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.
Justine Teu

Faculty Profile

Meet Justine Teu

Speaking to writer and Gotham teacher Justine Teu is a lesson in craft. She’s the kind of wordsmith whose writerly wheels never seem to stop turning. For Justine, material is everywhere.

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James Preller

Faculty Profile

Meet James Preller

Gotham Children’s Book teacher James Preller candidly admits, “I wasn’t a reader as a kid.”

When he was young, his dream career was to play baseball for the New York Mets. He describes his childhood self as a doer, spending his time running around and playing sports.

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The teacher is is fabulous: interesting, warm, intelligent, funny, and genuinely interested in helping each and every student in his class.

Abbey Braverman, actress

Faculty Excerpts

Mother Noise

Mother Noise

Cindy House
This is the opening of Cindy House's memoir, Mother Noise.***After The TellingIn February 2017, standing in an elementary school cafeteria under a ceiling full of tissue paper and cellophane jellyfish, I decided I had to tell my nine-year-old son, Atlas,...
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The Islander

The Islander

David Berner
Excerpt from Chapter 1On the horizon, the sun now flickered over the land of silhouettes, sometimes hiding behind bruise-blue clouds, creating little sparks of light on the surface of the water. These were the glints of light that poets wrote...
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Faculty Articles

N. West Moss

The Perils of Settling Scores in Your Writing

N. West Moss
Readers can feel when they’re being manipulated, and they don’t like it. Make a character too pure, and watch readers revolt. An example of this is the death of Little Nell in Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop. As Oscar...
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Social Media: Does it Really Sell Books

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Most writers I know have a love-hate relationship with social media. I know I do. I love seeing what friends are up to, but I’m often reluctant to do what it takes to post regularly.When my first book, Pen on...