Real Housewives of MFA - Bad Art Friend III

Also this is a good thread (that goes into greater depth about a subject one of the NYT commenters made quite well and more succinctly):

I've been reading up more on this bitchy queen (who, I hate to admit, I would think is cute under normal circumstances). This is actually a nice piece, that nicely hides what an asshole he is.

Hmmm... Does he really know what truth is?

For those keeping track of the Flying Monkeys and wondering which ones to put on your DNR (Do Nor Read) List, this is a good guide.

No surprise, Castellani is there.

Article is a good recap of all the bitchiness of these creeps

Do Not Read, obviously

Wow. Christopher Castellini is insufferably twee. "Our dramatic parlor-level South End dwelling!" "I shan't pray for anything more!" Get the fuck out of here.

And the picture of the "Grubbies" preparing for the event includes Sonya Larson and Chunky Monkey Whitney Scharer. What a circle jerk this whole scene is.

damn, Castellani is real asshole

" My mission in life is going to be to exact revenge on this pestilence of a person [re: Dawn Dorland]." Larson vs. Dorland Perry, Document 107-11 [Filed 03/15/21]

Grub Street has declared its intention to launch an independent investigation of this mess. Wonder if they’ll end up expelling or firing anyone.

Wow, already greyed. Maybe Castellani *is* on DL.

they'll do the same thing they did about Dorland's complaint of plagiarism.....zilch

.."nothing to see here"

I hope Dawn finishes her book and it becomes a huge hit. Nothing would infuriate the Monkeys more.

Sonya’s friends really did not help her here. She was clearly (rightly IMO) concerned at many junctures, seeking validation, in and they encouraged her worst impulses. Many lessons here, one of them being if your own inner voice is telling you something is wrong, best to listen.

Did any of the Flying Monkeys know Dorland well, besides Larson who got up her ass for nefarious purposes?

I suspect that most of the Monkeys didn't, and got based their opinions of Dorland on Larson's bad-mouthing and complaints of being harassed.

Wow - Christopher Castellani comes off as a major asshole and kind of a psycho.

Of note: Matthew Lopez, author of “The Inheritance” which just won the Tony award for Best Play, is adapting Castellani’s book “Leading Men” for the screen. I don’t think Lopez wants to be associated with this mess so it will be interesting to see where that project goes now.

When I started getting into this, I was under the impression Sonya was the biggest cunt, but she pales in comparison to the rest of her friends!

None of Castellani’s books have even received a starred review from Kirkus.

actually I read "Leading Men" when it came out and rather liked it, though I like fictionalized accounts of real people (Colum Toibin's books on Henry James and Thomas Mann).

Was looking forward to the movie, but Castellani is now dead to me and hope the project craters.

Lopez was most recently announced as directing "Red, White and Royal Blue" (bleh), so he's probably focused on that now. Leading Men was also noted in the announcement articles, but he can either dump it, or wait for the furor to die down.

Leading Men got a very nice review from the NYT:

"This book is a kind of poem in praise of pleasure, and those pleasures are sometimes stern. Its author knows a great deal about life; better, he knows how to express what he knows."

"But this is an alert, serious, sweeping novel. To hold it in your hands is like holding, to crib a line from Castellani, a front-row opera ticket"

Hi, Christopher at R19!

sorry you're triggered by inconvenient facts...

[quote]Larson who got up her ass

Pics please.

R1 Larson, Ng, Gay, and Dorland are all upper class whether they identify as such or not. They are all ivy league educated and that puts them in the sacred sphere of the US elite media. Would the NYT have cared if Dorland wasn't a Harvard grad? I don't think so. Dorland's only relative poverty is that of identity. She's white and not as successful. Notice how Larson, Ng ,and Gay have all doubled down on the racial angle because in 2021 the weakest identities (black, handicapped, indigenous female, immigrant, fat) confer the most social gravitas in elite institutions.

Dorland is also trying to play the oppression game by using mental health, poverty and some vague notion of growing up abused. The chunky monkeys simply have a better default hand in today's social climate but Dorland's trump card is that she actually saved someone's life. In the end the whole game is corrupt. The clawing and climbing and competitive victimhood is a game that everyone will ultimately lose. It's bad for the soul and bad for society. Can you imagine any of these women surviving a day being plumbers, electricians, nurses, cashiers, construction workers, etc. ?

R4, I appreciated the part where someone compared Dorland to Trump, and everyone squealed in delight. Such brilliance . . .

r23, congratulations on not understanding those posts. If you really think someone who grew up dirt-poor in Iowa (even if they did finally manage to attend Harvard Divinity School) has the same social experiences as these women who grew up upper middle class (or higher) and would be as adept at navigating the social game, then you simply don't get it.

R7 He needs a smack for "complete-est" alone. What an insufferable douche. Reading these emails I feel like a peasant taking a peek into Versailles. These are not normal well adjusted people.

Dawn’s victim cards are arguably as good as theirs. And her politics are correct, so they can’t go after her there. I think she holds two trump cards, at least in terms of public opinion: being a donor, and now the wronged party, morally and perhaps legally.

R25 Harvard is the get out of lower class card. Harvard on a resume makes Dorland is more privileged than 99% of Americans. As I said in my post, she's relatively poor compared to Ng and Larson, and but she's still extremely privileged compared to the vast majority of people. That's why this story has not caught on with the general public but has exploded in elite circles. Most people do not identify with either Dorland or Larson.

Every human being is shaped by their past experiences. Having money in the present doesn't mean you don't carry the scars of having grown up without any, and having that impact your actions and motivations deep down today.

R29 Ok, but Dawn is still not a single mother with a GED struggling RIGHT NOW. From an outside point of view all of this squabbling looks pointless, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

R28 I would say the story is pretty main stream when you consider its topic and subjects. I don’t think its fair to say it isn’t resonating with people because of Harvard and people not being relatable. It is just a nitche story and you probably need to be in the demographics of the NYT to appreciate it. All the NYT readers I know are fully engaged in it.

Who benefits from these "this is all meaningless, Dorland is so privileged, you shouldn't pay attention to this" postings? The Flying Monkeys, of course.

R32 this post proves you can't read

They are all privileged and they are all out of touch assholes, but Dorland is only slightly less of an out of touch asshole than the others.

The article at R4 is probably the best one I have read on the subject at capturing how actual people feel about this issue and not just a few out of touch writers on Twitter.

R33 I would say Dorland is SIGNIFICANTLY less out of touch than the Chunky Monkeys.

Yet, R33, you keep making my point. "They are all privileged assholes," there's really little difference, etc. It's an argument that supports Larson by dismissing Dorland as "only slightly less" trivial. The underlying message is "ignore all of this."

R36 no, you keep missing my point, which is that we should not ignore how fucked up everyone in this story is. Everyone involved here should be damned to hell.

R37 there are some who are much more deservingly damned to hell than others.

Celeste and her mediocre crew are vicious and venal.

Dawn is….annoying in person?

Who really belongs in hell? The chunky monkey assholes.

Bye Chris ✌️.

R30, I only partially agree. The social media stalking of everyone involved certainly seems pointless, but feuds involving writers will always be interesting, whether they are engaging in fisticuffs or insulting each other through their writing. It is an unwritten rule, though, that both parties are able to give as good as they get and to fight from a position of equality. These people broke a code that exposes their pretensions to art. Dawn Dorland may be unpleasant, she's probably not a good writer, it doesn't matter. She was right, the others are frauds.

R15, It appears they are a toxic coven of cunts. Self righteous, clueless, and classist. What a nasty group of people.

R37 Why should Dawn be damned to hell? What did she do wrong?

Thanks for starting up the new thread, OP, since I've too, been locked out of the second one (that I started haha).

On the previous one R463 said they hoped the Chunky Monkey's found out about our Murder, She Wrote double episode here, haha. I actually kinda wanna write it. I wrote a number of pieces of dialogue in the previous thread, but I'll be honest, I've never actually seen an episode properly, I was just basing it off what I thought it would be like. But it'd be funny to write.

Then, would that make me the Sonya Larson of DL? Hahahaha.

R15, I know, right? She almost comes across like the one desperate to do this to fit in with the other horrible members at places.

Roaxne's doubling down:

[quotePeople are wilding out. They’ve made this a whole conspiracy where if you commented on a public discourse based on available information, alongside thousands of other people, you are involved. It’s ridiculous.

Sorry, let's try that one again:

ROXANE is doubling down:

[quote]People are wilding out. They’ve made this a whole conspiracy where if you commented on a public discourse based on available information, alongside thousands of other people, you are involved. It’s ridiculous.

Has Roxane never heard of 'appeal to emotion':

[quote]Zac. I don’t care about this. I really don’t. My mom is in the hospital today. My puppy won’t eat. It’s cold. I am drowning in life. I don’t know these people. This isn’t about me or you for that matter. And a great many of you are being so grossly disingenuous.

Ooh, she's brought out big words now!

[quote]I am a writer. My job is to write. That’s it. I am not an elected official. I don’t owe you or anyone any more than my work. I am not your mammy. Please get ahold of your parasocial misunderstandings.

I think there's a good summing up here:

SHINICHI: They frame it on “white woman tears” even after that idea falls apart. It’s like they ran with Roxanne Gay’s initial tweet about Bad Art Friend.

BECCA: At this point, I find myself wondering if the people supporting that framework think ww are ever allowed to be upset by being treated awfully

SHINICHI: I think this shows that something that started out in academic discourse has become more of a straw man & ad hominem as the concept became more mainstream. For example, Roxanne Gay doesn’t even need much context when she wields the term WWTs… it’s a quick go-to rhetorically. It’s also difficult to criticize as many assume to do so automatically makes you a right-winger. Because no one on the left would ever dare look at these things critically yet it needs to be done.

Roxane “doesn’t know these people”? Didn’t they just give her an award last month?

R48 And she waddled in the shit in the first place. She decided to tweet about it, and now she is confused that people are holding her accountable.

R41 She's playing the same game and Larson and Ng. It's all performative victimhood to a certain extent, even if wrongs have been committed against her. As someone said last thread, there were multiple points along the way where this whole thing could have been stopped. Each party did their job to escalate the situation. Larson and the Cunty Monkies come off looking worse, but Dorland's behavior became out of control and stalkerish. Even with all this new info about the Cunty Monkies and their whisper circle, Dorland still comes off as an entitled Krisis Karen.

Today, Gay is portraying herself as just a humble writer with her own humble problems. Just like Ng is doing her "diapers for Afghanistan" charity work. Nothin' to see here, folks...

Duplicitious cunts.

Love how RG throws out the mom being sick thing. In other words, how dare anyone try to hold her accountable when she’s suffering.

Well, RG’s mom IS sick…

Way to throw extremely loaded words into the mix, Roxanne, like MAMMY. What are you saying? Ugh. If I had a twitter account, I would probably be throwing myself against the rocks of her phony scorn.

I think the judge should rule against Larson in the plagiarism civil case and award damages to Dorland in the amount of $1.

R50 Yes, because every time a woman sticks up for herself she is a Karen.

We are already three threads into this topic. The idea that Dorland was cyber stalking people has been dismissed. She only ever asked Larson why she wasn’t responding in the group because she thought it was weird that Larson was lurking in the group and not posting, and was worried she was being used as fodder, which she was. The idea that she was an attention seeker was also disproven because she added only 68 people to her kidney group. That is pretty small and no way to brag online. And, she tried to make the issue go away. She reached out to Larson, and she was dismissed. She brought up the harassment to Grubhub or whatever the stupid writing seminar was and they dismissed her claim (because Larson’s friend was on the investigation panel). She only got the law involved when Larson sued her!

