I have various thoughts about this.

First, test scores are basically just a measure of socioeconomic demographics. So shame on us for hyper-segregating schools, letting them be over 90% economically disadvantaged, and then saying, gee, why aren't you performing just like some affluent suburb? Huh, must be your subpar teachings, that must be it . . .

So I say, yes, let's stop hyper-segregating schools. Let's make sure no child attends a hypersegregated school.

But should the onus be on those students to lose their neighborhood schools, their longtime teachers? They should have to travel long distances to attend school outside of their community when they already face so many disadvantages? That's not the right solution either.

It takes a nuanced, realistic approach. Ideally we'd provide attractive programming at every school, and give preference to students helping schools achieve more balanced demographics (it's illegal to make those decisions based solely on race, but you can set up "minority to majority" enrollment policies, so that someone who would increase demographic diversity is given preference over someone who wouldn't). We need to provide space for these students to opt in to programs at already high performing schools, and foster a community, we're all in this together spirit that will counter NIMBYism and resource hoarding among those who already at "elite" schools.

Anonymous wrote:Do you think the Chunky Monkeys (and Celeste Ng in particular) knew the discovery documents were publicly accessible? I mean, they must have known how terrible they'd look, right?

Well who's to know, of course, but my guess is that the same foibles that led Larson to make so many poor choices here would translate into her not having the guts to tell her friends that their emails were now part of a court case. You'd think at least one of them would bothered to read them back in February or whenever they were submitted, and that would have caused a whole thing among the group. So then Becky Tuch wouldn't be saying, oh wow, I had no idea what the real story was now. But I'm making a lot of assumptions. Who knows. If she did tell them, I'm sure it was in a "OMG you guys will not believe what I had to do because of this crazy stalker lady" way.

I'm not a lawyer and I haven't really understood the debate that's going on here, but I have previously mentioned my desire not to dehumanize anyone (I'm the one with the school board story). I try so hard in my daily life not to hate even people who really caused a lot of harm directly to me (thinking of something I'm not willing to share here that was a personal trauma). So that makes me curious about how wrapped up in this case I am. We primates bond in certain ways, and we enforce social mores in certain ways. I don't want to get sucked into some kind of instinct to run off the bonobo that the pack leader doesn't like, or to be the pack leader, or whatnot.

What's refreshing about Dawn is her healthy relationship with her own trauma and shame. She didn't go to divinity school for nothing. When I see Celeste Ng posturing the way that she is, I think she's dealing with her own insecurities. I don't read her actions as malice and cruelty. I read her actions as a kid on the playground saying, "Nanny nanny boo boo, you can't hurt my feelings!" And that gives me a certain level of sympathy for her, which doesn't mitigate the harm she's caused (not least of all to the disabled and donor communities) but at least exists alongside it.

ETA: I also read Larson as deeply insecure. My oldest just started middle school and I'm trying to figure out how to teach her to stand up for herself while also understanding that hurt people hurt people. Today a pack of girls found her placing sticky notes with positive affirmations around the bathroom. They said, "What the f*ck is this sh*t?" and they tore down all her sticky notes and threw them in the trash. My kid hid in a stall until they left and then pulled them out of the trash. One of them came back in and caught her, and she stood her ground and said, "These are nice messages for people. Why aren't you happy for people to read nice things?" A big crowd gathered until the PE teacher intervened. Oh my word, these things are so hard. This pack of girls almost certainly comes from a public housing unit and have had very different experiences than my daughter. I want her to teach her that people's cruelty isn't about her -- it's about them. But also, I want her to stand up for herself, but not if it will get her beat up. All this is to say that hurt people hurt people, and they still deserve compassion. But you can feel that compassion over here on the other side of your firm boundary that doesn't allow them to harm you.

Anonymous wrote:

shan1212 wrote:My emotional investment in this story about strangers must be telling me something, and I wish I could figure out exactly what it is. I don't want to be swept up in some kind of mob justice; I totally understand that society functions this way in order to keep errant behaviors in line, but I don't want my brief time on this planet to be spent obsessing on a feud between strangers and trying to teach a lesson to some author I barely thought of before this. On the other hand, I'm a chronically ill SAHP, so I do need something to engage my intellect, and I'm obviously not alone in my interest in this story.

