The Book Community Thought This Author Died. Now, It Seems Her Suicide Was a Hoax.

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From Rolling Stone:

NOTHING GOOD STARTS in a Facebook group. The Ward, a reading group founded by Tennessee-based author Susan Meachen, largely went dormant after a September 2020 post — supposedly written by her daughter — was shared from her page announcing that she had died by suicide following bullying and harassment from members of the book community. Now, more than two years later, Meachen has decided that she wants her life back and returned to Facebook to reveal that she was never actually dead in the first place.

“I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it’s right or not,” Meachen wrote in her back-from-the-dead return to the group on Jan. 2. “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.” (Meachen did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.)

Fun isn’t exactly the word that springs to mind for those in the book community who had befriended Meachen and were shocked by her death. “We grieved for the loss of the woman we considered a friend,” wrote Samantha A. Cole, a fellow author who regularly chatted with Meachen online, in a receipt-filled post exposing the details behind the suicide hoax. “I personally was harassed by another author who loves to create drama, claiming I was one of the authors who bullied Susan and drove her to suicide.”

Cole said that, after Meachen’s alleged death, she beat herself up over not having reached out sooner, wondering if it might have made a difference. Having lost other people in her life to suicide, it weighed heavily on her. But she got a second chance to reach out to Meachen after she commented on the author’s comeback post in The Ward asking if the entire story had been made up, only to be invited to message her privately instead.

Cole’s first question, shared in screenshots, drew from her disbelief and confusion: “What is going on????” Meachen wrote back an hour later with less urgency. “Nothing,” she responded, as if she didn’t just spend two years pretending to be dead. “I simply want my life back. My family was in a bad place and did what they thought was best for me.”

Link to the rest at Rolling Stone and thanks to T. for the tip.

PG suggests that, even if you’ve always wanted to see an article in Rolling Stone about yourself, setting up a fake suicide is not the best way to do it.

This applies to authors and everyone else.