So please, tell us, in your infinite wisdom what Dorland did wrong besides footing her foot down to the bullying.

If Roxane worked as hard on her mental health as she does on her lovely facile prose, she wouldn't weight 400 pounds.

r56, well said. That's the part that I keep getting stuck on. Dorland had over a thousand FB friends, but she created a group of less than 100 she considered close friends to share her experiences with. Yet some people keep screaming that she's a narcissist. Um...wouldn't a narcissist not bother with a small group and post her news to all her FB friends, instead of limiting it to a small group of people she informed from the start could unfollow if they weren't interested and she would understand? Awfully inefficient for a "narcissist."

R52

Exactly. But she's made a career out of it now, so don't come for the piggy bank whatever you do.

My mission in life is going to be to exact revenge on this pestilence OP of a person who started this thread way too early and failed to link part 2.

Come and get me, r60. Hardly too early when the other is paywalled.

(But you're right, I should have linked to the last one. My bad.)

It's funny how, directly before he declared his mission re: pestilence, he wrote, ""I can't wait to write my own response if this ever gets out into the world." Yet he hasn't said anything since this all broke and locked down his social media accounts. It seems Mr. Castellani talks a big game but is ultimately just chickenshit, like so many bullies. (Or else he's saving it for his group chats with the Monkeys.)

“Karen” is a racist (and lower-class) term.

Any Black person who continues to use this term— please be aware no one is taking seriously anything you have to say about “racism.”

"... you keep missing my point, which is that we should not ignore how fucked up everyone in this story :"

I don't get that Dorland is actually that fucked up. The Flying Monkey crew call her narcissistic and crazy, but her actions and expressed thoughts don't bear that out. She seems to be sane, her actions are those of a decent person, none of the obsessives going through the oublic documents or everyone's social media has uncovered any mean or crazy writings of hers, she has not attacked anyone who didn't stab her in the back first.

It's not exactly Dorothy Gale vs. the Wicked Witch and her Flying Monkeys, but it's pretty clear that Dorland has the legal and moral high ground.

"

The idiot going on about how they're all social equals understands nothing about social class. FYI, idiot, a Harvard degree doesn't automatically make you upper or upper-middle class, at least, not to people who've been upper or upper-middle class all their lives. All the Flying Monkey communications reek of "Not our crowd, darling" social class snobbery, in addition to fashionable reverse snobbery against "privileged" white women, everything they write about her is dismissive of her and hostile to the notion of letting someone like *her* join their rarified circle, she is deemed intellectually and socially unworthy, of use only as an object of cold study.

I had an older relative who came from working-class origins and went to Harvard, it didn't magically make him a member of the upper class, as the upper class didn't accept him as one of them and didn't help him along the way they helped their own. The Harvard degree made him a member of the middle class and sent him on his way to a moderately successful career, but then those of his siblings who went to state schools also made it into the professional middle class. He actually spent most of his life struggling with a sense of disappointment and frustration, because that Harvard degree had raised expectations that were never fulfilled, socially or professionally. No, getting into Harvard doesn't get you into the upper classes, it looks good on your CV, but it doesn't mean that the Best People regard you as an equal.

No, R50, she doesn't.

Poor Roxane is EXHAUSTED by this whole thing now. She's discovered that she is on the wrong side of this mess so she's playing her own pity cards when she could have simply chosen not to dip her fat hippo toes into these waters in the first place.

on July 8th, someone posted this article about the real-life inspiration for the now-famous New Yorker short story “Cat Person” on Christopher Castellani’s Facebook wall, specifically asking him how he felt about fiction writers “using” real people for characters in their work.

Christopher’s comment was: “I say TL; DR. Everyone’s life is fair game. Deal with it. If you can’t deal with it, don’t be friends with writers.”

Interesting response knowing what he knew at that point about the Sonya/Dawn feud (which was pretty much everything).

r68, he should have added "don't be enemies, or acquaintances, with writers either," since these people have made it clear they never considered her a friend.

"Christopher’s comment was: “I say TL; DR. Everyone’s life is fair game. Deal with it. If you can’t deal with it, don’t be friends with writers.”"

Thank you, R36, that answers one of the questions I've had all along about this silly mess - how tolerant the Flying Monkey crowd was with plagiarism, and/or writing about real people and calling it "fiction". It seems that at least one of them is so fine with it that he's willing to go public about it, and I'm going to guess that acceptance of Lawson's practices is accepted on the MFA writing scene, and wouldn't I like to be a fly on the wall when it sinks in that the general public is against it all!

If anyone here knows Christopher Castellani, ask him to write the full "Murder She Wrote" episode, or the roman a clef dark comedy novel that has to happen. He seems to be enough of a bitch.

Gotta love people telling awful Celeste directly that she's a liar (after Kolker said today the story wasn't a result of Dawn pitching it to him).

R70, there are two issues here: whether a writer can be “inspired” by a person or an incident in someone else’s life and whether a writer can use a letter written by someone else in a work of fiction. The first is something writers do all the time and can be distasteful but not illegal. The second, however, can be plagiarism, and isn’t something a serious writer would do, since it suggests a lack of imagination.

There's actually a 3rd issue here, R72, in addition to frank plagiarism and being inspired by real life... there's also writing about real people in ways that are hurtful or harmful, and calling it "fiction". The last is legally complex, it maybe libel and actionable, or it may be parody and protected, or neither.

And that's what Lawson did, wrote about a real person in a hurtful way, without bothering to disguise it. That's a separate issue from the frank plagiarism, and it's something the Flying Monkeys apoarently accept and defend, and which the general public finds repellent. And IMHO it's not only repellent, it's fucking lazy, passing crap biased non-fiction off as fiction. Anyone who does it needs to find something better to do with their lives.

Thank you kindly for the new thread, O fucking P.

"Kindly?" Ouch, r74, you do know how to wound. **sobs**

[quote]Kolker said today the story wasn't a result of Dawn pitching it to him

A lot of what they've said about Dawn has turned out to be lies.

Kolker finally admitting the story wasn't written because Dawn pitched it to him is fine, I guess, but he has a lot of responsibility here for essentially lying about Dawn himself, characterizing some of her behavior in ways that are so far off the mark they are basically lies, not just "a different perspective."

R65 Your post is extremely myopic and I doubt you actually any poor people. Poor and middle class people do not care about this shit. If you cannot recognize that, you live in a bubble yourself. NYT commenters are not normal, average people. They are the 5%. Your friend might view himself as under- privileged, but he is not. He had a better shot at life than 99.99% alive in thei world. Being a Harvard grad that is disappointed is not the fucking same as being a high school drop out who was raised in a trailer park and can't put food on the table with a minimum wage job.

You are reinforcing one of my points, R77, and it's this: There's a hell of a difference between what ordinary schmoes like you and me consider to be upper class, and what people who were born to the upper class consider to be upper class. The same goes for any privileged group, including snob writers with Ivy League arts degrees.

So Dorland and Lawson may look like social equals to you, but they didn't look like social equals to Lawson and her snooty pals.

R78 ...which makes neither of them real victims worthy of 3000 words in the New York Times. Much greater injustices are happening in the world and this looks like a storm in a teacup compared to those. The exhaustive arguments among the twiterati and literatti over this just proves how insular and removed from 'normal people problems' cultural elites are. Frankly I really don't give a shit about Larson or Dorland, who in the end have pretty great lives. Neither of them have to worry about money, really. This is also why I don't give two shit about celebrities being 'cancelled'. None of these people deserve pity. Boo hoo rich people problems.

[quote]Much greater injustices are happening in the world and this looks like a storm in a teacup compared to those. The exhaustive arguments among the twiterati and literatti over this just proves how insular and removed from 'normal people problems' cultural elites are

And yet you've been in these threads throughout. So save the holier than thou bullshit. You said something stupid and got called out for it.

"[R78] ...which makes neither of them real victims worthy of 3000 words in the New York Times. "

Oh honey, nobody thinks of either of them as real victims, or takes this story seriously! It's all a tempest in a teapot, a phrase I've used myself often enough on these threads, and we're just enjoying the drama and chuckling at the sight of a bunch of snooty bitches get a bit of a comeuppance. That is, FYI, why the NYT article was written, in the hopes of entertaining more than informing. it actually presented everyone involved as awful and snarkworthy rather than victims, same for most of the commentators.

So lighten up, and enjoy the tempest in a teapot, or bugger off.

I have a feeling there's a "You know who's really suffering? You know who isn't entitled and has real problems? The people the wonderful CELESTE NG is trying to help with her diaper drive (or whatever the hell it is). You should stop talking about this story and help CELESTE--I mean, whoever CELESTE thinks is worthy of helping (and not dumb old kidney needers either! That's a first-world problem!)" coming.

.,.,

R79, a story doesn't need "real victims" to justify being written. A good writer can make it resonant and meaningful even if the people involved have money.

R79, this story plays out something happening all over our culture.

The writers, filmmakers. artists in general, all come from a certain class. The views they promulgate are from that class, but usually they do not tip their hand. Now they have.

Keep trying R21. You’re friend is fucked.

are you a total idiot R86? the guy is an asshole and I'll never read anything he wrote, and he is certainly is no "friend" of mine.

None of that changes the fact that his book received a positive review in the Times.

Did we discuss the article writer Steve Almond--who has worked at Grub Street--wrote for the Boston NPR website? He pretended to be compassionate and above-it-all, but only slammed Dawn--a former student! "Study at Grub Street and we'll slander you! If that wasn't clear from the leaked texts, one of our teachers will state it publicly on an outside site!"--and gave Sonya's terrible story a tongue-bath. I mean, this:

"I don’t think anyone’s in a position to judge Dawn Dorland unless they imagine a scenario in which a more celebrated writer (who they admire and want to befriend, from the same writing community they ardently wish to join) writes a story inspired by their act of altruism, which instead spotlights their desire for acclaim.

I don’t think anyone is in a position to judge Sonya Larson unless they have been the subject of a sustained literary and legal campaign against them for the crime of writing a short story that is a work of deep compassion and piercing insight.

The precision of Sonya’s insight into Dawn — and the way she chose to amplify Dawn’s narcissism for fictional purposes — was the real dagger. Her refusal to acknowledge this dagger stabbed it even deeper. A different person might not have been so wounded, and thus so retaliatory. But Dawn (as Sonya well knew) was eager to be recognized for her generosity, not ridiculed. She was openly insecure."

"A work of deep compassion and piercing insight?" Bullshit. It's garbage--simple, shallow, and cartoonish.

Apparently he got enough blowback that he had to backpedal, and the article now includes a new note at the bottom:

"Author’s note: I wrote this piece in the hopes that people would be more reflective and less judgmental about this painful dispute. That includes me. I fell short of my own standard in failing to note Dawn's allegations of plagarism, for instance, but mostly in the passage where I sought to sympathize with both women. I should have written something more like...

I don’t think anyone’s in a position to judge Dawn Dorland unless they imagine a scenario in which a more celebrated writer (who they admire and want to befriend, from the same writing community they ardently wish to join) writes a story inspired by their act of altruism, which instead spotlights their desire for acclaim, and even uses some of their words.

I don’t think anyone is in a position to judge Sonya Larson unless they have been the subject of a sustained campaign against them for writing what they intended as a work of fiction.

The way Sonya chose to amplify what she saw as Dawn’s pursuit of recognition, for fictional purposes, was the real dagger…

The lesson in all this for me is to cop to my missteps rather than being defensive.

-- S.A., October 13, 2021"

Except, again, Sonya didn't only intend it as a work of fiction. It blatantly began as a hit piece on a real person. We've seen the emails.