It's definitely unsatisfying that so much has been discovered about Larson's lies, and yet she has continued to maintain the unconditional support of her community. People like Bridburg and Ng are doubling down in the face of obvious malfeasance. So then to me it becomes this question of psychology . . . strutting around defiantly with pointed "likes" and, in Ng's case, all these "You're willfully misrepresenting the facts and somehow not believing me that 2 + 2 = 5 even though I TOLD YOU IT WAS" responses. Now I'm not just marveling at the cruelty shown to Dawn but also the idiocy of continuing to dig at this point. My underlying feeling is one of "oh god, let that never be me."

At first I was not won over by Becky Tuch's apology, but she has continued to show she is willing to own up to her mistakes, and I so appreciate that. We all miss the mark, but we don't all consider that we might be wrong, and even fewer of us seek to repair the damage we caused. She said she left the group, but I do have to wonder . . . how can the group ever go on as before now, with or without Becky? How could anyone trust Sonya? How could anyone not have a fear of their words being leaked again in the back of their mind?

I do hope GrubStreet cleans house. You can't just CC some of the active participants on an HR inquiry, like some posts that insinuate that Dawn is mentally ill, and then handle it with a few "ethics workshops" recommendations from some firm you hired. Of course, that strutting that I referenced earlier is probably a facade to cover up your fear that you are going down for this.

I know this isn't about me, but I am thinking back on some drama that people tried to suck me into. I am an advocate for a type of racial justice that is unpopular among the NIMBYs, and a bunch of local NIMBYs have tried to "win" by baiting, harassing, slandering, and just generally annoying me. I knew that as soon as I responded back in kind, they'd try to make it about my response and not about right/wrong. So I never took the bait, as tempting as it was. I'm glad that I didn't sully myself by slinging mud. You don't need to convince everyone that you're right or show up the haters . . . but sure, it's kind of delicious when they bring it on themselves.

Still, I have always worked hard to keep those people humanized in my heart. Is this case a proxy for my schadenfreude? Oh dear, haha.

Thoughtful post, thank you. I agree with your 2nd paragraph 100%. Was the nimby stuff on your nextdoor?

It was all over the place . . . NextDoor, FB, Twitter, and in public comments at school board meetings. It's been a few years and I still have a few people who make fake profiles to try to read my private stuff or poke at me (I don't know if that's harassment but it's certainly a sad use of time). The slander was when I caught one of them using a fake account to join our activism group. She and her spouse used their public comments to yell into the microphone that [my name] is a bully when I had been so careful in all of my words, always expecting to need to defend them, but yeah, I removed her from a group she didn't qualify for. The PTA president of her school defended her - oh, this poor woman is crying so much, she's just trying to have a say, etc. And then, I kid you not, a year later this same woman wrote a long manifesto on Medium about everyone who had every wronged her, and included emails the PTA president sent her (at this point she'd turned against the PTA president). I noted with satisfaction that the crying lady didn't include anything I had written, even though her essay was ostensibly about people associated with me . . . because there wasn't anything to quote; I never said anything unkind or untrue.

I'm not going to lie and say I only think saintly thoughts about them -- I certainly laugh when these people do a self-own, which seems to be often. I just try really hard to stay grounded and not get sucked into defending myself. I had a friend say of one of them, "She's the only person I truly hate; I wouldn't give her water if she dying in the desert." I don't want to feel that way about anyone, especially over some minor drama where I'm confident that I haven't done anything wrong, and anyone whose opinion I value is going to see that.

Back to the CMs . . . if they *were* confident that they hadn't done anything wrong, would they be so obsessed with reading malice into every little thing Dawn did? They probably couldn't put their finger on why they felt so discomfited, but it's definitely a sign that you are feeling vulnerable and should lean in to figure out why. When Sonya, Alison, Sari etc. started poking fun of Dawn together, they could have been curious (aren't writers supposed to be curious?) and asked, hmmm, why do we feel so strongly about someone whose worst crime is being a little cringe as she talks about how she saved someone's life? What does that say about us?

