The Cruelest Cut: The Ins and Outs of Bad Art Friends

It’s a tale of “Larson-y.”

On October 6th, The New York Times published “Who is the Bad Art Friend?” And for a myriad of reasons, its stuck in my craw — days later, I’m still methodically reading court documents and trying to figure out what the hell happened. On the surface, the article is a long ode to what happens when LitFic writers don’t log into reddit’s “Am I the Asshole?” like the rest of us. Writer Dawn Dorland donates a kidney in 2015 and talks about it a lot in ways other writers feel is narcissistic and attention seeking. Writer Sonya Larson uses her donation as inspiration for a short story about an alcoholic receiving a new kidney and her “white savior,”— and in her original versions of the story, Larson lifts sentences from Dorland’s letter to a kidney recipient posted to a private Facebook group verbatim. Years go by, Dorland finds out and contacts places that may have published Larson’s story The Kindest. Lawsuits ensue. Other, more famous writers are involved. You walk away either perilously close to a judgement of “Everyone Sucks Here,” or perhaps you’ve confidently identified the asshole. …But then suddenly, you’re taking a deep dive into the entire court case, because the literary set of twitter is defending plagiarism, implying a woman who donated a kidney to a stranger is mentally ill, or plain making it up. And this is in stark…