This Grub Street bunch keeps showing that they're utter trash. Why would anyone who's not a complete asshole would want to be involved with them?

[quote]I fell short of my own standard in failing to note Dawn's allegations of plagarism

You mean the entire point of the whole thing? Jesus what a piece of shit this Almond guy is

Also, I think it's telling that in both his original and revised tellings, he describes Dawn as "ardently wish(ing) to join" "the same writing community" as Sonya. Despite the fact that she also worked for Grub Street, she wasn't part of their community, only ardently wishing to join it. Way to admit just how clique-y Grub Street is, and how, no, she couldn't sit with them.

Oh, according to this Steve Almond guy it's all the fault of men!

[quote]The hubbub around this story feels creepily familiar. The patriarchy loves a story in which two ambitious women are in conflict. It reinforces ancient bigotries. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Our cultural misogyny is so deeply ingrained that we think nothing of the disparity between how we regard male and female aggression. We laud the former as toughness and courage while we pathologize the latter as hysteria, or reduce it to “cattiness."

That Steve Almond guy is a moron. He needs to shut his yap. All these mediocre writers trying to reframe the conversation as being about patriarchy, racism, and class.

No. It’s about a shitty plagiarist stealing a story and trying to make it her own and getting caught out as a Royal cunt and all the fucking assholes who supported her going down with her.

The responses to his tweet promoting his article are hilarious

Someone updated Castellani's Wikipedia page with the relevant information:

In October 2021, Castellani was implicated in a work-related harassment, cyberbullying, gaslighting and perjury in an ongoing civil case referred to as Larson vs. Dorland Perry. Castellani was quoted as saying "My mission in life is going to be to exact revenge on this pestilence of a person [re: Dawn Dorland]." Larson vs. Dorland Perry, Document 107-11 [Filed 03/15/21][11]

Whoever is editing those cunt’s wikis is wonderful.

The replies to Almond’s condescending bullshit are SAVAGE.

Not to plagiarize DL's Lizsha, but I imagine Daffy Duck sputtering " thish PESHTILENCE of a PERSHON!"

Also - I take issue every time with Dawn being labeled a narcissist. The merits aside, I am so sick of that fucking word being thrown around by people who think they sound knowing and sophisticated. It's like that meme, "everyone I don't like is a narcissist." Maybe I'll write a short story about it.

Why do all these writers keep trying to wade into This with their various (mostly wrong) takes? It’s just a horrible idea all around. You DO NOT want to be associated with this story in any way if you are a writer, established or otherwise.

Roxane Gay scurrying away to take care of her “sick mother” should serve as a sign to anyone wanting to inject themselves into this that’s it’s an awful idea.

Straight up high school bullshit.

Hobbes original post was nonsense--saying Sonya started out as the bad art friend but in the end Dawn was the bad art friend who should have just let it go--so glad to see he's finally tweeting some accurate comments, especially since he has such a large audience (and so many people responded how right his original take was). Probably won't undo the damage of his original post, but every little bit, I guess.

Dawn’s next book should be a comic takedown of these pretentious literary cunts. I’d read that!

Not sure if anyone's pointed this out, but for the nut who kept insisting Dawn was the elite because she went to Harvard: 90% of Harvard Divinity School students receive scholarships. (It was also pointed out that her undergrad at Scripps was on a full scholarship.)

"[R79], this story plays out something happening all over our culture. The writers, filmmakers. artists in general, all come from a certain class."

That's more because of economics, than the social snobbery and freezing-out that we've seen in action here.

Nobody can afford to be a starving artist any more, unless they're supported by a their parents, a spouse, or an inheritance. That's why the arts have become the province of the upper and upper-middle classes, nobody else can afford to devote themselves to work that won't earn them a living - like spending weeks or months on a short story that pays $425. People who have to take second jobs to pay the rent don't have the time to write or paint or make youtube movies, and they sure as hell don't have the time to work their way into this cliquey writers' social scene - not that they'd have any hope of being accepted if they tried.

Castellani’s Wiki page has been edited to delete the Bad Art Friend stuff.

Other countries recognize the arts as important and provide more economic support, R104. It’s also true that you don’t have to live in a city to be an artist; there are still many cheap places to live in this country. But that is no advantage if success as an artist depends more on connections and networking than talent.

I downloaded the exhibit with the infamous Castellani quote and found quotes from this person, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, who's one of the Chunky Monkeys but who seems to have gone unscathed, even though she was also throwing around "DFD" on the chats. Her Twitter has largely ignored the issue, except for this one, where she says the Bad Artist Friend story is about stalking...but since she's on Sonya's side it's clear she doesn't understand who the stalker is. Dipshit.

R105 Then I guess one of us will have to edit it back!

Alex/ Alexandria uses they/them pronouns. I agree R107. The stalker comment is ironic.

r109, Oops, you're right. I should have realized.

They were also throwing around "DFD" on the chats. Their Twitter has largely ignored the issue, except for this one, where they say the Bad Artist Friend story is about stalking...but since their on Sonya's side it's clear they doesn't understand who the stalker is.

They are a dipshit.

**they're on Sonya's side. Damn it.

Alex wrote a memoir where they describe the harrowing experience of being raped by their own grandfather. Honestly, I’d have thought Alex would have more compassion for someone like Dawn than to join the “DFD” bully crowd.

R106, the one encouraging thing about the modern arts world is that the internet is allowing some non-trustafarians to squeeze in even though they aren't part of the exclusionary and expensive big-city arts social scene.

Anyone can put an amateur film on youtube, and Hollywood has actually picked up some of the more talented ones, so filmmakers at least can crack their field without having to pay for UCLA Film School. But I doubt there's any equivalent for "literary fiction", that really sounds like a who-you-know field.

Becky Tuchs saying that Dawn had only ever been lovely to her is kind of heartbreaking, isn't it? And owning up to how easily Dawn became "Dawn" to them, not a real person, but a caricature, a villain, it's so sad. At least ONE of these Chunky Monkeys/Grub Street lot are owning it.

Someone else pointed out on Twitter that Dawn does a lot of work with the homeless in LA and teaches free writing classes. They compared this to this other lot who charge nearly $400 a class.

Kidneygate points out that Sonya's CV, which she updated on her website the day before the article, still lists "The Kindness" as chosen Boston's One City One Story read for 2018, even though it's been removed from the Boston Book Festival's website, which says "2018: Program on hiatus."

What I find just as interesting is that the 2020 pick was fellow Chunky Monkey Grace Talusan. That Boston literary scene really is ridiculously incestuous, isn't it?

I love how Roxane starts whining about her sick mother and dog and the weather and blah blah blah.

Did she ever think Brooke Nelson had a sick mother? Kate Elizabeth Russell might have been going through a bad time? Was Dawn worried over her sick dog? What was going on in the lift of that minimum wage McDonalds worker?

No, Roxane was very happy to get involved in a pile-on of all those people.

^life*

**"The Kindest" Geez, I swear I haven't been drinking today. Too much rage posting about these assholes.

R114 This story just gets more and more outlandish. It is a shame that most people are not like DLers who literally go into every single detail to get the truth.

Dawn Dorland (even her name is sweet), the poor girl who went to Harvard on scholarship spends her free time feeding the homeless, giving free writing lessons and advocating for organ donation after doing it herself. She is struggling to be a writer but doesn’t let that stand in her way of supporting others.

Sonya Larson, is the pretty rich girl, who has other pretty, rich, and popular friends. She lurks in a private FB group of Dawns just to find material to make fun of Dawn with and look cooler. She gets so carried away that she writes an entire story about Dawn in which she demonizes her, and does so with the intention that Dawn will find out. When Dawn does find out, she both gaslights and then sues her AND her lawyer.

I think the bit players like DLs own Chris and Ng will survive, tarnished. The others will be fine. Sonya is done for. Justice at least.

[QUOTE] Dawn Dorland (even her name is sweet), the poor girl who went to Harvard on scholarship spends her free time feeding the homeless, giving free writing lessons and advocating for organ donation after doing it herself. She is struggling to be a writer but doesn’t let that stand in her way of supporting others.

Dawn reminds me a lot of the title character in Tom Wolfe’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons.”

Heh:

[quote]Celeste Ng seems like she sucks as a person, she’s at the center of so many awful shitfights on here, her and Roxane Gay seem like utter fucking sociopaths on Twitter dot com and I’m not censoring anyone’s name because I drive a van for a living what are they going to do to me

Harvard Divinity has the highest acceptance rate of any school there. It averages fifty percent, which is very high.

Becky Tuchs, who had the grace to give a very reluctant mea culpa, which starts out with DEEP praise of Sonya to the point of deeply licking Sonya's pussy and crack, then squeezes out an apology to Dawn, is the only white. The POCS are digging in.

To call someone a “pestilence” is really extreme.

R124, we tell each other to die in grease fires when discussing bottled mayonnaise! We have no room to talk about anyone else's abusive language.

R125, we actually do, though. Here we are a choir of disembodied voices. We might have posting histories, but that’s it. Dorland was a specific person with a face and a life. That’s different than being “Reply —.”

The poor little darling!

[quote]I accidentally had my first sip of pumpkin spice latte today when the barista handed me “Kennedy’s” drink instead of mine. It tasted horrible. My mouth is still upset.

God, she really is insufferable, isn’t she?

Surprised to see there’s a food Roxanne doesn’t like.

Am I wrong in thinking the whole "pumpkin spice" thing is tied to white people? Because if so, then I think we all know exactly why Roxane is mentioning how horrible it is on Twitter.

She never changes.

R130 Year she is trying to insult white people. Which is ironic because she is drinking at a chain created by white people.

God, she is so lame.

I listen to a podcast on a certain novelist who wrote over a long period of time and they talk about how things in those books might be 'stuck in their time' each week. As the podcast went on, they opened this discussion to the listeners and a lot of people pointed out there is behavior right now that will seem 'stuck in its time' in the future.

This kind of behavior by Roxane strikes me as just that. I feel like in the future she's probably going to find herself on the end of a Twitter mob (or whatever the equivalent will be then) because of these stupid things she says.

I've seen her before complain about how white people don't eat spices and all their food is bland. Then she complained another time about white people 'appropriating' other people's food. Which is it, Roxane?

[quote]What I find just as interesting is that the 2020 pick was fellow Chunky Monkey Grace Talusan.

Again, I am simply unable to process the existence of a third Drama Talusan.

Haha, it's incredible, isn't it R133? Does that name just track to drama all the time, or what?

Oh for fuck's sake, ragging on everything "pumpkin spice" flavored has been an autumnal Datalounge tradition for years - and here you bitches are bitching about Roxanne Gay hating pumpkin spice flavor?

You should be singing "ONE OF US, ONE OF US, GOOBLE GOBBLE ONE OF US!".

^Not every one of us has been year "for years", and I've never heard of it before. Just chill out and let other people talk about what they want to. You don't have to control every conversation, and you'll be happier once you realise this.

^has been here*

R116

Not surprising she piled-on. She has experience in piling on the pounds.

R132

Roxane has found her niche and she's not going to give it up now. Her victimhood is her identity.

She wrote in her biography "Hunger" that she sometimes calls her rapist and then hangs up. I wish she would actually confront him. He's a criminal and deserves to feel like shit.

But I think the only reason she doesnt is that then she would be forced to lose some weight and get healthy again.

I posted on the first thread about knowing some of them, most specifically Whitney Scharer. She has locked down her social media. She has gotten off pretty easily because she no longer works at Grub Street. But at the time all this went down, she was DEEP in this I am sure. She held multiple positions of power there and worked there for years. Makes me wonder if she knew this was all going down and got out while the getting was good.