TBH Celeste Ng seems to be the least self-aware of them all. To go around Twitter defending yourself to strangers, not with evidence but with vague assertions . . . that says to me, "I want to be this confident person who doesn't give a sh*t, but obviously I give a whole lot of sh*ts if people don't see me how I want." Wanting to be seen as competent, kind, smart, etc. . . . that's not a crime. But if you follow the BS rules about hiding your vulnerabilities (which refreshingly, Dawn doesn't seem to follow), then you would never admit that to yourself, let alone anyone else. Then it's a vicious cycle of acting out to avoid shame, which induces more shame, which leads to more acting out . . .

My emotional investment in this story about strangers must be telling me something, and I wish I could figure out exactly what it is. I don't want to be swept up in some kind of mob justice; I totally understand that society functions this way in order to keep errant behaviors in line, but I don't want my brief time on this planet to be spent obsessing on a feud between strangers and trying to teach a lesson to some author I barely thought of before this. On the other hand, I'm a chronically ill SAHP, so I do need something to engage my intellect, and I'm obviously not alone in my interest in this story.

It's definitely unsatisfying that so much has been discovered about Larson's lies, and yet she has continued to maintain the unconditional support of her community. People like Bridburg and Ng are doubling down in the face of obvious malfeasance. So then to me it becomes this question of psychology . . . strutting around defiantly with pointed "likes" and, in Ng's case, all these "You're willfully misrepresenting the facts and somehow not believing me that 2 + 2 = 5 even though I TOLD YOU IT WAS" responses. Now I'm not just marveling at the cruelty shown to Dawn but also the idiocy of continuing to dig at this point. My underlying feeling is one of "oh god, let that never be me."

At first I was not won over by Becky Tuch's apology, but she has continued to show she is willing to own up to her mistakes, and I so appreciate that. We all miss the mark, but we don't all consider that we might be wrong, and even fewer of us seek to repair the damage we caused. She said she left the group, but I do have to wonder . . . how can the group ever go on as before now, with or without Becky? How could anyone trust Sonya? How could anyone not have a fear of their words being leaked again in the back of their mind?

I do hope GrubStreet cleans house. You can't just CC some of the active participants on an HR inquiry, like some posts that insinuate that Dawn is mentally ill, and then handle it with a few "ethics workshops" recommendations from some firm you hired. Of course, that strutting that I referenced earlier is probably a facade to cover up your fear that you are going down for this.

I know this isn't about me, but I am thinking back on some drama that people tried to suck me into. I am an advocate for a type of racial justice that is unpopular among the NIMBYs, and a bunch of local NIMBYs have tried to "win" by baiting, harassing, slandering, and just generally annoying me. I knew that as soon as I responded back in kind, they'd try to make it about my response and not about right/wrong. So I never took the bait, as tempting as it was. I'm glad that I didn't sully myself by slinging mud. You don't need to convince everyone that you're right or show up the haters . . . but sure, it's kind of delicious when they bring it on themselves.

Still, I have always worked hard to keep those people humanized in my heart. Is this case a proxy for my schadenfreude? Oh dear, haha.

Anonymous wrote:

I honestly don't think I could ever trust a writer workshop program like GrubStreet at this point, and I have done them before. Were the teachers all actually just mocking their students behind their backs?

This reminds of the book The Plot, about a writer who can't replicate the minor success of his first novel and teaches these kinds of workshops (while hating every moment of it). Then a student comes along with a supposedly guaranteed best-seller plot and, well, you know, twists and turns and all that . . . Haha. But anyway, I had never really thought about writers' workshops before reading that book.

Anonymous wrote:
What is remarkable is that no one from this large group of well educated individuals ever attempted to get Larsen et al to pump the brakes. This is freakish. What a corrupt business.

That's assuming that every email that mentioned Dawn was included in the court documents. We were in litigation with our insurance company and we received 400 pages of emails (mainly the same few things copied a million times over). Only one or two was actually relevant. So Dawn may have seen plenty more messages that weren't pertinent to the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Celeste Ng seems to be straight up lying.

What??! This can't be right. According to her Twitter bio, she is "embarrassingly sincere." Struggling to reconcile.

That's just a way of saying, "I'm mean."

Anonymous wrote:Here's my question of the day. If you're one of the Chunky Monkeys, how are you feeling about Sonya Larson right about now?

