All Student Success Letters

Avril Dannenbaum

Dear Gotham,
 
I admit that Gotham's Writer's Workshop was not my introduction to writing; I had taken classes with Shawna McCarthy in Science Fiction & Fantasy and with Elaine Edelson in Memoir at the New School here in NYC.  However it had been fourteen years since I had last written a short story, during which time I had been in the Ph.D. program at CUNY, met and married my husband and became a mom at the age of forty.
 
Marta Randall, who teaches Science Fiction and Fantasy writing at Gotham, is a phenomenal teacher.  Her warmth and willingness to extend herself to her pupils helped me greatly.  I wanted to write an Urban Fantasy novel and her guidance and support allowed me to work on it and finish it within a relatively short period of time.  I signed up for her course again and again. In her classes I completed two short stories which became my first professional magazine sales since the early nineties.  In the years since I took Marta's course, I have continued to write.  I have sold three short stories to anthologies, two of them soon to be released in Northern Haunts and Terrible Beauty, Deadly Symmetry.
 
I have returned to Gotham this semester to study with Stephen Barbara who teaches a class in how to be published.  Though I've sold five short stories, that Urban Fantasy novel I originally wrote in Marta's class has only gotten rejects.  Time to learn something new, like creating the perfect query letter for agents!  Hopefully the next time you hear from me it will be about the sale of my novel, Chasing the Trickster.
 
A big thank you and hugs to Marta and all the wonderful teachers at Gotham for giving me such great information and support upon my return to the writing world.
 
Best regards,
Avril Dannenbaum
(writing as April Grey)