She's the one who got a MILLION DOLLAR ADVANCE for her mediocre debut novel. This shit really is about who you know, isn't it?

r141, yeah, I definitely saw her name in the file I downloaded yesterday. I'm pretty sure she was one of the ones throwing around DFD.

In case it hasn't been posted, here's a link to the court documents. The exhibits listed under March 15, 2021, which were the documents Larson had to produce, seem to be where the juiciest stuff is. (Attachment 11/Exhibit K is the one I read.)

A million dollars? For a bunch of werdz? Wtf.

I was killing time in the public library yesterday. They were having a big sale of books they were trying to offload. I was just struck by the sheer number of books and books and books. There is so much out there to read. And yet people get $1 million for one book. Whatever the market will bear, I suppose. Oh and then I looked for Celeste Ng’s book on the shelf. It was there, I picked it up and leafed through it, then put it back. Celeste continues to brazen it out on Twitter, which frankly is probably the right approach for her. These things fade, alas.

I know this isn't a Roxane thread. That said, fuck Roxane and her glomming on to Black culture when it suits. Her wife is as white as they come too, and I wonder how she feels about Roxane's bullshit pokes at white women. She's as entitled as any of these other cunts. From her wiki. Check out the last sentence in particular. Her parents paid her rent until she was 30?

Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska,[1] to Michael and Nicole Gay, both of Haitian descent.[8][9] Her mother was a homemaker and her father is owner of GDG Béton et Construction, a Haitian concrete company.[10][11] Gay was raised Roman Catholic and spent her summers in Haiti.[12][13] She attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.[14] Gay began writing essays as a teenager;[15] her work has been greatly influenced by a sexual assault she experienced at the age of 12 at the hands of her boyfriend and his friends.[16] Her parents were relatively wealthy, supporting her through college and paying her rent until she was 30.[12]

Seriously, though, it's easy to imagine the envy and salivating within this group at the insane money some of the members were getting. A million for Whitney, $800k for Chip, and then whatever Celeste got along with the Hollywood treatment...sheesh. It must have seemed important to side with those cool kids, especially Celeste.

I really, really want to see this limited series. Such great characters, all. You can picture the opening scenes introducing Dawn: hippy-dippy happy music as she strolls along in sunny LA, doing yoga, shopping at Whole Foods, Namaste-ing strangers. Then cut to slick, urban Boston, Sonya the black-clad sophisticate fetching coffee, striding into GrubStreet headquarters. Who plays Chip Cheek?

Roxane’s many grievances about white women are hilarious given that white women are her core audience. Nothing does a certain stripe of white women love more than being scolded by a black lady. It’s a minstrel show.

HAHAHAHA. Okay, one of you has to be Kidneygate, right?

[QUOTE] I love how Roxane starts whining about her sick mother and dog and the weather and blah blah blah.

Brandon Taylor is doing something similar on his Twitter to deflect criticism of his tweets. He’s talking about long-term sexual abuse as a child and being scrubbed naked because his mom said that he smelled. These are apparently examples of he doesn’t my care what Twitter has to say about his Kidney Takes.

What the hell?

*examples of why he doesn’t care

Roxane tweeted about this 4 or 5 times and then was like 'what, I'm just commenting on the story like everyone else'. She acts like she's put upon by other people's expectations and interpretations of her statements. You have 845,300 people following you, girl.

Deanna Deflection.

Ha, the Whitney Sharer $1M advance book is the fucking story of Lee Miller's life. It's not even her own fucking creation!

These writers are absolute hacks. Poseurs.

"Seriously, though, it's easy to imagine the envy and salivating within this group at the insane money some of the members were getting. A million for Whitney, $800k for Chip..."

So it's not like the academic infighting which is "so vicious because the stakes are so small", these people are vicious because the stakes are HUGE! And that's probably why they are so exclusionary. Sure, they make a show of helping other writers and teaching workshops, but if anyone tries to break into the who-you-know circle where million dollar advances can be had, the Flying Monkeys aren't going to help them up the ladder, they're going to push them off.

Which reinforces my earlier point about why the arts are now dominated by people from wealthy backgrounds. With the cost of living and housing being what it is, nobody can spend decades getting higher education and polishing their craft, and living in the big cities where these writers' circles are, and networking and kissing ass at workshops, all in the hope of the eventual million-dollar advance... unless someone else is paying their bills.

Roxane had some problems before the rape. Perhaps being brought up by strict immigrant parents?

She alludes to the fact that she "did things" with her boyfriend that she should not have done at the age of 12.

The more I've seen of this the more I'm convinced that Dawn's actual crime was being a good person. She may be annoying but what rubbed the flying monkeys the wrong way is the idea that she might actually be what she seems, so they have to make her out to be narcissistic and crazy to demean the stuff she does so they feel less insecure around her. Dawn actually doing good things in the real world sure puts them to shame since they seem like keyboard warrior types that talk a lot but never actually do anything.

I hate that they mocked her sweet Jumbotron moment. Heartless shits.

My favourite comment on that kidneygate post above:

[quote]Dear Roxane, I forgot I had 854,000 Twitter followers and was incredibly cruel to a woman who gave her kidney to a total stranger in front of them. How do I cover it up and make it look like everyone criticizing me is the problem?

Roxy must be so happy the Chapelle article has taken off. She can't be considered to be punching down there and it takes attention away from her behaviour here.

R155, you may be right. I get the feeling there's something very earnest about Dawn, that has clearly rubbed these others up the wrong way.

Is Roxabba The Hut-Gay bipedal or now strictly rollerina?

R155, I've seen that argument made, that the Monkeys were disconcerted by her decency. She'd actually done something difficult and heroic. That unnerved then, and they didn't have the psychological insight to explore why they were triggered.

The whole thing takes me straight back to high school, watching a slightly awkward girl who wanted to hang around with other girls who were nice to her face and then made plans to "tell her we'll meet her somewhere and then we won't show up. When she sees us then we'll run away."

I do hope some of the mud will stick to these writers for a bit, even if it's just that people are wary of dealing with GrubStreet or the Chunky Monkeys or something. Or maybe the best revenge is just that Dawn somehow ends up succeeding in an area she really wants to.

OK, this is from one of us here, surely? Hahaha!

[quote]I would love to know the thought process that led to Roxane Gay, who has never had a normal job and has famously gone on record to complain about having to pay her two personal assistants, getting a workplace advice column

If I weren’t an ancient luddite, I would be on Twitter with multiple accounts dragging these cunts to hell and never letting it go. Yah that’s fucked up, but I’ve been bullied by mfa types myself and this brings it all back up. All the petty evil and bland fiction writing. They disgust me.

Well don't sign up for Twitter and start, R162, the Flying Monkeys can afford lawyers!

Not very good ones though, R163, as shown by the hack that Larson hired. Haha!

R155 and R159, I think that we fact that Larson and the Flying Monkeys were triggered by DD's altruistic acts says a lot about them, and how small and petty their minds are. They didn't understand an altruistic act, and jnstead of actually trying to understand a person unlike themselves the way a really good writer would, they dismissed altruism as attention-seeking and narcissism... because those were the only motives they could understand. Hey, maybe it narcissism, or a desire for acceptance or fame, or religion, or altruism? Why not write about how religion can motivate people to be either cruel or altruistic? Or trying to understand gratitude, instead if writing about disdain and ingratitude, as Lawson did?

I myself have no idea what motivates DD to do the things she does, and I don't care. At a certain point, the acts become more important than the motivation for doing them, and that includes giving up perfectly good organs, and holding free classes for the homeless.

R155

No, she's not as bad as Larson and her mean cunt crew but she's an out out touch white woman with emotional control and boundary issues. Dorland lied about Larson accepting her facebook group invite and her lawyer is trying to crush that fact. Dorland added her because she wanted to rub elbows with the chunky monkey crew too, as a way to further her career.

R166 is that you Celeste? Still lying for your fellow asshole friends? Private FB groups require an invitation, which can be ignored or declined. Nobody forced Lawson to accept the invite and nobody forced Lawson to keep looking at the posts in it.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUP Dorland is white and a very bad girl bad girl bad girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, R167, I hadn't seen that part of it yet. My god, so the woman literally told them they didn't have to be there and to leave if they didn't want to join, and the whole story was twisted to make her seem like she was stalking and harassing them? Jesus!

Oh, and in the same complaint where Larson claims she was added to the FB without her permission, she also falsely claims that the group had up to 300 members, that she only "recorded a few thoughts and ideas" from Dorland's letter for future references, and that the Boston Book Fair's decision to drop Larson's story was not because of the validity of Dorland's plagiarism accusation. We know from the subsequent discovery these were all lies, just like the ridiculous notion that Dorland somehow forced Larson into a private FB group.

R167 nope. If you have read any of the tweets beyond that weird kidney account, you'll see people being hard on both Larson and Dorland. Methinks the frau posters of DL see a lot of themselves in Dorland and that's why you guys can't see why her behavior was not kosher.

R171 you're the one trying to revive already disproven lies. That has nothing to do with whether Dorland bears any blame here. If you think there are legitimate criticisms of Dorland, you should be able to reference things she's actually done or not done, not things Larson has lied about.

Yeah, what's with re-litigating things we have known are false for awhile now? The court documents have been out for a good amount of time.

R167 is either Castellini or Cheek.

Sorry r171 is Castellini or Cheek

Dorland pursued Larson about using her life story AND stealing her own words in the letter, and publishing it. Larson stonewalled and gaslit for years. Larson spun Dorland's pursuit of clarity, truth, perhaps a mea culpa, as "stalking". A VICIOUS nasty dishonest repellant cunt, that Larson. As a professor, I have observed that all unrepentent plagiarists are the same in this way. I call it out several times a year. Some are ashamed, admit it, apologise, beg for mercy and go away informed and with their tails between their legs. But a few dig in and these people are LOST CAUSES, will be repeat offenders, and likely they are sociopaths and should be avoided socially and professionally. They are really really bad news.

It's been interesting to see just how much Larson has lied. Over and over and even under oath. It's pretty clear it's a longstanding habit and maybe part of why she could bully Dawn into backing down on the plagiarism. I think Larson is the one with some kind of axis 2 diagnosis. There's something really off about her behavior.

Which was the one again who went back to the group talking about how awkward it was to bump into Dawn somewhere, and as he explained the story you realised (and he even admitted) that she was just lovely, kind and helpful? And that he thought it would be a good idea to 'use' her for her usefulness? That guy is utterly, utterly devoid of ANY decency. It also shows how that group had so completely stuck to this idea of Dawn they had that even being faced with behaviour that showed they were wrong, they would clamp down.

It's kind of a fascinating and ultimately disheartening look at humans and in-groups thinking.

Because she can't be admired enough, a reminder of what an awesome no-bullshit badass Deborah Porter is. And she's stylish as hell. A True DL icon.

Love our Deb!

I even imagine she'd be like: "Enough with the adulation, I have work to do!"

And I would've given ANYTHING to be a fly on the wall when De Leon opened that response from Porter. I can bet I know exactly how it would've been taken. Like typical bullies when they don't get their way, feigned outrage of the "I don't understand how you could speak to me like that! What is wrong with YOU?" variety.

r174/r175, it's Castellani, a-n-i. I only care because I hope this thread comes up any time his name is Googled (and you KNOW an artiste like him has a Google alert set).

Christopher CastellAni. Lover of plagiarists. Hater of kidney donors, postal workers, and those who work at North American Midway.

r178, it was Chip Cheek.

