The Teaching Lineage: How Great Writers Pass Down Craft
From Lish to Spanbauer and beyond: The evolution of writing wisdom
A rare glimpse into how writing craft passes from master to student, featuring insights from legendary editor Gordon Lish through Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writers to today's teaching methods. Plus, the essential terms that have shaped generations of writers.
Revised 2/25
Welcome back to Flight School:
Lineage-study is a method of tracing influences. Mine comes, in part, from Dangerous Writers, and Tom’s, in part, from Gordon Lish who taught at New York University, Yale, Columbia, the Center for Fiction in Manhattan and was an editor for Esquire and Alfred A. Knopf. The following interview excerpt sums up his legacy:
Not since Maxwell Perkins has an editor been so famous—or notorious—as a sculptor of other people’s prose…Lish worked closely with many of the most daring writers of the past fifty years, including Harold Brodkey, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo, Barry Hannah, and Joy Williams. In an interview…in 2004, Hannah said, “Gordon Lish was a genius editor. A deep friend and mentor. He taught me how to write short stories. He would cross out everything so there’d be like three lines left, and he would be right.”
~ Christian Lorentzen, The Paris Review
While Lish didn’t write his teachings down, I was lucky enough to find The Consecution of Gordon Lish: An Essay on Form and Influence by Jason Lucarelli which is a helpful analysis of several Lish techniques to include consecution (pulling from what came before to determine what to write next), staying present to images, “riffing,” and writing “attack sentences.” All these terms were bandied about in Tom’s Dangerous Writing Classes.
Tom had BA in English literature from Idaho State, served two years in the Peace Corps in Kenya, and then received his MFA in fiction from Columbia. Of his own teaching method, Tom wrote this:
If you asked my mother how she made pie crust, she never said a word. Instead, she just lifted her hand and rubbed her fingers against her thumb. That's the way it is for me and teaching. It has a feel. I'm not someone who knows and the student is someone who does not know. Each person who is a student of writing is a student of life. I too am a student. Good writers know that about themselves… when the student has a strong foothold in his or her writing, I bring out my jungle red fingernails, play the devil's advocate, be the bad cop, the irreverent fool—whatever it takes to teach perseverance, self-trust, and discipline. I encourage excellence [that] only comes with not being afraid of who you are.
~ Tom Spanbauer.com
The Blackbird Method:
I received a BA in journalism from Montana State University and reported in TV news for several years (mostly investigative crime related stories) then produced reports for the evening news. I have an MFA in creative writing from Pacific Lutheran University and studied in the Dangerous Writing group for six years. I taught creative writing at Fairfield University, Literary Arts, Tara Mandala, The Attic Institute and launched Blackbird Studio in 2015.
My underlying belief is that writers are mislead in the MFA programs of this country, and abroad, getting caught in the cult of personality vs. good old fashion teaching. I work from the bottom up, teaching writers about story foundations and then move into the actual lines on the page. I take a full year to develop relationship with writers. I can usually tell, right away, the writer who is not only talented but has the personality to persevere. It’s a sense I get and I never pull out the read fingernails. Tom raked those over my back a few times. I built my program on consistent kinds. No drama. No reversals (which are the best way to lose hard won trust). I have about twenty published writers from my program.
The Language of Craft
From this rich tradition, certain terms have emerged as powerful tools for writers:
Beat: Story began as oral tradition and maintains that musicality. A beat adds sensory detail - sound, touch, smell - or shows a character's reaction. It's the pause that lets meaning sink in.
Slow Down: When action rushes past important moments. Instead of "The day ended. John went to bed," we might explore the weight of that ending, the click of the door, the silence that follows.
Unpack: Taking "It was a hot day" and revealing "the kind of hot that made me want to suck on ice all day long, or stick my face in the refrigerator."
Verticality: Going deeper than surface description. A butterfly isn't just an insect passing through - it's transformation made visible. Every object carries meaning, every gesture tells a story.
Here’s a more extensive handout of these terms:
✍️ Your Turn:
Choose one moment from your current work. Apply each of these tools - add a beat, slow it down, unpack it, find its vertical meaning. Share what surprised you about this deeper exploration.
Remember: These aren't just techniques - they're invitations to discover what your story really wants to say.
~ Jennifer, 🐦⬛
