Author Emerges Years After Apparent Suicide. It Doesn't Go Well

For more than two years, the Facebook page of self-published author Susan Meachen has served as something of a shrine, used to promote her romance novels and share posts about suicide prevention. In October 2020, a person claiming to be Meachen's daughter posted from Meachen's account, announcing the romance writer had died by suicide due to bullying by members of "her book community," People reports, noting that weeks prior, Meachen herself had posted about attempting suicide.

There was outrage, finger-pointing, and grief in the wake of the author's apparent death, according to friend and fellow author Samantha A. Cole. "People did free editing on her last book, so her family could release it for her, in memory of her," she noted. That's why fans were stunned Tuesday when Meachen seemingly came back to life. "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," Meachen wrote in The Ward, a private writer's Facebook group she founded, per Rolling Stone.

"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." The reactions were wild. "I can forgive many things, but I don't think I could ever forgive you faking your death," responded author Karen Hall. "Susan Meachen faking her own suicide and then wandering blithely back online because she 'got bored' is so exquisitely insane," tweeted author Gretchen Felker-Martin. "Romance writers really are operating on another plane of reality."

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Cole—who says she was among the people wrongly blamed for pushing Meachen to suicide—tells Rolling Stone that the writer had "made another profile under another name, and watched as people posted tributes to her and encouraged others to buy her books in her memory." Meachen's page has since vanished, though her post appears to have drummed up interest in her work. "I'm not a romance person at all but I must experience the workings of this mind," tweeted user @negaversace, per USA Today. (More faked death stories.)