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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a story like this from my life that I started to type out to share but it's much more wildly unbelievable, despite being true, and too many of the details are too accessible on the internet, and, frankly, I'm afraid of my nemesis because a reporter from her country contacted me a few years ago and told me she might be a serial killer responsible for the deaths of several middle-aged white women tourists.

It's possible (probable even) that the "reporter" was the author herself, but that doesn't make it better. According to google, the murders did happen.

Writing communities are weird. And genre fiction groups can make MFA writers look like shrinking violets. Meanwhile, there is one nation on this earth I will never ever visit. Just in case a serial killer who hates me is waiting there. I know how that sounds. But it was an unnerving experience. The writer in question also has a very public internet history that involved threats to others. Had she not, I might have been less concerned.

Regarding Larsen and Dawn: my sympathies are with Dawn. It's not a crime to be annoying and needy on Facebook--for which we should all be thankful. Larsen's invocation of "white savior" as a slur is pretty pathetic. Like others here I'm startled to see well-laureled friends of mine in publishing taking her word for this. Then again, look at how much hysteria ensued in this thread when someone claimed Larsen colonized Dawn's story.

Which, I'd argue is true: she did. Of course, I'd also argue that sticking the term only to white people (and apparently to all white people, from all times, even before they had a notion they were white people) is sloppy history and pathetic criticism, but many people are invested in the literary theory they learned in college, and apparently, that was the recent thing.

Of course, I'd also argue that most of what fiction writers do is some form of appropriation, since the creation of a narrative involves playing with characters and events. Inspiration from real life creates works of their time, and I suspect Larsen's story (which I haven't read) will indeed be an exemplary one for its time and place. Although, perhaps, not in the fine literary way that she'd hoped for.

And, while I have been a mean girl in the writer's group, I understand the tribal nature of these things. There are still a few writers out there that I wish I had been nicer to (not the serial killer), but there should always be a point for all of us where we check our actions, and right our wrongs.

[/quote]

Um... wow! Dying to know more. Can you tell us what country at least? [/quote]

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