Chip Cheek, who looks like a fucking serial killer by the way. And he was scared of Dawn? I'm amazed people don't run away at the sight of him.

Who the fuck names their kid "Chip Cheek"?

(See, I can be a bitch too, Chip!)

Chip Cheek's book has less than 3 stars on Goodreads, which I don't see that often for major releases (and considering they gave him an $800k advance, it must have been a major release). Sounds like shitty lit porn.

Tell me, has the "Flying Monkey" nickname spread to Twitter, or literary circles?

Because I don't think every member of the group deserves to be hounded or ruined, mist of them probably just took Lason's word when she said she was being stalked and harassed. But I do want them all to be forever known as "a Flying Monkey".

R187 raises an interesting point, which members of the Flying Monkeys (I also like 'Cunty Monkeys' as a name too) do people think are worse than others. I think some of them seem even worse than Larson, funnily enough (ie Celeste Ng being one of them). Are any of them coming across better?

The white one Becky who squeezed out a half assed apology get a half assed pardon from me. But she was STILL hedging her bets and licking monkey ass.

R178, that's one of the very worst things about this story. Two members of the Chunky Monkeys (Cheek and the woman who posted an apology on Twitter) independently met Dorland and had positive interactions with her, yet they were so committed to bonding with the group that they continued to attack her.

"Even if the white lady was nice to me, I must support the construction of appalling crackertude demanded by the POC-lite overlords".

To be fair, R190, if you've heard for years that somebody is crazy, narcissistic, and a stalker, and you yourself don't know them well... you're going to leery and suspicious if you run into them, even if they're perfectly pleasant. Most horrible people are capable of maintaining a mask of pleasant normality, so most people wouldn't change their bad opinion over a few pleasant interactions.

So for the most part, the group's big mistake seems to have been believing Larson's lies about Dorland. The obvious exception is Ng, perhaps others, but im not obsessed enough to look each and every one of them and parse out their personal degree of guilt.

"Flying monkeys" is also used in support groups for victims of narcissistic parents/partners to describe family and friends of the narcissists who do their bidding by gaslighting and smearing the victim.

R156, fuck, I just saw that. "My Lakers Girls moment". I'm such an over-sensitive moron, I feel so silly, but I teared up a bit at them mocking that.

I was once plagiarized by a former colleague in an academic setting. I'd received the villain edit from them a few years before and when confronted, she claimed that she didn't need to cite me as the ideas were 'in the common argot.' Oooh, fucker knows big words!

Like Dawn, I came up from trash (I haven't gotten very far, either) and unlike Dawn, I went for the balls right off. The subject line: 'that's plagiarism, babe.' She had clearly taken a paragraph from my dissertation abstract and barely tweaked each sentence with minimum paraphrasing to form the introduction to a blog post on a shitty blog by a writing group of colleagues who identified as 'girls.' She didn't think I'd catch her or respond.

Fucker was wrong.

People like that try and rely on other people not challenging them, or not being able to follow through, R195. Then they get surprised when, like you or Dawn, people don't back down, and then they get incensed at the idea that you just don't roll over and take it.

I think whoever came up with renaming the group Flying Monkeys knew that and that's exactly why they considered the phrase so apt.

Casetllani, Ng, Cheek, and Larson of course, come off horrible. Larson doesn’t have much of a career anyway, and so I suspect this will be enough to sink it.

Ng will probably survive, but tainted. I imagine her next book won’t sell as well, and she will always have to live in fear that a question about this will come up during a Q/A. I know I would love to.

The other two had large advances but they also don’t seem like they have had amazing careers. They might be unknown enough to survive but like Larson I doubt they will take off.

GrubStreet will need to do some serious damage control.

It is amazing to me that Castellani or whatever his name is, thinks of a postal worker has being such a demeaning job. Growing up in my poor urban community, we all knew postal workers mad good, steady wages and great benefits. If you become a mail man, you had it made!

Castellani works with YoungArts teaching writing to teens of all backgrounds.

I wonder if he can be fair to those who are not from the same socioeconomic background as himself. Can he treat the child of a postal worker or a mall employee fairly?

It's interesting, or perhaps unsurprising, that he seems to have come from a working class background. His parents were immigrants who worked blue-collar factory jobs according to this. But maybe that's noble, unlike the mere post office.

[quote]To call someone a “pestilence” is really extreme.

not, if like the Flying Monkeys, you want them exterminated

[quote] Two members of the Chunky Monkeys (Cheek and the woman who posted an apology on Twitter) independently met Dorland and had positive interactions with her, yet they were so committed to bonding with the group that they continued to attack her.

High school writ large.

R199/R200 I hope someone's asked him those questions on Twitter. Repeatedly. Maybe ask YoungArts too.

Still trying to make it all about race (this was retweeted by Roxane too):

[quote]Where is this energy for the white people who tweeted about that article.

So they really didn't learn anything about the folly of playing the race card for bullshit reasons?

It's all they have in terms of coping mechanisms. The blue-checked emperors have no clothes.

YES R207! I've been saying this for awhile now, they have no clothes, especially someone like Roxane. I wonder what it's going to take until more people see that? (to be fair, I think more and more are. Plus on one of the threads someone on there said he had worked alongside her before and this really is the case too).

They've all devolved to the standard: "God, are you people STILL talking about this? We moved on ages ago, you must be sad" type attitude, which is the last refuge of people who know they've done a shitty thing and don't want to own up to it.

Oh this is hilarious, I've been blocked by Brandon. I've never even seen his Tweets other than here before, let alone commented on them. I did write a snarky Tweet to Celeste Ng that got about 20 likes, so nothing special.

The Flying Monkeys are a wee bit sensitive, no?

Wow, haha! So they're all looking at each others' twitter feeds and blocking people? Sensitive doesn't even cover it.

What did you say to Brandon, R210?

Sorry, R210, I meant what did you say to Celeste?

They never learned how to cope beyond fancy versions of 'taking their toys and going home.'

Privilege sho is ugly.

Just suggested she not give advice for a while. Celeste hasn't blocked me, but clearly Brandon's a more delicate flower.

It's hilarious to me that he blocked you for something you said to a third party (who themselves didn't block you).

This whole kidney story has exposed so much about human nature, which is really fascinating considering when you first start to read it it's like a whole lot about very little.

Yep. I hardly ever post on Twitter, don't really like the medium, so he either did it because of that or because I liked someone's comment somewhere--once again, not even on a thread about him. Which means he really would have had to be spending wayyy too much time blocking people who *might* say something he doesn't want to hear.

Basically a wimp.

There are some odd people on Twitter. I have an account but never use it really. I've very occasionally liked a post or something. One day I logged in out of boredom and saw I had been added to a List called something like "communist idiots" or something. Apparently people actually go around doing things like this. The only thing I thought it could be was that I had liked a post at some point saying something in favour of universal healthcare. That's it.

People like Brandon and Roxane want to be able to say anything they want without anyone disagreeing with them, at the end of the day. I do wonder what they think social media is for?

Part of what makes this so fascinating is this a group that simply cannot see anything outside of race. They live for this shit when it's about some racial category getting abused or upset for any reason whatsoever. But suddenly have it be about class or mean girl shit or anything else and they are totally lost. They cannot deal. Everything, absolutely everything in the world is supposed to be about race and racial injustice, and when it is about anything else at all, they are just hopelessly confused and lost. It is kind of amazing.

It really is, R218. Imagine looking at everything in the world through the lens of sexual orientation. I can't, it seems so limiting and unhelpful and weird.

Is it because their formative experiences with terrible racism? But then, so many other people who've had the same thing (without the privileges Roxane et. al. have had) aren't like it. Confused and lost is right. They keep coming back to it, like they don't know anything else:

"Hmmm, I wonder why I am getting called out and not white people?" type stuff (pretty sure people of every stripe have been getting called out over this if they behaved badly).

I love just how many people are being brought down by this. And they all sound like assholes, so I don’t even care or feel empathy. It’s delicious.

This might sound wingnut. I hope it doesn't. I hope we all get that you can care about racism without being a freak about it. But we need to get sometimes in this country that not EVERYTHING is racial. We need to get that. That is part of what needs to happen to get past our really godawful racial history.

One of the nasty ironies of this story is that the Flying Monkeys were the racists. They thought that Dorland was just a stereotype, a “white woman,” someone not fully a person, and worthy of being mocked. Larson’s story makes clear that the Dorland character is just a caricature of a “privileged white woman,” nothing more.

[quote]Is it because their formative experiences with terrible racism?

No, because if it was that, it'd be genuine. But the way these particular people use it has not been genuine. Larson only played the race card when all of her other attempts to defend herself failed. Gay uses it to mock and insult people. If it were genuine concern, they wouldn't be so cavalier about it.

Great point R223. I think you're right. I always want to be fair though, just because I am white and don't have the same experiences and I don't want to tell others how to feel about it when they've lived it. I do get this feeling though that, as you say, people like Gay are so wedded to it so they can use it against people, and use it to deflect from criticism.

I've said before, but I don't think Gay cares about moving us forward in any way. I think she'd be happy to just stay in victimhood, and I get the feeling a lot of people are like that too. R221 makes a good point there too.

I've always hoped we can really work to make things better for everyone and get to a better place. I don't think these Twitter people (who seem to all come from wealthy backgrounds) make anything better. So many of the comments on the NYT article from non-white people seem to be saying this too.

And yes R222, that is one of the really interesting things about this story.

"Part of what makes this so fascinating is this a group that simply cannot see anything outside of race. "

That is IMHO because these people are taking their cues from the fashionable intelligentsia of color, who insist that racism is the only form of discrimination that matters. I think that's because that's the only form of discrimination the intelligentsia of color have ever experienced, or feared.

People are generally blind to privileges they actually possess, so these upper-middle-class people who've been raised in prosperity and sent to the best schools are the ones who insist that social class doesn't matter, because they won the social class lottery and have no idea how it affects others. Same for poverty because they don't know any poor people and they'd never dream of speaking to a poor white, same for how a lack of education can ruin lives, because they don't know anyone uneducated or undereducated. And of course they dismiss sexism or homophobia, because they think they're safe from those as long as they stay in the liberal bubble.

But they're still terrified of racism, whether they've experienced it directly or not, and it's a justifiable fear - because racism can put them in a situation where they're yanked out of the bubble and none of their other privileges will mean anything. So I don't blame them for having a horror of racism, I blame them for dismissing all the other fears that keep other people awake at night.

Apparently it's safe to come out. Celeste has a few blue checks making convo with this neutral tweet.

Chip Cheek. CHIP CHEEK.

Is a dickless, heartless HACK.

R225, wonderful post! Thanks so much.

I'm reminded of how one of the Chunky Monkeys (white) was laughing at people working at jobs like in the postal service. That was such a nasty take to have.

Re R226

Oh, Celeste. Is NOTHING easy?

I don't think the flying monkeys have been exposed to massive amounts of racism. You generally get stories about microaggressions--looks, subtexts, kids sneering at the smell of food. In other words, nothing compared to what they did themselves to Dawn Dorland. But as another poster said in the first thread, they cling to this victimhood status as a way of not acknowledging their own privilege and entitlement.

They don't have, in fact, Dawn Dorland's empathy. Kidneygate on Twitter's been aggregating some interesting comments. DD would have been asked to write a letter to the donor who would have been slowly dying for a few years. The letter could be read as her attempt to reach someone in poor emotional shape, among other things.

Larson ignored how donations really work. Her no-good recipient wouldn't have be high up on the list--too self-destructive.

The thing that gets me is how it turns out they actually were sort of nervously and excitedly waiting for Dawn to see the story and see her reaction. Unfortunately for them it went way further than they intended, which they really deserve.