If I was a member I would feel betrayed. For most of these members they were relying on Sonya being truthful, and she was not. Now they're "being dragged" and will have to answer questions about this debacle at every cocktail party they go to for the rest of their lives.

Yeah, I think they are thinking, WTF Sonya, we treated DD like this because we took your word for it that she's a creepy stalker who's obsessed with destroying your career. I mean, if a creepy, obsessed stalker really was trying to ruin my friend's life, I would say F*ck her! too.

At first I was somewhat underwhelmed by Becky Tuch's apology, but with her clarifications today, and the fact that she's STILL the only person to apologize publicly, I am changing my mind. Because while she doesn't outright say it, the implication is that Sonya lied to everyone and that's why they acted the way they did.

Anonymous wrote:This thread has better writing than that story.

Agree!

Anonymous wrote:We need to reach out to GrubStreet en masse and tell them this is not OK that they still have Sonya Larson, Allison Murphy, and Christopher Castellani still on their staff.

They need to be suspended until a thorough investigation is done.

https://grubstreet.org/contact-us/

Yeah, I was unimpressed by their "we are appalled by the disconnect between GrubStreet’s stated values and the alleged behavior by some that has come to light" statement. It sounds like this mysterious disconnect conjured itself. And their "executive board," which includes Jennifer De Leon, is in charge of deciding next steps?

They only have 26 people on staff, and three of them are Sonya Larson, Chris Castellani, and Alison Murphy. And then Celeste Ng is on their literary council.

I saw a really good point on Twitter . . . would you ever counsel a friend to shoot themselves in the foot this way? Especially Ng seems so sure that her name carries special protective powers or something. I'm sure Larson has such a laughable lawyer because she doesn't want to pay big bucks for a savvy one. It's fine to rally around someone in an interpersonal drama, but to encourage them to go down with the ship when it comes to lawyer's fees and then your professional reputation? What kind of friends are those? I really hate when people try to diagnose strangers, but that's what I would call the narcissism in this story . . . letting ego drive all your decisions and advice, rather than considering the costs even if you win.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DAWN DORLAND WINS THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION!

I guess I’m in the minority and don’t agree that this was in any way plagiarism nor that DD comes out looking like anything other than the Karen she was being mocked for being.

Then you don’t know the meaning of “plagiarism” or “Karen”.

I mean, do I like Sonya and would I be friends with her? Probably not. But making DD a character in her story, even quoting the real FB letter, is NOT plagiarism. Don’t be friends or share stuff with writers if you don’t want to find yourself in one of their stories. And DD is cringey and clearly donated her kidney for validation.

I guess I don't have a visceral reaction to someone channeling a desire for validation (which we all have) into saving someone's life by risking her own.

I do get that this case is a Rorschach test for what we deem unacceptable. I had this debate with an acquaintance of mine on Twitter. She very much zeroed in on the cringe aspect. But you know my assessment of this person? She put in her bio that she is "an antiracist" white person, rather than aspiring, as though you could ever do enough self-work to arrive at 100% done. She loves to get in Twitter fights, berating and vilifying people on the "wrong side." So when she tells me someone is cringe, I'm not considering her the foremost expert on it. This is someone who knows that a documentary crew was going to feature my family because of my work on antiracism before the pandemic scrapped that, and she knew my mixed feelings on being presented as some kind of unicorn when I am just trying to do what's right, but also understanding that awareness can help. She didn't say, "Oh, that's so cringe, it's not about you." Honestly I think she was wishing she was the one asked instead, lol. People are funny. But all this is to say, that I think her reaction to the cringe is because it hits too close to home.

My general rule of thumb is to pay close attention to the things that really bother you. I know I'm certainly asking myself if I am so upset for Dawn because of times I've been like Sonya. There must be a lesson in there, or I wouldn't be so drawn to this situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Friends, it just got even more interesting.

Actually, it's quite alarming. Threats like this by men against women need to be taken seriously. This is a gatekeeper of sorts in the publishing industry. An artistic director at GrubStreet.

https://piperbookblog.com/author-christopher-castellani-vows-to-exact-revenge-on-fellow-writer-and-grubstreet-instructor/

This actually made me tear up.

