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GOTHAM FACULTYSTUDENT VOICESWords from our FacultyFor Gotham Screenwriting teacherJeremy Wechter, writing, directing,acting, and production are all intertwined. “They’re all the same process, just at different phases,” hesays. “Writing is designing a story anddirecting is implementing that design.”JEREMYWECHTERFaculty ProfileBY BRIT T GAM BI NOJeremy came to film by way of visualart. He was studying at the MarylandInstitute of Art when he took a filmclass and realized he appreciated notjust the image, but the moving image.He promptly transferred to NYU to major in film. Jeremy explains, “I wasn’tlike a theater person coming to film,”which is considered a more typical transition. But both visual art and film aresimilar, Jeremy points out, in terms ofcomposition and color.The major contrast between the two isthat painting and sculpting are usually solitary while film is more collaborative. “I like working with other people,”Jeremy says. “I like when disagreementshappen—when two people clash onideas and then a third idea is born that’seven better than our original ideas.”Jeremy has always been open to collaboration. When he served as theArtistic Director for a group called DNA(Directors and Actors), he met twice aweek with actors to rehearse publishedscripts. “I did theater to test myselfwithout the luxury of certain tools thatfilm gives you—camera, editing, etc.,”Jeremy says.Jeremy, “the first part of the movie is apsychological guessing game. You neverknow what’s real or who to trust.”Evil Alive came into being by whatJeremy calls “reverse-engineering.” “Idecided to write something I couldmake on my own and produce with limited resources,” he says. Even thoughthe film takes place in various locales(Seattle, WA; Salem, MA; New YorkThe collaborative nature of theater andfilm has helped Jeremy in the classroom. City; Columbus, OH), the farthest the“I have a better time translating and help- crew traveled to make the movie wasing people communicate their ideas,” he Nyack, NY. “I’m sort of getting an unofsays. “When I was a painter, I wasn’t ficial MBA by filmmaking,” Jeremy says.very good at public speaking, and teach- “I like to say I made a feature film for thebagel budget of a Tom Cruise movie.”ing is essentially public speaking.”Jeremy’s latest project, the horror filmEvil Alive, is in post-production. Themovie centers on former college friendswho get together for a reunion. Theystart playing pranks on each other likethey did when they were still in school.But one of them accidentally releases ademon that had been locked away forseveral centuries by one of the friends’great-grandmothers. “Because thefriends are all playing pranks,” saysHe’s written. He’s directed. He’s produced. So what about the acting?While it’s true that Jeremy has neverformally acted, he did star as SylvesterMcMonkey McBean in his secondgrade class production of Dr. Seuss’sThe Sneeches.“It was thebest writingexperienceI’ve ever had.and I’m 62years old.”M A R GA R E T L E V I N EE DI T O RSTEALINGSTORIESFaculty InsightBY E LIZABET H COH E NI was in my 50s when I began datingonline, but I quickly learned that the“older singles sites” did not representme. Silver-haired people, very elegant,walked on beaches, wrinkled handsclasped. So sweet, but I was not there yet.I wrote about a deer and a polar bearthat fall in love online but keep misunderstanding one another’s “time zones,interspecies snafus.” These stories werecobbled together from my experienceswith the online dating world.Other sites seemed too young and fiercely hip. The gauge-eared, eyebrow-pierced,leather-clad set strummed electric guitars and showed pictures of bungee jumping and riding Harleys. In fact, everyone—in all ages, across social class, andon every site—seemed to own Harleys.While I had been out of the dating world,there had been a great profusion of motorcycles riders. Now they were lookingfor love. Where did I fit into all this?I was deep into my writerly explorationsof Match.com, JDate, PlentyOfFish andOkCupid when I unexpectedly fell inlove—and began to write that story, too.Each dating website came with its ownvernacular, codes and tricks. On this one,you