All Student Success Letters

Nico Piacenza

Dear Gotham,

In the years leading to the workshop my writing practice was suffering. I was often lonely in my work and creatively exhausted. When I discovered Gotham, I realized that I, for the first time, had the opportunity to enter and be part of a larger community of writers. The ten weeks I spent on the corner on 8th Avenue and W 38th Street rejuvenated my relationship with my craft. I credit those ten weeks with the self-assurance and validation that I needed as an artist and writer. I was taken seriously—by both Arlaina and my cohort. Every person in the room was given their due reverence, attention, care, and admiration.

There's so much to say. I can speak to the intelligent criticism and advice offered by my classmates and fellow writers, how vibrantly they engaged me and my work, and how much I learned from them and theirs. I can speak to the stewardship of Arlaina, her steady and enthusiastic hand guiding us every week. I could even speak to the building, the nondescript somewhat stout edifice in midtown Manhattan, lacquered in New York cliché. All these things are, in themselves, details that I come back to when I recall my time at Gotham. But Gotham is an emergence, greater than all its parts, and it cannot be explained nor lauded in such pieces.

At Gotham, I was able to experiment with my writing, with my reading, with my tools of critique and suggestion. I was able to exercise and strengthen myself in a classroom of motivated and talented students. I was lucky enough to be guided by an instructor of such knowledge and excitement as Arlaina. And most importantly, I was able to learn to treat myself and my work with respect.

In August, sometime in the those very last days of summer, I will begin an MFA program in Creative Writing.

I am so grateful for my time at Gotham Writers Workshop, for my fellow students, and for Arlaina. I can only hope that I get to further my relationship with Gotham as my career as a writer continues to develop. In the meantime, find me on corners and crowded rooms, at every chance evangelizing.

Thank you to my classmates, to Arlaina, and to Gotham Writers Workshop.

Nico Piacenza