Novelist, teacher, and Dangerous Writing founder Tom Spanbauer dies at 78

The Portland author of five books, including "The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon," wrote about race, sexual identity, and making a family of choice.

September 26, 2024

Amy Leona Havin

Books, News

Tom Spanbauer was persuaded to sit for this portrait this summer, Michael Sage Ricci says. The Oregon author and Dangerous Writing founder died Sept. 21. Photo by: Michael Sage Ricci — Tom Spanbauer was persuaded this summer to sit for this portrait by his husband, Michael Sage Ricci. “He finally liked his beard for the first time in his life, and he loved how his hair was growing in,” Ricci wrote on his Facebook page. Photo by: Michael Sage Ricci

Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon and I Loved You More, died Sept. 21 in Portland, following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. The beloved writer was celebrated for his poetic novels, which depicted the beauty of living in a messy and unfiltered world.

Spanbauer was born in Pocatello, Idaho, in 1946. After waiting tables while earning his MFA from Columbia University in 1988, he served two years in the Peace Corps in Kenya, then lived across the United States before moving to Portland in 1991, shortly after publication of his cult classic The Man Who Fell in Love With The Moon. His other novels include Faraway Places, In the City of Shy Hunters, I Loved You More, and Now Is the Hour. His books explore issues of race, sexual identity, and making a family of choice.

In Portland, he founded the Dangerous Writing workshop from his home. The workshop, which spanned three decades, left a line of enthusiastic students, including Chuck Palahniuk, author of novels Fight Club and Choke.

“It is a terrifying thing to bring your inner life out of the closet and read it aloud to a group,” Spanbauer wrote about teaching workshops. “I must listen for the heartbreak, the rage, the shame, the fear that is hidden within the words. Then I must respect where each individual student is in relation to his or her broken heart and act accordingly.”

Tom Spanbauer (right) and his husband, Michael Sage Ricci, in a photo that Ricci calls, "Simply my favorite photo in my entire life." On his Facebook page he writes: "What a time that was for us, it's all there on our faces and still lives with us all these years later, even in trying times. What a ride." Photo by: Thomas Bunnydale, courtesy of Michael Sage Ricci — Tom Spanbauer (right) and his husband, Michael Sage Ricci, in a photo that Ricci calls “Simply my favorite photo in my entire life.” On his Facebook page he writes: “What a time that was for us, it’s all there on our faces and still lives with us all these years later, even in trying times. What a ride.” Photo by: Thomas Bunnydale, courtesy of Michael Sage Ricci

Friends and students of Spanbauer, whose exuberant life inspired many, took to Facebook this week to express their thoughts of their mentor. Portland writer Brian S. Ellis, who joined the Dangerous Writers workshop in 2015, wrote he was devastated at Spanbauer’s loss.

Portland author and actor Stephen Rutledge wrote: “Portland seems to me to have been a perfect spot for Spanbauer to write and teach, and he was much loved by the city’s literary and artistic communities. He created the concept of ‘dangerous writing,’ a technique he taught with this philosophy: ‘… To learn to speak your truth honestly with a clear voice takes lots of practice, and every trick in the book to keep you going down the arduous, cruel, lonely, glorious path of a writer.’”

Spanbauer was as awarded as he was locally celebrated for his literature. He won the 1992 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award for best fiction. In 2015, he received a Lambda Literary Award for Gay General Fiction for I Loved You More, as well as the Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award from Literary Arts.

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In Portland, Spanbauer met his life partner of 22 years, Michael Sage Ricci, with whom he shared his days until the end of his life. Other survivors include his sister, Barbara Hart; his brother, Clyde Hall; and several nieces and nephews, all of Idaho. At his request, there will be no funeral.

In a Facebook post, Ricci paid tribute to his “beloved husband, best friend, and literary talent.”

“Tom leaves behind so much,” Ricci wrote. “His gifts to the world through his writing and teaching are uncountable, measured only by the vast number of students and readers around the world who he let inside his brilliant mind and his unending capacity to map out his, and by extension, our, human heart. I am wrecked. After 22 years together, and all the difficulties of his ongoing and progressive illnesses, we were still always falling in love. I don’t know what I did in some past life to deserve the devotion and love of this wondrous, tender, glorious man. He will always be my husband and my heart.”

Amy Leona Havin

Amy Leona Havin is a poet, essayist, and arts journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about language arts, dance, and film for Oregon ArtsWatch and is a staff writer with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Her work has been published in San Diego Poetry Annual, HereIn Arts Journal, Humana Obscura, The Chronicle, and others. She has been an artist-in-residence at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Archipelago Gallery, and Art/Lab, and was shortlisted for the Bridport International Creative Writing Prize in poetry. Havin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts and is the Artistic Director of Portland-based dance performance company, The Holding Project.