All Student Success Letters
Kate Woodworth
Dear Gotham,
I’ve been part of writing groups, workshops, and writing classes for well over a half-century. I’ve had great instructors and great colleagues. I learned a lot. And then, somewhere around 2018, I decided it was time for me to just go it alone. Everything was going well enough…
...until COVID hit.
A pandemic, as many writers learned, is a great time to get writing done, but only if you can make yourself write. I needed a community of writers to keep myself sane and focused, but in-person wasn’t an option. I found just what I needed at Gotham in Online workshops with Shari Goldhagen, Katherine Taylor, and Jason Greiff.
I was working on two novels—one much farther along than the other—and I’m thrilled to say one of those novels—Little Great Island—will be published May 6, 2025. Even more exciting are the prepublication reviews Little Great Island has been getting, including Ha Jin, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting, calling it “an extraordinary achievement and a pure pleasure to read.”
I thank all my instructors and colleagues for helping me get my manuscript to a good place, but what Gotham gave me most of all was community. I became good friends with Namibian crime writer Femi Kayode and writing accountability buddies with another person I met in class.
Shari Goldhagen drove from New Jersey to the Boston area for a champagne toast celebrating Little Great Island.
More recently, I was thrilled to discover that the Gotham community incudes my “sister” Donna Hayes (sisters because we share the same publisher) and Nick Fuller Googins, one of the authors participating in my climate change initiative, Be the Butterfly. Thank you (times a zillion) to the Gotham administration, instructors, and workshop participants for making such a warm and supportive community available.
Kate Woodworth
