All Student Success Letters

Lynda Myles

Dear Gotham,

I wanted to let you know that "The Blue Dress," a short story I worked on in an Advanced Fiction online class this past winter with Manuel Gonzales, has just won the John Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction and will appear in the journal Harpur Palate this summer. It comes with a $500 award. Manuel's criticism was invaluable to me. When I tried out some of his suggestions, I found that a story that had almost worked suddenly really did work. I'm so grateful.

I had some other good news before this, too, about stories I worked on in my first two writing classes, with Tommy O'Malley and Carol Bugge. "She Was Somebody's Baby, Too" appeared in the online jimstonjournal.com. Both that story and another, "A Lucky Man," were chosen to appear in a forthcoming new anthology, The Creative Writer.

I found the feedback of the teachers and the students, too, enormously helpful in giving me a handle on how the stories came across, what worked, and what didn't. I'm pleased as can be with my experiences at Gotham.

You've got a good thing going, keep it up!

Best wishes,
Lynda Myles