Journal published Kate Angus' poems "Tell Me About Last Night" and "Thirteen Years and This Is What You Are to Me Now." 

  • The Millions' list of Most Anticipated Books for the first half of 2020 includes two novels by Gotham instructors: God Shot by Chelsea Bieker, forthcoming in April, and You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat, forthcoming in June. 

  • Michael Montlack's poem "A Friend of Farrah" appears in the Ocean State Review. 

  • Elemental magazine published Melissa Petro's article "Short-Term Abandonment of Your Loved Ones May Help Your Mental Health." 

  • "Servant of the People hits close to the bone at times, but offers a ray of hope too, packaged in smooth production, tight writing, fine performances, and laugh-out-loud sequences," writes Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, of the Ukranian TV show that starred that nation's current president Volodymyr Zelensky, for the BBC. 

  • Kody Keplinger talked about Dungeons & Dragons and body positivity on the podcast Dyking Out with Carolyn Bergier. 

  • Carmen Bugan and her memoir Life Without a Country have been longlisted for the International Beverly Prize for Literature. 

  • Publishers Weekly interviews Robert Repino about his forthcoming middle-grade novel Spark and the League of Ursus, and how he was inspired by his favorite childhood movies in the podcast PW KidsCast. 

  • Laura Yeager is blogging for Cure Today. Her most recent post is "The Gift of the Paper Fan."

  • When Lev Rosen got the idea for his forthcoming novel, he wanted to write "a contemporary queer YA version of a 1960s Doris Day/Rock Hudson sex comedy." He explains how that idea evolved into Camp, (releasing in May), in this interview with GeeksOUT.

  • Dave Hanson's play The Tenants has been accepted and will be staged at the New York Theater Festival's Winterfest. 

  • Gay Mag published Matt Jones' essay "Poses for the Beginning Figure Model." 

  • Jessica Sticklor's YA fantasy novel Into the Fairy Forest (published under her author's name J.M. Stephen) was released on December 3rd by D.X. Varos . 

  • Anni Irish's article " 'Cruising Utopia' Ten Years Later: Revisiting Queer Scholar José Esteban Muñoz's Most Influential Work" appears in NewNowNext.