could give or receive a “rose”; on thatone, you could make someone a “favorite.” I struggled to learn the ropes andmet a lot of men: men who were funny,men who were uber-serious, men whobragged (“writing from the deck of mysloop where I am sipping a ginger lemondrop martini”), men who professed humble qualities (“I don’t have much, but myheart is huge”). I met a man who raisedllamas, one who had a secret crush onSarah Palin, and one who was writing abook about the approaching apocalypse.After a while, I realized I was enjoyingmyself in an unexpected way. It wasn’tthe men I was enjoying. It was their stories. It was as if I had fallen into a richbroth of narrative. And I could not resist:I began to write down the stories.and a poet and a journalist, but I hadnever thought of myself as a fiction writer. I called a friend in the writing field.“I think I might have written a book ofshort stories about love,” I said.A year later, an editor read the storiesand wanted to publish them, but I feltconfused. Had I appropriated love storiesinstead of love?In the end, I found myself worried onlyThen it hit me: Was I was looking for about one man whom I had loved quitelove or stories? Was I a poacher in the deeply. In my stories about him, I susland of love or a love-struck woman in a pected I may have crossed a line. I had tofictional landscape? I really could no lon- tell him. It was the right thing to do, theger tell. I loved a few of those men and ethical thing.one of them very, very much, but I alsofelt guilty because I had loved their sto- I brought all the stories to him in a folderries just as much. I felt I was cheating on labeled: “final versions.” I was shaking.the men, stealing from them when I took“Hey,” I said. “I have to tell you aboutsnippets of their words for my work.something I did. Sit down.” And I readOne man told me he had once ridden the stories aloud.on the back of a whale. Another toldme he had killed a man one night out- “You stole stories from me,” he said.side a brothel in Europe. Another confessed he had been pining away for Ann “I did,” I confessed. There was a longCoulter. One lived on a boat. One lived pause. A lawnmower somewhere outin an RV. One man, age 53, lived with his side buzzed.mother. Others were deep in the desert,studying the mating rituals of scorpions, “I want them back,” he said.addicted to salt or in love with a sister.Sacred and seriously personal stories, I felt my chest tighten, as if a corset wereoften in the form of confessionals, came tightening around me. How could I givemy way, but as a potential mate, not as my stories back?a writer. I was like one of those anthropologists who go undercover in a mental He broke into a smile. “Joking! Joking!”hospital to get the stories inside. I was an he said. “Take them!”anthropologist of love.Reader, I took his stories. I took themSometimes people would hurt my feel- and ran with them.ings and rather than feeling sad, I wouldrejoice: Good for a story! Sometimes people would cancel on me at the very last This article first appeared in The Writerminute or stand me up: So good for a magazine. Elizabeth Cohen is the authorstory! Sometimes they would surprise of the short story collection The Hypotheticalme by being enormously fat or very, very Girl and the memoir The Family onsmall or driving Hummers or being a dif- Beartown Road.ferent race than what I had pictured orhaving different hair than I had pictured.Great for a story!Before I knew it, pieces of this one andpieces of that one were being stitchedinto characters, and a little bit of thisone’s life and a bit of that one’s werestitched into plots, and then one day myimagination got involved and I wroteabout a woman who was turning invisible and a man who had an illness thatmade him fall in love too deeply. I wroteabout a man and a woman who discovered love through online postings on abird-watching website. Another day, I My art had been imitating my life, andwrote about a woman who could remove now my life was imitating my art. Whereher heart from her chest and talk to it. would it end? I had been a memoiristGOTH AMWRIT E RS .COMtwitter @GOT HAM W RI T ERS“I learned morein the first twoweeks than I did inall of