Talk:Gordon Lish

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I started the literary magazine Chrysalis in the late 1950s at San Francisco State Univ. and made Gordon Lish co-editor from the second issue on. He later took over the magazine and renamed it Genesis West. Chrysalis was his first venture into the literary world and I believe his first short fiction publication. We have remained friends since then but we both have lost contact with one another over the years and several times. I also co-wrote a thriller novel with Lish that we never tried to market. He also was instrumental in helping me get my first agent in International Creative Managament. He was always extremely helpful to me and to any writer who came to him who Gordon thought of as deserving of his help. Contrary to the public persona -- that of being difficult and unpleasant, Gordon Lish was one of the kindest writer/editors I have met in a very long time in this business. His only criteria was that of excellence. All writing should be fresh, new, dangerous, risky -- that was what he stood for and that is what will go down in the literary history of the second half of the 20th century in the U.S.

John Herrmann

Ah, so you were behind Genesis West! As I was commenting on the Jack Gilbert page, someone really needs to write a wiki article about Gordon. He played a behind the scenes role for many, many writers who otherwise might never have been known. He published a few of my poems in TQ, and I felt very lucky.

His manner could be very eccentric and vitriolic, he was not diplomatic, and he was unabashedly biased toward whatever he happened to like. And more than any editor I have ever known, he truly cared about nurturing good writing, and was passionate about the writers whose work he liked. Once he decided he liked your work, there was almost literally nothing he would not do to encourage you further. He was also, not incidentally, an extraordinary editor-- his expert cuts helped to forghe Raymond Carver's distinctive voice. They don't make 'em like Gordon anymore.

If you would like to collaborate on an article about him, please let's take a crack at this.

[edit] Please clean up the prose

Take a look at how many times sentences begin with "He" (about halfway down you will notice), or "Gordon." A great American writer deserves better than that. It reads like an idiot wrote the paragraphs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vernorstanton (talk • contribs) 11:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC).