Thread by @Jenny_Trout

So, I had this whole bridge burning post all written up, with a bunch of horrible shit I know within the romance genre. I was gonna put it on the blog. But then I was like...

I've got too much good stuff going on to throw those bad vibes in this week!

Like, this always happens. I always have something really cool coming up and then something else will happen and I'll allow that to bury my awesome stuff!

However. That's not here.

Let's burn this motherfucker to the ground!

From the wayback machine: During the 50 shades apocalypse, I was contacted by four different authors from four different publishers. I'm protecting the innocent by not naming them, but they all just wanted to vent to someone and you'll see why they picked me.

all four authors had the following in common:

they all had been vocally critical of E.L. James on social media

they all had been instructed by their publishers to scrub those criticisms

Why?

Because someone in the James war machine had reached out and promised that James's social media accounts would recommend titles from that publisher IF they either made the offending author remove the criticisms OR the offending author lost their contract.

Now, hang on a second, because I need to blur out a photo for this next one.

the photo is taking like a thousand years to tweet

omfg I'll do the picture one later god damn. It shouldn't be this hard. But moving right along.

Agent Kevan Lyon contacted a conference organizer who had denied Jennifer L. Armentrout's request to attend. I was still using my old name, conference organizer was concerned that teens showing up for her would get her confused with me and buy my dirty books.

Conference organizer didn't want that headache. Plus, the conference organizer had feelings about the name thing. Lyon insisted that I was totally fine with it and that Armentrout and I were very close friends.

Even when I liked the bitch, we weren't "close friends."

This resulted in a permanent ban of both Lyons and Armentrout from all of the organizer's events after the organizer thought something sounded not quite right and asked me to verify this super sekret bff status.

Next up are a couple that aren't really bombshells, I think most people know about them.

The Donna half of Kit Rocha did a DM blitz campaign to try to sink Talia Hibbert, going so far as to Talia of faking marginalization to gain access to communities she should be in.

I have NEVER found any evidence to back the claim that Hibbert is faking anything. Screenshots of a long string of subtweets Donna (sorry, I don't know her last name because she's unimportant) made about Hibbert are still available; the tweets might even still be up.

Staying with the Rochas, you all have probably heard me reference the fact that they gleefully engaged in a conversation in which

physical violence against me was threatened
I was called too mentally ill to write
It was decided that I talk too much about being mentally ill.

This was happening *while* I was having a very public mental health crisis.

Just keep that in mind the next time your social justice faves are out there talking about ableism or prejudice or whatever else. Donna has bullied not one, but two autistic romance authors on this platform.

Let's see if I can get the picture to load again. Hold please.

On May 25, I posted about Entangled's Crave series.

The next day, Liz took it upon herself to abuse her company phone database, I guess, to call me long after business hours.

I hadn't been in contact with pelletier since I wanna say 2017. We are not chums. She should NEVER be calling my home. This is creepy stalker behavior. Agents should probably think twice about getting their clients involved with her.

Next one: Author L.A. Witt/Laurie Gallagher goes through cowriters like tissue paper. She has the worst luck, too: ALL her ex writing partners are crazy, jealous, vindictive bitches that nobody should listen to.

She fails to mention that she has screwed people out of royalties, refused to credit them for their work (even as a "thanks to" in the acknowledgments), and in at least one case that I know of, used legal threats to pressure an author into dropping their claim to royalties.

Witt still routinely seeks out "collaborators". Writer, beware.

And then here's the big one. This is one I have been holding onto since the 2014 Chicago Spring Fling conference at the Schaumberg Hyatt on Golf rd. This went down in the lobby, in a small grouping of arm chairs.

Before I go on, remember: I do not lie and most of the terrible behavior I've called out has later been revealed to be true.

Also, since this story involves Liz Pelletier, please see the outrageous behavior I have photo evidence of above.

I had a book coming out with Entangled (this was still when I was convinced the name mix-up was a terrible mistake and harbored no ill feelings) so I met with Pelletier in the lobby for a little editor/author catch up.

Now, framing this as FUNNY story, and actually LAUGHING as she told this CRAZY FUNNY TOTALLY HARMLESS STORY to me, imagine how I felt when she told me the only reason she called Jennifer L. Armentrout back after an editor rejected her sub was because LIZ THOUGHT SHE WAS ME.

She heard that one of her editors was going to reject the submission that allegedly I had sent in, RECOGNIZED THE NAME AS BEING MINE, called Armentrout and they ended up working on the blockbuster Lux series together.

By the end of that chance phone call, I assume they both knew she wasn't me.

Didn't change their actions one bit.

Now, imagine knowing that since 2014 and gritting my teeth every time someone said there was no ill intent, it was all a mistake, she didn't even know I existed, my name recognition did nothing to advance her career.

"But you can't prove that!"

Don't need to. I don't lie. And I could have come out with that a long time ago. Why didn't I? Because I was worried about getting industry blacklisted by one of the more powerful authors in the genre.

As I no longer intend to write or publish romance, I don't have to hide the truth anymore.

She knew people confused us.
She knows her career is built off of mine.
She wasn't a good enough writer to sell that submission on her own, without my name.

You're welcome, bitch.

Also, go ahead and look at her back catalog. Her readers do whatever they can to attack and bury 1 star reviews that point out the similarities between her various series and others.

NONE of her books are without "borrowing."

That wraps it up. There are awesome romance writers out there. It's the ones who weild social capitol that you need to watch out for.

Trout Out

P.S. this is from an author L.A. Witt fucked over:
"Maybe also mention she'll drop said co-writers in an instant if it gets her money or brownie points with people she considers important or she believes it furthers her career. She's the ultimate fair weather friend/collaborator.