Christopher Castellani is another horrible person.

Only he is not just an author but was the artistic director of GrubStreet.

Read the email he sent about how brilliant Celeste Ng is to have come up with DFD, and how it's not too late for Dawn to get a job at the post office or American Midway.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1447370848072044546/photo/4



And in other email:

"My mission in life is going to be to exact revenge on this pestilence of a person"

Sorry to spam! Don't know how to embed tweets

https://mobile.twitter.com/philosipede/status/1448224322242236418

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in real life dawn dorland was completely not self aware, needy AF and like the most annoying acquaintance in the world. None of that is a crime. Sonya Larson and friends twisted her into something she was not, and built that in their minds to be truth. I get dawns reaction to the story because the woman in that story was awful and I think in sonyas mind it was who dawn was because she was grating and annoying for like half a decade to her friend group. Sonya played nice with her for a long time but eventually was like whatever this woman doesn’t matter and I will skewer her in this story. Dawn then had a huge reaction and did things like tried to take her down relentlessly in a creepy stalker way. If you go to the kidney gate Twitter honestly dawns behavior is Trent less and unstable. Sonya was an a hole throughout and ruined her career and will probably be fired from Grub Street, which Sonya had requested in a creepy but justified letter in 2018. Dawn seems totally nuts. Sonya seems like a powerful jerk. Neither wins.

To be honest, with all of the additional details, Dawn comes off as completely normal and justified in all of this. Her only crime is that she was… what, exactly? Over-earnest? Maybe a little cringe?

I read the extra documents and wow is the real story different than the NYT version that the first PP here described. The PP above is parroting the deeply flawed NYT article, but the actual evidence from the court case paints a very, very different picture.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">

The most frustrating part of the "bad art friend" story in the NYT is the complete silence around class. And yet class both propels the conflict in the story and the subsequent discourse around it.

— Paul Matzko (@PMatzko) October 12, 2021</blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The most frustrating part of the "bad art friend" story in the NYT is the complete silence around class. And yet class both propels the conflict in the story and the subsequent discourse around it.</p>— Paul Matzko (@PMatzko) <a href="https://twitter.com/PMatzko/status/1448075901028143110?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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:

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.

She wasn’t a Karen.

To be a good person or a decent artist requires more than having an identity in a purportedly oppressed group of people.

I’m on your side, but let’s not veer into (potentially) racist rhetoric. There can be critiques made about whether or not Sonya wielded narratives around race in good faith, but let’s not downplay the fact that people of color, including Asians, have certain disadvantages in this society.

It isn’t racist rhetoric. Without the “Karen” framework, people attacking Dorland have nothing. [b]Allison Murphy (white) advised Sonya Larson (mixed) Ro weaponize Grub Street’s Writers of Color group to “draaaag” Dorland on exactly the basis you think you’re decrying! That’s phucked, it’s incredibly dishonest, and NONE OF THIS ACTUAL ISSUE has to do with the actual prejudice and racist treatment of Asians in the US.

And this is where I love to hear from Grub Street Writers of Color - how does it feel to be used as a white woman's lapdog?

Anonymous wrote:Go to 1:03 where dawn asks a question about the intersectionality of race and socioeconomic status (dawn is white but grew up at the poverty line). It is received with such distain from the power players in the group initially. These writers hate this woman and have for a long time. I appreciate the responses that came after the initial push back from the power players who hate her so much they are seething that she even asked the question. This has very much changed my view of Celeste ng and I will not purchase her novels in the future.

https://vimeo.com/174363941

My reaction is that those on the panel who were involved look awful OLD to be acting like playground bullies. Embarrassing.

Anonymous wrote:What do you think about this take?

https://mobile.twitter.com/philosipede/status/1448224322242236418

That's been my take from the start. Larson behaved terribly - but it was Ng who was the ringleader egging her on. At multiple points she seemed to turn to Ng to tell her to knock it off, and Ng just kept urging her on.

I think Ng is clearly the center of gravity for this group. Her favor was the one that mattered. Everyone tempered their values and even how they talked to mimic her, and to please her - and to try to win her favor. She probably has a natural magnetism and also is obviously the most successful of the whole bunch (even more than Chip "I got a $800k book advance" Creek).

I don't know why she used her power for such nasty purposes. I don't understand her motivations well enough. Maybe she's just an awful person and she enjoyed seeing other people be as terrible as she is.

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.

So are you a professional fiction writer? Because I am. With a big publishing contract etc. What SL did was plagiarism, and everyone who is in the wiring biz knows this. It's not even up for debate. I am the PP who said I ran this by my editor. We had a good laugh, before she felt the need to be clear that this would be a HELL NO.

And it matters not why DD donated a kidney, SHE DONATED A KIDNEY.

Donors are encouraged to broadcast their deed to encourage others. DD did, and you know what? She inspired others to donate kidneys as well. So it worked.

What have you ever done of significance in your life?

Anonymous wrote:Please, PLEASE read this thread from Arthur Chu. It reframes the entire purpose and meaning of the letter at the heart of this in a way that I failed to truly understand initially.

I am SO angry, almost heartbroken, at how this was so intentionally twisted and turned into so ugly. I am legitimately seething. That letter was goddamn beautiful, and I say this with purpose - it was a work of art.

Bumping this because this is actually crucial.

I think Sonya Larson is not only a bad art friend, but a bad artist. I write in the literary genre, and I've been in the position of helping to select works for honors equivalent to BASS. Larson's story demonstrates she is not curious enough to be a good artist; she assigns a facile motive to her kidney donor. Larson's story demonstrates she is not precise enough to be a good artist; every detail of the donation was transparently unresearched. Larson's story demonstrates she does not have the empathy to be a good artist; the characters of the two women are only superficially explored. Larson's story demonstrates she does not have the creativity to be a good artist; the story is structured in a derivative manner, and there is not one iota of profundity, beauty, or mystery in the prose.

Why does she write? I've never understood "literary" writers who have so little feeling for language.

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.

Yes, I guess you are.

Maybe this is a learning opportunity for you. Empathy and ethics can be developed with professional help.

GL!!

Go to 1:03 where dawn asks a question about the intersectionality of race and socioeconomic status (dawn is white but grew up at the poverty line). It is received with such distain from the power players in the group initially. These writers hate this woman and have for a long time. I appreciate the responses that came after the initial push back from the power players who hate her so much they are seething that she even asked the question. This has very much changed my view of Celeste ng and I will not purchase her novels in the future.

https://vimeo.com/174363941

What do you think about this take?

https://mobile.twitter.com/philosipede/status/1448224322242236418