Up from the grave she rose
What one author's gone-girling says about online community
For the past few weeks I have been absolutely obsessed with the romance author who rose from the dead, more or less literally. If you haven’t seen this story, buckle up, because it’s a real doozy. (TW for mentions of suicide.)
In 2020 a reasonably popular self-published romance author named Susan Meachen took her own life, according to a post allegedly written by her daughter. This was supposedly as a result of dealing with bullying and online harassment—she simply couldn’t deal with it anymore. Her online community was devastated. Fans rallied to raise nearly $1700 for her funeral expenses, and they flocked to purchase her books, including what her daughter called her final book, Love to Last a Lifetime.
Except: Susan Meachen was very much alive. In a long facebook post on January 3rd, author Samantha Cole wrote that not only had Meachen not died, she’d been sockpuppeting on her own fan page under another name—TN Steele. She’d even offered (as Steele) to run the fan page after the former moderator had to step down for personal reasons. But the night before Cole’s post, Susan Meacham had announced to her community that reports of her demise had been greatly exaggerated:
"I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it's right or not. There's going to be tons of questions and a lot of people leaving the group I'd guess. But my family did what they thought was best for me and I can't fault them for it. I almost died again at my own hand and they had to go through all that hell again. Returning to The Ward doesn't mean much but I am in a good place now and I am hoping to write again. Let the fun begin."
I’m not even sure where to start. Apparently there had been a suicide attempt, and not the first. According to Meachen, her family was just doing what they thought was best: announcing Meachen’s departure from a book world that had treated her badly. In an article from the New York Times (linked above) her husband talks about the toll that participating in the toxic online communities took on his wife’s mental health, and a doctor confirms a diagnosis of BPD.
I wasn’t closely following the self-published romance community at the time. One of the great thing about it is that it is replete with niches: something that is a tidal wave to one community is barely a splash to another. And intention doesn’t always matter. In the various articles about the situation, Meachen doesn’t sound like she thought it would be a big deal to come back from the dead. Instead, what she intended as a splash in a small community has turned into a tidal wave. The Daily Mail wrote an article about it, for pete’s sake.
If there’s any takeaway from this situation (other than, y’know, if you fake your own death, stay gone) it’s that intention and execution have to go hand in hand. Meachen, I’m sure, didn’t count on the reaction she received, and it’s been unpleasant enough for her that this second wind of a writing career is reportedly at an end. And it could be argued that she wasn’t the one who faked her death—that was her family doing it on her behalf. But she kept up the lie, even as she created her new pseudonym—supposedly a mere month after the reports of her death—and used the new account to essentially attend her own funeral.
I don’t know that there’s a world in which a different statement—say, one that led with honesty and contrition rather than defensiveness and “let the fun begin”—would have led to a different reaction from Meachen’s community. Online communities can be stressful at best and toxic at worst. I do, however, think that there were other paths that she could have taken: a genuine, heartfelt apology that involved context, for one. Leaving “Susan Meachen” behind and embracing the new pseudonym was another, with the proviso to stay away from online toxicity in this new author life.
In the various articles I’ve read about the situation, Meachen doesn’t seem to take too much responsibility for her actions. Even the online bullying is curiously vague—the most detail I saw was from text messages that Samantha Cole sent to Meachen, saying that she (Cole) had been falsely accused of being a bully herself. Was Meachen bullied, as she claimed? Was it her mental health leading her down the path of running with someone else’s lie? Was it the fault of the tradional publishing industry that supposedly shut her out from mainstream publication?
In the New York Times article, she says she hasn’t done anything wrong legally, and almost as an afterthought, says she’s probably done something morally wrong. I don’t think morals are really the thing here, because to each their own. What’s at issue, really, is what you owe to the communities you are a part of. Whatever the toxicity of the romance community, lying about your death—and then accepting money to cover funeral expenses—isn’t a mark of respect. Better to flounce honestly than perpetuate a lie that causes grief and pain to others. Leave a door to walk back through that doesn’t open via the grave.
WHAT I’M READING
Did I read any of those books I listed last week? Lmao no. I was cleaning off my night stand and realized I’d taken the cover off Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education sometime last year with a view to a reread in advance of the publiation of book three, The Golden Enclaves. I rearead A Deadly Education on Monday during my shift (it was very, very slow; you will be unsurprised to learn that the cafe is closin at the end of the month) and I’m about seventy five pages away from the end of the second book in the series, The Last Graduate.
A friend said that she found the first book boring; I didn’t, but there is something about the main character (Galadriel, or El)’s voice that certainly isn’t for everyone. Galadriel is a student at the Scholomance, which is basically if Hogwarts was trying to kill all its’ students before they graduate. El is a prickly character, a girl desperate for friendship and companionship even as she’s very aware that she isn’t going to receive any. Novik’s best trick is that El never dips into self-pity about it—if she does feel bad about the fact that she’s alone and unliked, she doesn’t dwell the the character might in another author’s hands. The books are brutal and fast-paced, and I’m doing the thing I hate which is to procrastinate finishing the book/trilogy because I’m both stressed about the ending and afraid of the story ending. I’ll hopefully finish it this weekend and will report back on what I think of the trilogy as a whole!
HOUSEKEEPING
As January comes to a close I’m looking ahead to February, where I still have editing slots available. Please contact me on Reedsy if you’re interested!
My good friend Rebecca Heyman is also running an editing special for a partial—go check out her instagram post for more details!
The A Faster No discord is still running—come and join us if you’re interested in chatting outside of the comments of the posts!
As always, if there’s something you’d like me to discuss, please leave it in the comments or email me in reply to the newsletter!
READING: The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
WATCHING: Midsomer Murders (I know)
LISTENING: Love From The Other Side by Fall Out Boy
This has been A Faster No, a dispatch on publishing, writing, books, and beyond. Is there something you’d like me to talk about? Leave it in the comments or reply to the email! You can support the newsletter here. If you purchase a book from any of the links to Bookshop.org I get a small commission at no cost to you. I am available for developmental editing and editorial assessment services via Reedsy.
I was into Discords for a short while, then they seemed too much, so I'll stick to blog comments.
Finished reading Paul Tremblay's THE LITTLE SLEEP. Probably wouldn't have read it (even though I read mostly crime novels) if I hadn't read his horror novels. Which I would like to discuss, if you've read them ;-) Some I really enjoyed, some were OK, and others I just couldn't connect with for spoilery/ranty reasons...