It is not clear at all why so many people hated her. In the FB posts someone posted here yesterday she championed writers, many writers of color.

I am afraid nothing will happen because that world is so insular, and they're gaslighting everyone now saying that blatant plagiarism is not at issue. But, yes, Larson clearly wins in the court of public opinion.

Did you mean to say Larson wins in the court of public opinion?

Do you think Sonya Larson is advised not to comment on this stuff because of the litigation? (By her super professional lawyer who uses AOL and can't open attachments, lol.)

Because it really boggles my mind that she's staying silent, as well as everyone else except Becky Tuch. Like wouldn't Christopher Castellani want to say something like, "Obviously it was hyperbole when I said I would devote my life to exacting revenge against Dorland"? I mean, these are cynical people, probably a lot of them have lawyered up and are under advisement. Everyone except Celeste Ng, who seems to feel she's too big to sink.

BTW if you Tweet something positive about Dawn Dorland she will almost certainly follow you on Twitter! It has made me feel a little better about this whole situation to know that she is absorbing the support, shock, and outrage offered on her behalf.

Another thing that gets me about this situation is how it snowballed out of control. Part of me wants to excuse everyone who isn't Sonya Larson because they were basing their judgments on her deceitful explanation of events. But on the other hand, obviously these people were primed to be hateful towards Dawn in particular and probably many others in general, and when Sonya started to doubt herself, they egged her on.

I think this was a good analysis about how the scarcity of publishing opportunities creates this type of dynamic: https://twitter.com/DrDorianCramer/status/1448115031162425346?s=20

Anonymous wrote:Reading these details on their friendship/history:

Is heartbreaking. Did Larsen ever like Dorland? If so, what happened? How do you go from giving someone a personalized going away gift, attending parties at their home, discussing loss and childhood trauma, and sharing inside jokes on social media to…. “Eff Dawn and her effing kidney” or whatever?

I think something similar happened to me, though thankfully did not escalate like this and I don’t have this kind of evidence to prove my suspicions. But it was both devastating and deeply weird. You wind up wondering if what you thought was friendship was all a performance, and if so, why on earth? Or was it genuine and then I did/said something to make this person hate me? Or are they just really messed up and don’t really know how they feel about me and both our friendship and their newfound loathing of me are just outgrowths of done other issue that has nothing to do with me?

It’s just very disorienting. And I’ll never know, and like Dawn won’t either. People are so strange.

Yeah, clearly this is something that perplexes us all.

I think my difficulty with friendships comes from the other direction . . . I am reserved, so I don't wind up making besties all over the place. I wish I had a little more of that ability to bond with other women at the drop of a hat. But on the plus side, since I am so careful and purposeful about making friends, I haven't had one turn bad in 20 years, since my college roommate dumped me because she thought her religion required it.

So I don't know. You could be more careful about making friends, but you might miss out on some great opportunities for connection if you're so afraid of being hurt that you take almost no risks. Loving others always results in pain/loss one way or another, but senseless cruelty is an especially hard way to swallow.

ETA: I don't think being relentlessly cruel is something all people do. I can completely understand friends growing apart, outgrowing whatever bonded them, etc. But wouldn't you still pass that person and think of your past together fondly? If someone holds some unspoken grudge but doesn't trust you enough to tell you what the grudge is, then that's not true friendship. A healthy adult either seeks remedy or works to resolve their feelings on their own. I suppose, if possible, you can focus on compassion (from a distance, behind your boundaries) for the person who lacks the resources to navigate hurt feelings in a productive way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aside: I had never heard of Chip Flunk, but I looked him up and read about his $800K advance novel, "Cape May." It's about a young and innocent Georgia couple who meet an older, sophisticated couple while honeymooning in NJ. I don't know why I like this premise, maybe because it sounds messy!! And involves emasculation, probably. I'm going to hold myself back from paying money for it.

He got an $800k advance for that beach read?! Who’s even heard of this guy?

I checked the 6 library systems I have on the Libby App. None of them had copies. Two of them did once, but the license had lapsed. Oh darn! Maybe I will grab a paper copy next time I'm at the library just to skim it for chuckles.