This is a very bad time to lash out at people you do not know well. Public officials etc are one thing but people in your community? I do not think it is a good thing to do.

You have no idea what people are going through. No clue. The suffering in Queens is considerable & I just threw up my lunch when someone I barely know but who I respected a lot in my group message just decided to lash out at me for no reason.

It becomes impossible to forget. Writers think people can just shrug things off, like, oh yeah this crazy writer just being crazy haha! But it goes much deeper than that. Writers, even ones I do not know well, I have love for & respect as they are in the same tough field as me

I have been very lucky to never have had to deal with being on an award committee where we had to judge the work of one of the, say, 4 people in the lit world who have wronged me. But what do you do? Just recuse? It’s so hard—our industry is tightly knit

I very publicly talk about my struggles with depression so when someone just casually drops a bunch of insults I will be dwelling on that for months.

And if you see someone being harassed, attacked, bullied, etc in a public setting defend them publicly. I get tons of private messages but that is not always helpful & does not let the one in fault understand people do not appreciate his behavior.