They're letting Celeste know she'll survive this or they feel bad for her. Back to Alexander Chee's tweet about of the two offing themselves. Felt Dawn was pretty vindicated so the two to worry about would be Sonya or Celeste. It started innocently, they were ok people but this was a whirl of bad choices and meanness and surprisingly childish behavior.

R225 And I doubt Sonya received much of that. She grew up in a wealthy area, looks white, and has a white last name.

Ng will survive, but she can say goodbye to television money. She's not a good enough writer to pull off best sellers without some help. The one whose books underperformed can say goodbye to their advertising budgets.

There are plenty of other writers to be promoted who don't have the same toxic association.

Dawn Dorland, though, may well get some agent queries.

This will come up in every interview for the next three decades. No real publisher will touch these hacks.

I’m not at all convinced Ng will survive. She’s made a ton of PR mistakes, number one trying to ignore the whole thing and not apologizing. She’s not at all a major name. She’s had one minor league small success with a streaming service that had a middling critical reception. That does not make her invincible by any stretch.

I feel like her Oct. 5 tweets involve lying. A few people in the story weren't very smart about this whole thing.

Oh yeah, she was blatantly lying in those tweets, and probably would have gotten away with it if people hadn't started looking at the court documents themselves to get a more accurate picture than the NYT gave.

I assume she already has a contract for the next book. But beyond that, she's done. Little Fires Everywhere was a bestseller, so someone will take a risk. The others don't have that going for them.

Grub Street hasn't fired Larson so far, but I don't see how they can afford to keep her.

Grub Street is probably pressuring Larson to resign, they don't want to fire a "woman of color" if they can help it.

They'll wait for the results of that investigation to give themselves cover.

R237, are those the tweets where she said Dorland pitched the story to the NYT?

Of course Larson is toast as she never made anyone any money, but whether or not Ng is finished depends on her fans, who may or may not give a rat's ass about this tempest in a teapot. We are fascinated, we love a good catfight and a chance to bemoan the current state of the arts world, but the rest of the world rolled their eyes at the whole thing or moved on after a day of chuckling over the NYT article. By the time it takes Ng to put out another book, sell the TV rights, film a miniseries, and release it, the mai0o9iunstream will have totally forgotten this kerfuffle.

Of course the literary world will cluck over for this for years to come, and I hope they continue to analyze and critique the literary world's attitudes towards plagiarism and writing about real people in ways that may be hurtful, and how far they've come from the ideal of meritocracy. This shambolic story has shown just how far they are from valuing writing on its own merits - cliques of "cool kids", who-you-know-ism, social snobbery, backstabbing, social climbing, playing and overplaying race cards, anything but caring about the quality of writing.

I have a feeling good old Kidneygate will be around to remind people in the years to come.

And an ill wind will blow and it will say 'kidneygate... kidneygate...'

Becky is really doing her best to make up for being a part of the CMs clique.

Good for Tuch!

Better late than never.

Go for it, Becky!

She's the Sue Snell of the bunch.

Is Deb Porter the Betty Buckley/Miss Collins?

R247 This isn’t over. Not by a long shot!

The reference to this has been removed from Ng's Wikipedia page by administrators, evidently because court documents aren't supposed to be used as citations and no mainstream sources have published the texts. I hope someone does, though that may be too much to expect. She doesn't deserve to have this swept under the rug.

Yaaassssss! Drag that Ng cunt!

R247 That analogy is perfect.

How old are all the bitches involved in this shitshow??

Gen X/older millennial

I hadn't seen this.

[quote]Oh this is hilarious, I've been blocked by Brandon. I've never even seen his Tweets other than here before, let alone commented on them.

Me too! And all I've done is like some of the kidneygate account's tweets. Brandon must be a terribly delicate flower.

[quote] Notice how Larson, Ng ,and Gay have all doubled down on the racial angle because in 2021 the weakest identities (black, handicapped, indigenous female, immigrant, fat) confer the most social gravitas in elite institutions.

That's not true. Those identities, combined with an Ivy League degree confer gravitas in the press, not in the institutions themselves. Sure people from those backgrounds might run small niche programs or offices, but they aren't taken seriously by anyone else in the institution.

[quote] The idiot going on about how they're all social equals understands nothing about social class. FYI, idiot, a Harvard degree doesn't automatically make you upper or upper-middle class, at least, not to people who've been upper or upper-middle class all their lives.

What r65 said. Also Dorland got grad degree from Harvard Divinity School, not an undergraduate degree. An Ivy League graduate degree (from divinity school, no less) is nothing in the eyes of the women ridiculing her.

Yep. I have a master's from a top school, but I'm not really part of its network. I have friends who are and it's different for them. I definitely don't have their status.

Interesting Reddit thread. I had no idea that the letter was intended for the last recipient of a kidney donation chain. I makes the misrepresentation of the letter and its intentions even more cruel.

R259 Did Arthur Chu write that? Why his image?

Either way, that reddit thread is a great write up, I wish anyone who read the original NYT article would read that.

The thread at R259 is very much worth reading. The point it makes is that Dorland's letter was addressed to someone she would never meet, a person who didn't know any compatible candidate who was willing to donate a kidney. In other words, it was addressed to someone who might not have a family, or whose family would not help them, someone who might have felt very depressed and hopeless.

It's clear from Larson's story that she didn't understand that context, or, indeed the whole donation process. She didn't have the slightest curiosity about what Dorland had done or why she had done it.

Wow so Larson (and enablers) are even nastier than they seemed last week.

"It's clear from Larson's story that she didn't understand that context, or, indeed the whole donation process. She didn't have the slightest curiosity about what Dorland had done or why she had done it."

Clearly Larson lacks a few things as a writer, such as the empathy and imagination it takes to understand people who aren't like herself, and enough curiosity to research kidney donation before writing about it. If her career is toast, and it probably is, it's no loss to the literary world.

I think it was Tom Wolfe who harangued literary writers for writing about little but themselves, and being dull and self-absorbed as a result, so he told them (paraphrase) that if they could only write about what they knew then they needed to "know more". Basically, he told them to get off their asses and learn to research, find out what's going on with interesting people and write about *them* instead of just recycling your own coming of age.

Has Ms. Larson come out of hiding yet?

Becky still knocking it out the park--calling out that dipshit Almond.

From the other thread since so many can't comment there. Kolker's shitty justification for how he told the story. Fortunately a few in the comments are calling him out.

R265 LOL holy shit. She must think they've also been bad-mouthing her or something.

R266, Kolker comes off as pretty vapid in that article. I think that’s one of the reasons that the story blew up—he treated it as some kind of “thought experiment,” but any onlooker could see that the story wasn’t simply about people with different perspectives.

I wonder how the flying monkeys really feel about Larson and Ng who egged her on. Had it not been for her ill-advised lawsuit, the private texts wouldn't have been made part of discovery. Now the world knows what shitty people they are. Are they developing any awareness that they were thrown under the bus by a friend? (Under the bus -- exactly where they belong.)

This is interesting:

[Quote]Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska,[1] to Michael and Nicole Gay, both of Haitian descent.[8][9] Her mother was a homemaker and her father is owner of GDG Béton et Construction, a Haitian concrete company.[10][11]

Was Mr. Gay's company responsible for producing substandard concrete that's been implicated in housing collapses that killed thousands during the earthquakes? The chain of graft in Haiti extends to the U.S.? Has Roxane addressed that she might be the beneficiary of thousands of black Haitian's misery?

R270 - people have been bringing that up to Roxane occasionally, also the fact she keeps pushing a charity that her father is on the board of. She chucked the usual hissy fit about it.

You get the feeling Roxane only cares about Haiti in as much as she can make it about herself being of Haitian descent. I mean her book An Untamed State has been criticised for making the evil Haitians the poor, struggling ones, and the good ones the wealthy ones, I know that much (showing, apparently, a complete misunderstanding of what is going on in Haiti).

I was also surprised how shallow that article linked at R266 was. It’s like a high school student wrote it.

R268 Kolker tried to make the story into Rashamon when it is really more of a Carrie situation.

Poor Dawn. Gaslit by Larson and now Gaslit by the NYT. Still, now at least she has more supporters now than she would have if the story was never published.

Speaking of Roxane's father, she is currently in a feud with Louis Vuitton about him:

[quote]@LouisVuitton One of your associates, in Houston, denied my father entry into your store, harassed him for picking up a purchase that had been pre-arranged, demanded his ID and humiliated him. This is beyond unacceptable. I hope you make this right. He's 75, for fuck's sake. And your associates treated him like a criminal, for being black? No one should be treated like this. Clearly, @LouisVuitton has different standards for different customers.

Trying to shake down Louis Vuitton, R274? Tacky on every level.

For someone who loves knocking white women, she really is an uber Karen.

Roxane Gay is a grifting fat cunt.

Well, that's the thing R276, she hates in herself what she perceives in others.

Roxane plays episodes of SVU in the background while writing? Well, each to their own I guess, but...

Did you know that Roxanne Gay used to write X-Men comics? Yeah, I was watching this history of Marvel Comics thing (I know) and guess who popped up and proudly claimed to have increased representation of female and LGBT characters in the comics industry!

So if any of you are bitchfighting with her on Twitter, feel free to bring that up.

I think Roxane Gay is a cunt. Full stop.

People I know who like Roxane have even said they thought her Marvel contribution wasn't very good, for what it's worth...

Stop trying to provide interesting context, people! Roxane knows it ALL!

[quote]I make film and TV. I really do know this. I promise you.

"I make film and TV" - then why the fuck are you using a sound bar?

I happen to agree with Roxane about everything being dark in movies and TV these days. I hate it. Someone showbiz-adjacent told me it’s to save money on lighting. Was he yanking my crank? And why is a sound bar bad?

R285, it’s probably dark to disguise all of the CGI. And if you really care, you have a sound system, not a dinky sound bar.

I’ve noticed even domestic dramas are dark these days. She’s also right about too much whispering and mumbling.

WTF, I like Roxane now!

[quote]And why is a sound bar bad?

You can get a much better and cheaper audio set up by buying individual components. Sound bars are like anything which claims to be all-in-one - a compromise product which doesn't deliver and is sold based on a fake idea of convenience. And no, I don't necessarily expect a normal consumer to know the difference - but I do from someone who huffily tweets that they "make film and TV"

Here is Ms. Gay's extensive television resume.

Notice all the acting work, writing work, and directing. It is clear that she has a lot of experience in darkly lit genre.

All those times she played that pivotal character of "Self"!

I want to be the person interviewing Celeste on TV when she puts out her next book.

[After discussing said book…] Turning to another recent time when you’ve been on the headlines, I’d like to talk to you about the situation where a member of your writers group was accused of plagiarizing another writer who had donated a kidney. Communications revealed during the ensuing legal battle showed you and other members of the group pretty viciously mocking the kidney donor. You even said, [Expletive] Dawn Dorland and her one kidney. When that came to light you doubled down on your position. Do you regret that now?

I'd love that, R291! I wonder how quickly she'd try and turn it into a race thing?

It's a good piece. She's not the first to notice the trend though. Here's a Vulture article about it from 2016. I first remember thinking about it with Girls HBO.

Poor, poor Roxane. Is nothing [italic]ever[/italic] easy?

[quote]My wish for my next life is for people to not treat me like I know nothing

R294, shouldn't that be "as if I know nothing," not "like I know nothing"?

Then try actually learning something and being an expert, rather than a dilettante.

R295, SIGH! I know that! Do you think I don't know that?!

God, give me the strength of a mediocre MAN!

