A-one Book Drama Finds Author Announcing Her Suicide Was Just A Hoax And She's Back Now

As has been proven time and again, there is truly no drama like book Twitter drama, and this week another doozy of a story has added to the incredible pantheon of author-centric scandals on the platform.

This time, the protagonist is romance author Susan Meachen, who made headlines this week by announcing she wasn't actually dead, as she had previously announced two years prior.

Susan meachen: pic.twitter.com/4RAGzj7wgV

— alain robbe-grill it (@negaversace) January 5, 2023

In October 2020, romance author Susan Meachen's "daughter" announced to a Facebook group of writers called The Ward that Meachen had died by suicide. In subsequent posts, Meachen's "daughter" implied that Meachen took her life as a result of bullying by her online peers.

You'll notice that the word "daughter" is in quotes in the above paragraph. This is because the posts were actually made by Meachen herself posing as her daughter. On Monday, Meachen posted again to The Ward by announcing she hadn't actually killed herself and was ready to write again.

Author Susan Meachen died from suicide 2 years ago. Except it turns out she didn’t. What an absolute piece of shit #authors #MentalHealthMatters pic.twitter.com/nNU0LCEU3i

— Be a lot cooler if you did 💫🌪💫 (@Draggerofliars) January 4, 2023

As one may imagine, the news that Meachen had faked her own death rubbed many in her community poorly.

In the years since Meachen's fake suicide, community members offered to help pay for funeral costs, create an anti-bullying anthology and help her "daughter" edit Meachen's last book. Realizing they had been taken for a ride, some community members expressed disgust at the ruse Meachen pulled off.

pic.twitter.com/A87nZr7cIM

— Be a lot cooler if you did 💫🌪💫 (@Draggerofliars) January 4, 2023

pic.twitter.com/VUmPpVN9AN

— Be a lot cooler if you did 💫🌪💫 (@Draggerofliars) January 4, 2023

Faking suicide is not only beyond offensive it is an absolute insult to those themselves who died by suicide and ofc their families, friends, colleagues, community who have genuinely lost someone through suicide.

This makes me sick to my stomach. I condemn them.#MentalHealth https://t.co/FvIjpumAwS

— Mentally Millennial🦋 (@Mill3nnialmh) January 5, 2023

Less directly aggrieved parties reveled in yet another wild "book Twitter" (in all but name) drama that kicked off 2023.

Susan Meachen faking her own suicide and then wandering blithely back online because she "got bored" is so exquisitely insane. Romance writers really are operating on another plane of reality.

— Gretchen Felker-Martin (@scumbelievable) January 4, 2023

five days into the new year and the susan meachen shit is the most interesting rabbit hole i’ve gone down in this year.

— spooky bay🦇🖤 (@bayleexavery) January 5, 2023

susan meachen pic.twitter.com/lYRFNzbEMF

— Gary Dunion (@garydunion) January 5, 2023

It seems unlikely that Meachen will ever win back enough goodwill to regain the respect of her peers, and it's unclear what, if any, future she'll have in publishing. At the very least, she can know she's already crafted one of the wildest stories of the year so far.