Acclaimed writer Tom Spanbauer returns to San Diego to conduct Dangerous Writing, his legendary workshop for aspiring writers. Spanbauer is the author of The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon and Now Is The Hour.
His writing is notable for its combination of a fresh and lyrical prose style with solid storytelling. His novels “explore issues of race, of sexual identity and of how we make a family for ourselves in order to surmount the limitations of the families into which we are born.”
I caught up with Spanbauer ahead of his visit.
LGBT Weekly: Dangerous Writing has a reputation for being intense. It sounds like an emotional process, a lot like therapy! What should workshop participants expect?
Tom Spanbauer: The workshop is intense. Participants should expect a close look at their writing. Sentence by sentence. What we’re really doing is deconstructing language down to the fundamentals, in search of voice. Character lies in the destruction of the sentence. By analyzing parts of speech – adverbs, abstract nouns, received text, clichés, “proper” grammar – each student will get to scrutinize his or her language as it goes onto the page, and in that scrutiny, come up with some new and exciting ways to get rid of that creative writing sound, or that weird way one’s writing sounds formal, distant, boring, drab.
Sessions are often quite emotional. When you’re going to the sad, sore, secret place and giving it voice, all sorts of shit can happen. Therapy? It’s therapeutic alright, just by the stance that you’re going to where something scares you, but it’s how the emotions go on the page, how a writer’s deep, personal thoughts and feelings are conveyed through his/her narrator’s voice that is what the class is about.
Have you always been a writer and a teacher?
I am a writer first, then a teacher. Back in 1988, I published Faraway Places, then got my first teaching job at the West Side YMCA in New York. I’ve been doing this for 23 years. I got to say though, that every class I learn something new, and I’m always surprised. It’s a real treat to be present while people go on this journey. There’s nothing more real.
How would you describe your writing in terms of an LGBT experience or a queer audience?
A queer audience is a live audience right? Queer people come from specific places, from specific backgrounds, specific ethnicities and specific Catholic, Mormon, Southern Baptist families. Queer people are born rich, born poor, born with challenges to their health. Queer people are filled with fears, doubts, inhibitions, secret joys, hidden mysteries. That is to say queer people are human. Come to think of it, I’d venture to say a queer audience is probably more human than most.
In your experience of “investigating to the bone” and “finding a voice” can you comment on what you have learned as far as gay student writers are concerned?
Well, Chuck Palahniuk came up with some interesting surprises, didn’t he? He wrote Fight Club in my front room. Generally speaking, though, gay men and women are more willing to get real, and often more willing to put themselves out there in a way that’s not comfortable. It comes with the territory. And I’d say that is even more true of trans-gendered people. But I hate to make general statements like these because it’s just as easy that exactly the opposite can be true. For example: Roy Cohn was gay.
Finally, any broad thoughts about the stories being told (in literature, theatre, popular culture) by, about and/or pertaining to LGBTQ folks these days?
Sorry, no broad thoughts. Well, one. Two. Actually six. I totally have a crush on Stephen Sondheim, Justin Bond, Hilton Als, John Kelly, Edward Albee and Tony Kushner. Tony Kushner, man. He’s my absolute ultimate idol.
Although Spanbauer’s workshop has sold out San Diego Writers, Ink will be hosting two events: May 11 at 7 p.m., where Spanbauer will discuss his Dangerous Writing philosophy (there is a $25 fee). May 14 at 7 p.m., is a free public reading. All events will be held at San Diego Writers, Ink at 710 13th Street. Go to sandiegowriters.org for more details.