Why is Roxane always trying to control other people's engagement on social media? The very idea of it is everyone can be involved. She's always telling people: "don't talk to me, don't talk about this, etc". She really wants to be able to say stuff with no right of reply for anyone else.

Grub Street has responded! Sonya is out. Chris somehow survives.

Of course, I can't find the link now...

Please post when you do, R299!

I’m surprised that Castellani has survived. I found his email about Dawn to be vicious a very base level.

Sonya Larson is not longer listed as Grub Street staff.

Here you go

Looks like most of the villains have been punished. Jennifer De Leon, who tried to throw her weight around and play the race card with Deb Porter, left the board. Sonya and Alison Murphy ("draaaaaag her") got fired. Castellani survived, and will be "issuing a statement" in coming days.

Ha, only just noticed this, Castellani's husband got banned from Wikipedia for editing Castellani's Wiki as well as doing paid editing

So the law firm told them they did nothing wrong but two members of the leadership had to go anyway? Riiiight

[quote]Toward that end, we plan to hire a firm with strong expertise in racial equity and cultural work to lead us through a process of examining our culture with an eye toward tangible impacts in the form of improved policies, toolkits, frameworks, training, and norms.

I mean...what? How are they twisting this to be a racial issue?

Why did that statement talk so much about race? Sonya is leaving after he and her clique bullied a woman and yet they are STILL harping on Non existent race issue. It is like these people do not know how to view anything without the frame of race.

They think by mentioning race all the time that that will protect them from criticism. It's despicable. There are so many real racist thing happening in our world, and they are cheapening the move to call out such incidents by tying race to this non-racial issue. All to try and cover their own horrible behaviour.

I bet this racial culture firm they hire ends up being owned by some of their friends

Honestly, whenever a company hires a law firm to review seeming misdoings, don’t expect the truth. They implied outcome of the fees they pay is an exoneration.

Glad that shitting Larsen got ankled.

"I’m surprised that Castellani has survived. I found his email about Dawn to be vicious a very base level."

Yes, he was a bitch, but I really think that most of the Flying Monkeys were hostile to Dorland because of Larson's lies about her. If a friend says that they're being stalked and harassed by someone you don't know well, most people react by trusting the friend and believing that the other person is a horrible psycho stalker.

So I'm okay if the bulk of the Flying Monkeys survive this, and I hope they learn a thing or two about caricaturing real people. Ng is the only one whose behavior seems seriously objectionable, she was the one who was encouraging Larson to write a vicious caricature of a real person who was doing good things, and begged her to to plagiarize as well.

R306, I thought the exact same thing. It was odd. And incredibly frustrating.

Larson is totally over, the other Flying Monkeys are going to turn all their fear and insecurity into anger against her.

As I said on the Murdaugh thread, an in-group turning on a former member who's been declared a "loser" is far more vicious than people just throwing someone under the bus to save themselves.

Dawn Weiner, Dawn Davenport, and now Dawn Dorland. Is there something about people named Dawn?

I suspect Castellani has agreed to put out an apology. And listen, so long as it’s sincere (and he actually apologizes to Dawn directly), I think that’s sufficient.

I think you're on to something R313.

Castellani’s “statement” is up on the Grub Street site. Bottom line is that absolutely nothing is going to happen to him.

Link, R316?

Well, hopefully Castellani will become a better person?

Since R316 is an inconsiderate prick.

Really wasted opportunity for Chris to sign his letter with “kindest”.

R316 was feeling FLUSTERED. Jeez, guys. Sorry.

He doesn’t dare say what was really needed, which is that he was supporting his fellow writer who, it turns out, was 100% in the wrong. Asshole.

Neither of these statement do the very basic thing of offering a sincere apology to Dawn. Castellani gets right up to the precipice of maybe giving one, and then backs away making it all about himself and his need to “grow.”

What a crock of shit. I hope Grub Street tanks.

They are all such awful people, I imagine the movie on this will have people leaving the theatres feeling despondent over humanity.

It's been an unpleasant glimpse into the minds of writers. I wonder if it's a writer thing though or a personality thing of people who happened to get into writing.

I've been listening to a few podcasts and reading up recently on various groups of writers from the past, and it doesn't seem like this is necessarily the case. Of course we don't have access to their social media or anything, but one of the things that stands out to me, is that writers seemed to publicly criticise each other more then, in really well written pieces, whether you agreed or not. But these writers then seemed to get along with each other fine in every day life. They viewed the critiques as part of the 'sport' if you like.

Nowadays, people like this GrubStreet crew just want to be seen as lovely and wonderful people and it hides a nasty side of them. Many of them seem like bored housewives who think it would be great to write a novel rather than feel like someone who loves the art of writing, the use of words and language etc.

Not sure if I'm making much sense, just some thoughts that have come to mind lately.

Well, those are just "literary fiction" writers, R324, not all writers. Like I've heard a mystery writer say that "Mystery writers get along wonderfully, because we can always kill each other off in our books", and the only writer I know in real life is a completely sane and reasonable science writer. He reports no drama.

Maybe there's something toxic about the literary fiction field, such as their belief that it's okay to write about people they know, maybe it's just a group of bitches getting together because they enjoy the company of other bitches. Like us.

[quote] Like I've heard a mystery writer say that "Mystery writers get along wonderfully, because we can always kill each other off in our books", and the only writer I know in real life is a completely sane and reasonable science writer. He reports no drama.

Heh, I like that quote by the mystery writer, and it's good to hear this and aligns with what I've been hearing too (the Detection Club all seemed, and still seem very supportive of each other for example).

I think genre writers and other popular fiction writers are different. The literary writers are more about status than sales.

Yes, the literary writers all seem very much up their own asses.

Why do the literary fiction writers seem to be so much worse than the other kinds of writers? Is it because the nature of their work requires them to be extremely self-absorbed, or is it the weird economics of the field, where everyone's straining for the rare prize of the big advance or rare best-seller, while fighting over the few academic positions or teaching jobs that pay a living wage in the field?

I honestly suspect that the nature of the work is bad for the person, that the self-absorption and cruel observation make the mind as small and sharp as a pair of scissors (someone said this about Jane Austen's letters). Like I said the only pro writer I know specializes in science and non-fiction, which has expanded his mind and made him learn all about various aspects of the real world. And he only got to be a wiser and mellower person with the years, no self-absorption at all.

You may be on to something there R329. So many other writers seem pretty chill, oftentimes introverted. But these particular ones just seem so unpleasant, arrogant and behave like teens (perhaps the academic environment adds to that?).

Roxane Gay tried to come for Stephen King once, but think of interviews with the two of them. King's are funny, interesting and he doesn't take himself seriously. Gay's on the other hand are miserable, full of sighing and exhaustion. I know which one I would rather have a chat with.

It's not limited to this group either. I remember reading somewhere how Christopher Hitchens' first wife spoke about how unpleasant it was being at a dinner with people like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie.

I think people can control their craft but cannot really control their art. So writers who focus on craft have less ego-involvement in their work.

Those who focus on art are forever prey to whatever is in their air. They have a sense that they are not in control of their lives.

Listen to Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk. She talks about the non-fucked-up way to approach writing.

I don’t see a lot of “art” from this group.

That Larson did not feel it was necessary to research organ donation--or even look up the meaning of terms in Dorlands letter--tells you that she was going for art and forgoing craft.

[quote]Is it because the nature of their work requires them to be extremely self-absorbed

Don't make excuses for them, their work doesn't require that of them at all, they choose to be that way.

Agreed. And with someone like Celeste, who has made a lot of money from her work, it’s not like you can write it off as professional jealousy. She seems to have it all but takes joy in punching down.

I think Celeste and Castellani come off the worst in all this, especially when you go thru all the emails and texts.

Someone with a sock puppet on Twitter should start talking about how Castellani keeping his job there, while Larson and Murphy are out, is an example of male privilege. He'll be done for then. And it might actually be accurate, as if it was a woman who wrote those emails then I doubt she'd be allowed to stay.

Did someone say that Christopher Castellani’s husband had been banned from Wikipedia because he was editing Castellani’s Wiki page too much?

If that’s true, it’s hilarious.

R339 Yep, banned for that and for paid editing.

[quote]Someone with a sock puppet on Twitter should start talking about how Castellani keeping his job there, while Larson and Murphy are out, is an example of male privilege.

It's been noted.

[Quote]Larson is totally over, the other Flying Monkeys are going to turn all their fear and insecurity into anger against her.

I don't know about fear and insecurity; this crew doesn't seem to experience them enough -- they're too arrogant and privileged. Their anger is somewhat justifiable even if they had a large part in the whole situation. As someone upthread mentioned, it's a natural reaction to defend a friend who you believe was attacked. Except they took it to ridiculous extremes (e.g. pestilence) in an information vacuum.

I wonder if or how long it will take the monkeys to realize that Larson not only manipulated and mislead them by providing insufficient or skewed information about the nature of her interactions with Dawn (Dawn portrayed as a stalker vs. persistence about not getting plagiarized), but sued first (wrongly and unnecessarily) making all of their nasty communication open to discovery and revealing what shits they are. Now one of them is out of a job and their careers have a huge stain (writers cheerleading plagiarism?!)

And Larson? Yes, her career is toast and I doubt she could get hired as a high school teacher. Her case and her lawyer's case against opposing counsel are meritless, Dawn has a very strong case, and Larson will wind up having to pay Dawn's attorney's fees and costs in addition to whatever she wins in damages. It's remarkably stupid that Larson got herself in the situation.

I'm flummoxed by her intense hate for Dawn and her willingness to act on it. WTF did it come from? Their interactions at Grub Street occurred years beforehand, were superficially cordial at least, Dawn was no professional threat or a threat in any other way since she lived 3000 miles away. Yes, I can see how Dawn was needy and might be grating, but she could have easily been ignored or handled it civilly and innocuously, especially from a distance. Did Sonya think Dawn slept with her husnand?

I just find the Grub Street thing disillusioning. Writing is personal. The whole point of an organization like that would be community and trust. Sharing and caring!

"I'm flummoxed by her intense hate for Dawn and her willingness to act on it."

It's been noted that if you do someone an injury, you regard them as an enemy forever even though the antagonism was all your own doing. You expect them to retaliate, plus your guilt pushes you to blame the other person for provoking the attack and you turn all your guilt and fear of retaliation to anger, and project it at your victim.

However, that presumes that Larson came to hate Dorland *after* she shafted her with that nasty story, and didn't write the story because she already hated Dorland.

Dawn may have been in Boston still at the beginning? I find the 'intense hate' still hard to grasp. Someone one of them went on twitter to call a stranger! That's no stranger. The best I have is a combination of personality but also a difference in background and too nice, earnest? It took days and days to cut through the bad spin on Dawn. They had to generate interpersonal problems. Why would they be threatened by this nice person. Because she was doing things with her life?

What is it they say.. the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference? These people should try it!

Not to rehash all this again. They got mad over the lawsuit. They were mad it couldn't be controlled or contained.

R347 No. They disliked Dawn way before the law suit. They were making fun of her for years, and Sonya wrote a story about her in a high literary bullying attempt. Do try and keep up, dear.

Do you meant SONYAS lawsuit?

r227 Absolutely nobody wants to go up Chip's creek....

All of these bitches remind me of the writers from Gawker and TWoP. You just know those bitches have some vicious text and email chains going around about each other.

Oh god, TWoP! Ugh, remember Miss Alli?

[quote]POC-lite

The extent of Sonya Larson's "racial oppression" is men commenting on her "slight build"

[quote]Chris somehow survives

by polishing pole and presenting hole

There's a funny move on Twitter to get "Dawn can go fuck her one kidney!" to the top of Celeste Ng's Goodreads quotes. It's currently at 107 likes, on the first page, and moving up towards the top.

