About Tom Spanbauer

And a Call for Stories, Please

Thanks to Suzy Vitello for Providing This Photo

Suzy took this in 1992 at a writer’s retreat organized by Tom Spanbauer. Tom had rented a big cottage in the Hood River Valley, and we — his students — had brought sleeping bags. Me and my mullet are napping on a bench that surrounded the outdoor deck. Note the button pinned to my acrylic sweater. Everyone attending was given a lapel button printed with one of Tom’s rules; mine read, “Establish Your Authority and You Can Do Anything.”

Before Tom, I’d been booted from Andrea Carlisle’s workshop, mostly because of the leaky sex-doll scene I’d eventually use in the novel Snuff. Andrea went so far as to accompany me to the post office where we mailed my first manuscript to an agent who’d reject it. We actually kissed the package, at midnight, in an all-night package drop location. Andrea asked my age. I told her twenty-seven, and her face lit up. “You’re just about to start your Saturn Return! Everything will change for you in the next six years.” Later she suggested I contact Tom, a recent transplant from New York, and she gave me his phone number.

Tom insisted new students meet one-on-one with him before they could attend the workshop, so I wore a dress shirt and necktie as if it were a job interview. Tom read my writing sample and told me, “Don’t filter the world through your character. Instead of writing, ‘Sylvia heard the bell ring,’ just write, ‘The bell rang.’” It was such simple, life-changing advice. Any time I want to parody Modernism I revert to filtering, but that moment made my work better. That same meet-up, Tom asked, “When you had your first orgasm, did anything come out?”

That, he said, was the kind of raw question his own teacher Gordon Lish would ask. That level of disclosure would be part of the workshop. The last thing Tom wanted to hear was nice, polite stories.

That, and Tom didn’t want to hear you filter anything through a character. I gave him a twenty, and he said to come back every Thursday evening with twenty bucks for the next several years.

Oregon Public Radio posted a decent piece about Tom today. It touches on both Tom Spanbauer and Peter Christopher, a long-time friend of Tom’s and fellow Lish student. Give it a listen, here.

News of Tom’s death has thrown me for a loop. Even more than my father’s death twenty-five years ago. Let’s make a fresh start around submitting writing samples for Gloves Off. Yes, Chris and Crass, I hear you.

Please, do not share your solid-gold idea, but if you’d like to submit a scene or story for general feedback, please link it in the Comments below.

A Quick Update: The local daily newspaper just posted a nice piece about Tom. Here it is.