What Only Looks Like Evil

An Exercise You'll Remember

On the first day of class Gordon Lish would ask everyone to do something

From The Guardian:

Sometimes described as "cult-like," Lish's classes became incredibly controversial. There are stories of one student fainting during these arduous all-night affairs; in 1992, he sued Harper's for reprinting his teaching material. But we're best served by looking beyond such scandals. As a teacher, Lish should be judged by the success of his students—an extraordinary array of writers, who have spread his ideas across the literary landscape.

This jibes with what Tom Spanbauer recounts, but not every one of his students remembers it so harshly. A student writes about the controversy in MFA v. NYC, and not in flattering terms.

On the first day of a new class, Lish would ask his students, “Tell me something you’ve never told another person, ever.”

A daunting ask. As I understand it, Lish could have more than a hundred students in such a class. As Tom Spanbauer told it, the request would lead to soul-baring confessions. Weeping. Now I invite you to do the same.

Tell us something you’ve never told another person

Of course, this isn’t the same. A lot of you have on-line names and avatars, but you’ll get the gist of the exercise. Tom kind of hated Lish for the exercise, but it was very useful to Tom as a writer. So much so that Tom told his own classes about the scene at Columbia—the weeping, the drama—although Tom never used the exercise with his own students.

Tell us something you’ve never told another person

If you know how the exercise works, please don’t post the reveal. I will keep checking the Comments, and if you spoil the secret I will ban you without batting an eye. For now, I invite you to post your secret in the Comments. Next week, I’ll let the other shoe drop, and your writing will be improved forever after.

Again, yes, this was a controversial Lish method, but it works. For those of you who teach writing, you might even use it with future students.

For anyone who tries to let the cat out of the bag early… I will delete your Comment and ban you.

A bit of housekeeping. My apologies to Bryan W. Please send Dennis at The Cult your snail mail address and any special request for the inscription, and I’ll get your prize out to you right away.