college, andthat cost 8,000a semester!”GW E N D O LY N A R M I TAGEST U DE N T“I WOULD RECOMMENDGOTHAM TO ANYONETHAT IS INTERESTED INTESTING THE PROVERBIALWATERS OF WRITING.”CHAD BRINKMANA DJ U NC T FAC U LT Y, N Y U“A year ago, I neverwould have imaginedthat I would be apublished author.”A D R I E N N E S TA R RS I NGE R“WHEN I SIGNEDUP, I WAS FULLOF NERVES ANDWONDEREDIF I’D HAVETHE COURAGETO FOLLOWTHROUGH. BYTHE END OF THECOURSE I FELTINSPIRED ANDEXCITED ANDCOULDN’T WAITTO WRITE MORE.”M A R I SA G O R S TB A L L E T DA NC E R“A placeto go tolearnfrom otherkindredspirits.”K A R E N Z . WA LT E NS PE R GE RI N T E R NAT IO NA L H E A LT H A DV I S O R

WRITE-INSCONTESTDO YOU WISHTHERE WAS APLACE YOU COULDGO FOR WRITINGINSPIRATION ANDPRACTICE? WHEREYOU COULD HANGOUT WITH OTHERWRITERS? WITHOUTNEEDING TO MAKEA LONG-TERMCOMMITMENT ORSPEND A LOTOF MONEY?25 WORDS OFWONDERTHIS TIME WE GIVEYOU A CONTEST THATLETS YOU WANDERWHEREVER YOU LIKE.GOTHAMWRITE-INSARE THATPLACE.Give us story of any kind, true or madeup. Prose, poetry, script, whatever.The only catch: It must be 25 wordsor fewer. (Use a title. You get extrawords for that.)Challenging? Yes. As the sayinggoes, “If I had more time, I wouldhave written you a shorter letter.”(No one knows who said this. It’sbeen attributed to numerous peopleincluding, Mark Twain, WinstonChurchill, and Pliny the Younger.)H E R E ’S W H AT H A P P E NSThe teacher gives an interesting writingprompt. Everyone writes for a while.Then, those who want to read aloudtheir work. You take a break andsocialize. Then you go through theprocess one more time. After that youpartake of free drinks and snacks andsocialize a little more. It’s 90 minutesplus social time afterwards.But it’s possible to write a wonderfulstory in 25 words or fewer. Look at thebest entries we received the last timewe ran this contest:S W I M M I NG L E S S O NSHer husband told the coroner she’donly signed up for the damned classbecause some crazy fortuneteller toldher she'd die from drowning.Vicki Wilson, Clinton, New YorkTHE MIRRORShe held the old, straggly featherboa up against her business suit. Sheapologized to the picture of her withpigtails on the dusty table.Colleen Leeman, Brooklyn, New YorkH OW D O E S YO U R GA R D E N G R OWCA B I N F E V E RCindy had agreed to the electric fence,the deadbolts, the new alarm system—true—but she had assumed hisintentions were to keep people out.Sean Johnston, Sachse, TexasTHERE IS NOPRESSURE, NOCRITIQUING, NOANGST. JUSTFREEWHEELINGCREATIVITY. ITWILL GET YOURJUICES FLOWINGNO MATTER WHATTYPE OF WRITINGYOU FAVOR.C RU C I F O R MThe pastor’s daughter made me meether in the church basement. There wasno light but she told me where to duck.Matt Mintz, Fontana, CaliforniaI N H E R I TA NC E M O N E YTo fish his apartment key from hispocket, Gunther placed his pink slip,the Detroit Daily’s obituary section,and the flowers on the floor.Tami Absi, Dayton, OhioOne morning Annie found a handunder the rosebush where she hadnever left one before.Katheryn Yu, Dripping Springs, TexasThe winner of the contest gets a freeGotham class of his or her choosing.F O R C O M PE T I T I O N RU L E S A N D O N L I N E E N T RY F O R M V I S I T :GOTHAMWRITERS .COM/25WORDSYou can sign up in advance or you canjust drop in. It’s like an exercise classfor writers. And it’s really fun!R E G I S T R AT I O NNYC only 20 / session 45 / 3-session passManhattanFridays 6:30–8:30pmBrooklynSaturdays 12–2pmFurther details on our website.GOTH AMWRIT E RS .COMtwitter @GOT HAM W RI T ERSCO N TACT@GOT HAMW RI T ERS .CO M2 12–974 – 837 7

REVISING OUR STORYGotham Writers Workshop is celebrating 20 yearsof helping writers discover their stories. Nowwe’re revising ours, with a new logo, a new look,and all kinds of new courses and initiatives.Stay tuned by visiting our website, getting on ourmailing list, or following us on social media.G OTH A MW RI TE RS .COM iStock.com/themacx212–974– 83 7 7

Events and Free Classes Gotham offers various events that bring writers together, such as our weekly Write-Ins. And we present free classes around Manhattan and Brooklyn to showcase our teaching. Check our website for listings. Courses GOTHAMWRITERS.COM twitter@GOTHAMWRITERS 10-Week W