Can you provide a link, R355?

I'm not r355

To those wondering why Sonya et al hated Dawn:

Apparently, she is one of the easiest people to hate.

While I've never met her, I have two close friends who have been on writing panels with her and worked with her at an LA based writing group. Both of these people loathe Dawn (and have so for years; way before Bad Art Friend) who they claim is endlessly needy, always looking for attention, a walking victim, and the proud owner of a bunch more unsavory traits.

So, I can't get made at the CM group hating on her privately.

But everything else Sonya did, everything, was just dead wrong. Even if she deservedly loathed Dawn. (Both my friends agree whole heartedly with that last statement, btw.)

R358 Okay, Chris.

The actual line was "DAWN CAN GO FUCK HER ONE KIDNEY"

So what if Dorland is a needy and annoying person in real life, R358? Being needing and annoying aren't crimes!

Plagiarism, slander, and defamation, on the other hand, are crimes (or are at least actionable), and it wasn't Dorland who committed them.

Is that you, Christopher Castellani’s husband, at R358?

Haha. You guys are funny.

I've been all over these threads castigating all things Sonya, Celeste and entire Chunky Monkeys/Grub Street assholes.

But I keep reading questions as to why Sonya hated Dawn in the first place. Just trying to fill in that gap for others as I happen to know a couple of people who know Dawn.

So not Castellani. Not his husband. Just a guy who knows some LA based writers.

R361, where did I saw Dawn committed any crime?? My god.

I just said she seems to be universally unlikeable. Which, TO BE CLEAR, isn't a crime!

And it doesn't mean Dawn deserved to be plagiarized or made a fool of or mean girled to space and back or anything criminal!

I am 100% Team Dawn you fools! Just trying to round out the narrative with personal information about one of the major players.

(God, this knee jerk reactiveness is probably exactly what happened with Celeste et al. Instead of considering Dawn's perspective for even one second, they instantly jumped on the anti-Dawn bandwagon!)

More unsavory traits? Do tell R358

Just saw the Hollywood Reporter weighed in on the copyright issue today.

I find MANY people annoying. I simply disengage with them and turn my attention towards people I like. I don't spend my time trying to bring them down and humiliate them in some sadistic way.

When will Chunky Chip issue a statement?

r358 Can you give examples of when she was needy or attention seeking? None of the chunks give any examples outside of the kidney donation, and it seems odd that no one ever gives specifics, other than her being generically unlikable.

I went to the library today and was browsing the fiction section, where Chip Cheek's Cape May was prominently displayed in an empty space on a shelf. If only I'd swapped it out with something hilariously opposite. The Julie Andrews memoir that I saw in the bio section or Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me.

R369. Sure.

My friend was on a writer's panel with Dawn about three years or so ago. Dawn repeatedly talked over my friend (and the other writers on the panel). Dawn interrupted. Dawn made everything on the panel about her. The other writers were all pretty peeved. But ready to move on once the panel was finished. Then after, Dawn acted overly friendly with the group. As if nothing had happened. As if they were all besties. Which was infuriating, I guess. My friend told me it was truly bizarre behavior.

R363 Assuming you are telling the truth, still doesn't explain why Larson accepted the Facebook group request and stayed within the group.

Seems odd, though, that you're only mentioning all of this now, three threads in.

Here we go with the try hard Dawn Dorland bullshit again.

My answer to that is: amount of plagiarism Dawn Dorland accused of - ZERO. Amount of kidneys selflessly given by Dorland - ONE.

You weird CM and Grub Street and Sonya supporters lost the high ground over a month ago. Stop. You’re just embarrassing yourself. No one cares about some writer’s panel in LA where she supposedly talked over no doubt extremely pressed straight white men who expected to suck all of the air out of the room.

Who said they were all straight white men, R373?

R372 Why would Dawn, an unpublished writer be on a panel? What event was this? What year?

Looks like we caught someone in a lie.

Unpublished writers are all over the writing conference biz, r375.

Guys. Dawn was on the panel because she teaches writing. My friend doesn't teach writing, but has published two novels. I wasn't at the panel. I have no idea what the panel was about or why Dawn was on it with my friend. But my friend very clearly remembers the event because Dawn left such a bad taste in her mouth. I said it was about 3 years ago. I don't know, nor did I ask, the exact date.

What the fuck is wrong with you guys? A lie? Because I didn't give an exact date? Hysterical.

No wonder no one says shit here anymore.

(Again, for those in the cheap seats, I am 100% Team Dawn.)

The bigger crime is that a shitty work was chosen to be honored. Sonya Larsen sucks as a person but even more as a writer.

[quote](Again, for those in the cheap seats, I am 100% Team Dawn.)

Funny then how in the first thread you said

[quote]overall I am totally Team Larson

Funny how your stories about Dawn were different then too:

[quote]And then there's Dawn. One of my friends has been on two panels with Dawn over the years! And yes, Dawn was as horrible as you might think. She said that Dawn's need to be liked and approved was so over the top, that she truly thought it was performance art. Which cracked me up.

[quote]I know Dawn. Well, I know of her. She's even more of a cunt than this story would suggest. Dawn was a part time instructor at a writer workshop in Los Angeles that a good friend of mine was in charge of. The story is that Dawn was giving some sort of reading at a local bookstore and a man, who attended a workshop that Dawn led. went to Dawn's reading and acted inappropriately (don't remember what he did exactly) toward Dawn. Dawn told this to my friend - her boss - who promptly had the man removed from the workshop, effectively immediately. That was all my friend and the workshop had any authority to do with the case. Later, that bitch Dawn tried to sue my friend and the workshop for some bogus claim (very similar to what she's doing now to Larson) that I can't remember exactly (but similar to her slapping herself nonsense in the article), even though the incident didn't happen during a workshop and the man was discharged from the class!

R377, there's one silly cunt here at R373 who has some overblown reaction to anything that is in any way critical or suggests to be critical of Dawn Dorland, who I smelled all kinds of passive aggressive behavior off of in reading that NY Times, the author of which nevertheless had his biases clearly stacked against her. But then, of course, Sonya's emails! Of course, Larson is the villain here, and a fucking plagiarist, and I've laughed and railed against Celeste Ng and Roxane Gay and all the rest of the Flying Monkeys. They're silly twats. And it would be enjoyable to see Larson go down.

But that doesn't mean Dorland is all that and a bag of chips. Of course you're telling the truth, and of course, for fuck sake, Dorland could be on a panel as an unpublished writer. It depends on the panel.

R373 is a hick.

So BUSTED

[quote]The actual line was "DAWN CAN GO FUCK HER ONE KIDNEY"

The first line was "DAWN DORLAND AND HER ONE KIDNEY CAN GO AND FUCK THEMSELVES."

I find the second "and" unnecessary.

Um, yup. That was me, R379. What's your point exactly?

When everything first was released? I was Team Sonya. So were tons of people. For me? My feelings were definitely colored by my friends' experiences with Dawn.

But after reading all the facts? It became clear as day that Dawn was the victimized party.

So then I changed my mind. That's called being ethically sound and honest. When new evidence is presented that goes against your original thesis? You examine it and change your thesis if need be. Pretty simple.

Again, I have no idea what you're trying to prove? That my friend wasn't on panels with Dawn? She was. Or that I'm some Sonya plant? I'm not.

Whatever.

(Off topic: How creepy is it that you, R379, went through thousands of posts to find mine from a month ago? That's super weird. Like really fucked. Even for DL. I could see if I was some annoying troll. But to stalk a poster just trying to help fill in gaps for other posters? Fucking weird.)

R383 It was obvious Dawn was plagiarised from the start. And I note you haven't attempted to explain how your friend's stories have changed between threads either.

And that's a nice little attempt to sidestep your obvious bullshit, but checking a post history is easy enough. The weird part is you admitting you've posted thousands of times over the course of a month.

We alllll know who R383 is. You’re not gonna be in that position much longer, doll.

R384, huh? I said their were thousands of posts. Not thousands of MY posts. I think they're have been three or four threads on the subject. So, um, thousands of posts. Quite literally.

Just how daft are you?

I didn't change my friends' stories at all! You fucking quoted me upthread. In a post written a month ago and a post written the other day, I said a friend of mine was on a panel with Dawn and it didn't go well.

Anyway, this is too stupid to continue. Have a good one, buddy.

You’re…overly invested, R386. And your posts and defensive posts are starting to get VERY annoying.

[quote]I think they're have been three or four threads on the subject. So, um, thousands of posts. Quite literally.

Gee, I wonder what that "III" means in the title. Maths isn't your strong suit I guess. 1586 does not equal thousands.

And you've changed the way in which you claim it didn't go well, from her being needy to her being rude and talking over everyone. I would think a writer would be more able to keep his story straight, Chris.

[quote] I think they're have been

Oh, may I add, dear.

[quote]I said their were thousands of posts.

Oh, dear.

r388, you think bitchy queen Castellani would be guilty of the typos in r386's posts? Or is there another Chris involved?

Haha. You assholes are worse than the Chunky Monkeys! It's clear you guys would fit right in with Celeste, Sonya, Chris and the others.

Yeah, I do tend to make tons of typos. Somehow, my life continues...

Agreed R384. It's not like me to get sucked into a DL vortex. I think that's why it's so jarring. I don't troll here. Been posting here forever and this never happens to me. So it's weird getting that sort of treatment.

But yes, it's time for me to bow out.

Good day all.

"You’re…overly invested, [R386]. And your posts and defensive posts are starting to get VERY annoying."

Not as annoying as the asshole who keeps attacking him for claiming to have heard about in-person with Dorland. Just shut the fuck up, both of you!

Are the various Dorland vs. Larson lawsuits still going? Anything thrown out of court as a nuisance suit yet?

R391 Maybe he pays his husband to edit his work the same way he had him edit his Wikipedia.

R387 is on to something, r393, even if you don't realize it.

In an early thread, R386 talked about being sad the threads were winding down and said nothing about having a personal connection to all this. Next thing you know, they're claiming they're a good friend of one of Dawn's old bosses who was sued by Dawn. By the time they were on THIS thread, they were suddenly friends with two more people who had been on panels and in workshops with Dawn and had seen Dawn behave despicably.

I doubt any of it is true. It's actually kind of creepy.

Bump

Any later news on this debacle?

How did Christopher Castellani keep his position at Grub Street after his involvement in this? The optics of that are horrible.

Our Deb is leaving Boston to run the San Francisco book festival.

Good for her. I'm sure she's relieved to get away from this bunch.

Which one was Deb again?

Presumably Deb Porter, the festival's founder who told Sonya to tell her friends to leave her the hell alone when they tried badgering her into reinstating Sonya's book as the festival's annual pick and said it never should have been submitted with a plagiarism claim against it.

I went looking for confirmation about Deb leaving for San Francisco; one of the results was an article from 2010 when the Boston fest got started...and there's Castellani quoted. More proof of how incestuous that whole scene is.

Our turning this into an episode of Murder She Wrote last year was one of my favourite DL moments of 2021.

Plagiarist loving Celeste has a new book coming out. 'It's about keeping a shared sense of humanity alive.' As if she of the "DD and her one kidney can go fuck themselves" knows anything about keeping a sense of humanity alive?

Ugh. This bitch.

R105 Tempted to buy a bunch of kidney shaped stickers and slap them on all her books.

This had better come up in every single one of her interviews. I want people to show up at her readings quoting her emails.

Any updates on this mess?

[...]