All Student Success Letters
Hafeez Lakhani
Dear Gotham,
Beginning in 2009, fresh out of a job on Wall Street, and with a desire to set down roots for a serious writing life, I enrolled in Gotham workshops for about two years, studying with such life-changing instructors as Kelly Caldwell, Katie Dykstra, Marie Carter, and Cullen Thomas. These workshops turned out to be formative to my foundation as a writer.
I can still hear Kelly’s sage guidance in my mind: “In your next draft, I hope you’ll explore…”. If there’s one lesson from those years, it is simply that writing is re-writing, that we writers are certainly playing the long game.
Thanks to my foundation set at Gotham, I continued to write, garnering my first publication in The Southern Review in 2013, as well as two Notable Essays in Best American Essays and two nominations for Pushcart Prizes, alongside seven further publications in literary magazines.
On May 5, 2026, I’m thrilled to be publishing my first novel, Abundance, with Counterpoint Press, a project of 12 years. Abundance has been named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by People, Lit Hub, and Book Browse, among other outlets, and would not have been possible were it not for those joyous early Gotham workshops. In each of my several drafts of the novel, I could still hear Kelly Caldwell’s nurturing voice, asking me to think about my next draft. Over time, those next drafts felt not onerous but fulfilling, incredible opportunities to further the depth of my work.
Thank you for being a part of this journey—and for laying this foundation for so many writers.
Hafeez Lakhani
