Meet our talented family of teachers—each an accomplished writer and trustworthy guide. Leaf through our faculty bios, profiles, book excerpts, and writing advice articles. You’ll like the people you meet.
Jil Picariello

Faculty Profile

Meet Jil Picariello

“It’s a very Hitchcock Rear Window window—it looks out on all the backyards of a whole bunch of brownstones,” Gotham teacher Jil Picariello says of the view from her writing desk in the Upper West Side apartment she shares with her husband.

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Amina Akhtar

Faculty Profile

Meet Amina Akhtar

“I wrote a book where I murdered everybody in the fashion world. I felt like I murdered my old self too,” admits Gotham teacher Amina Akhtar, whose professional bio currently situates her as a “former fashion writer and editor.”

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That I was able to choose from the faculty someone relevant to my work—and who proved himself to be exceedingly capable as an instructor—was a ringing endorsement for Gotham Writers.

Michael Connors, Nonprofit CEO

Faculty Excerpts

Winter Honeymoon

Winter Honeymoon

Jacob M. Appel
During the final weeks of her husband’s illness, Edith befriended the demented priest in the neighboring bed. Father Petrica was a cheerful, silver-haired man in his early sixties who spoke seven different languages with a thick Romanian accent. He’d fallen...
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<em>Unseen City</em>

Unseen City

Amy Shearn
There was a house I once knew well. If you could wrench off the front you would see the stacked stories. On a sticky summer evening, for example, new renters attempted to settle into the sepulchral apartment on the first...
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Faculty Articles

Josh Sippie

A Surefire Technique for Finding Your Voice

Josh Sippie
No matter what stage in the writing process you’re at, it’s hard to describe what your own writing voice is. From beginners to experts. It’s an abstract concept. Like, what makes your favorite pizza unique? Great question. Because you may...
Josh Sippie

How to Stop Worrying and Love the Query

Josh Sippie
Writing a novel is one thing. You set aside months, years of your life to flesh out characters, twist and bend the plot, build a world that is so believable that readers could practically live in it, and then you...