My Writing Teacher: Jennifer Lauck

Jennifer says I should open with an attack sentence. I can’t think of one because there is so much to say about this woman. She writes a substack called Flight School with Jennifer Lauck which is how I found her. I have been writing and reading substacks for over two years. The first year, I was subscribed only to George Saunders’ Story Club. George has a way of getting long and interesting discussions going every time he writes. When I liked a comment, I would click that person’s avatar and learn what else they subscribed to. I must have discovered Jennifer that way.

I do remember that the first time I opened and read her substack, it was a lesson plan. I want to be a better writer so I jumped in, wrote, and posted. Jennifer responded to every post as did a number of her other subscribers. I subscribed immediately. By that time, I was reading a number of substacks by authors that I’d heard of, admired, or read their books. She was the first one I had found that was teaching the craft of writing. The other substacks were wonderful and humanised the writers. They wrote interesting posts about their own work, their travels, and their emotions about being a writer. George was teaching us how to read good writing and Jennifer was teaching us how to write.

I was also on a planning committee for the Paris Writers Workshop 2024 (coming up June 2nd) and we were searching for a creative non-fiction teacher to teach the Masterclass. I am an extremely curious person and went investigating. Jennifer says clearly on her substack that she runs a writing studio, Blackbird, where “good writers become great writers.” I listened/watched a video of one of her classes that she makes available free. Jennifer’s style of teaching was something I resonated with. She is extremely intelligent and treats her students as if we are all that intelligent. She is well read both in books, classics, and craft books. She has references at her fingertips.

I contacted her to see if she would be interested in coming to Paris to teach in June. I don’t know why I was surprised when she said Yes. Perhaps because I think of myself as a nobody in the writing world and she’s a somebody—best selling author who has appeared on Oprah and the NY Times best seller list! My committee loved her and we all started to look forward to meeting her.

I have taken many writing classes. It never occurred to me to have one teacher. Someone who knew my writing, knew my progress, knew where my weaknesses are and could point them out and help me get past them. Also knew my strengths and encourage me. It is like having a good therapist. I never changed therapists every three or four months to learn something new about myself. What would be the point? As I look back over this past year, I didn’t go looking for a writing mentor or make any momentous decision. I found myself fascinated by Jennifer’s journey. I read her first memoir, Blackbird (2000). For all the difficulties I had as a child, nothing compared to Jennifer’s childhood. Much was lacking for me but I had a roof over my head, food to eat, and an excellent education. I’m not comparing myself to her. I couldn’t do that without shortchanging both of us.

I’ve only known her as an adult and find myself saying, as many people do when first meeting her, “But you’re so normal.” What I know is that she is willing to be totally honest and vulnerable about her strengths and weaknesses. She is as bad at relationships as I am! And she has taken advantages of the gifts she was born with. We, her students, are benefiting.

Why I am choosing to write about this now? One very recent Sunday when my emotions about moving to France had exhausted me, I sat down and read in its entirety what she had serialised before I knew her: how Blackbird got written and how it came to be published. The story is riveting, breathtaking. Reading it all in one sitting left me with a sense of awe at both her advocacy of herself and how her intuition led her to be championed by one amazing editor.

I’ve never met this woman. I sit with her in a Zoom class every week for 2 1/2 hours. I know more about her than I do many of my friends. I know she puts her money where her mouth is. I read about her stepmother and her stepmother’s son contesting her memories and she has survived that. I did wonder what the point is—someone who was made very anonymous in the book, outs themself, and publicly badmouths her and her intentions. Everything I’ve read made that person sound suspicious, unbelievable, and maybe wanting attention. I couldn’t help but wonder if they thought that if the rants got some traction, money could be made off of her. The same thing happened to Westover in her memoir, Educated. Americans love, adore, a great ‘down on your luck but in the end, made good’ story. It gives us hope. If she can rise above it well, maybe I can to. These memoirs are gifts to us about the human spirit. When I think of the number of children who don’t make it out of childhood, these stories are staggering.

I wrote my memoir to give hope to other food addicts. Jennifer wrote hers to make sense out of her memories and to bring home half the bacon as her then husband asked her to.

I am proud to have a writing teacher with this track record, one of basic survival, confronting more than her fair share of life’s challenges with her wits. And letting us, her students, know how imperfect she is. She is a damn good writing teacher, always prepared and giving her all.

If I sound star struck, I’m not. I’m much older than Jennifer. I think I’m fairly realistic about how hard life is. This is a woman willing to guide me on my writing path. Recently, she asked all of us in her class if we’d like to continue with her in some form. She had suggestions. I did my usual “I’m too old to be doing this” blah, blah, blah. The truth for me is that as I’ve gotten to be a better writer, I have found myself working through a lot of my anxieties and worryings on the page, sticking to it until I get to what’s underneath what I think I’m afraid of. Yes, it would be nice to have another book published but that may not happen. I will keep writing. I admire Jennifer’s survival instincts. I admire her brain (she’s smarter than me!), and I count myself very fortunate that I have found someone willing to pass on that which she knows best—how to write a well told and compelling story, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. I said yes to continuing with her for another year.

That’s when I realized that I had a writing teacher/mentor.