In the history of publishing, there is a fascinating history of memoirs that get pulled from publication, after an eagle eyed reader or readers has their hinky meter go off.
The pesky peruser finds the facts, or spots the substantial inconsistencies - that ultimately prove that the orphaned foster child (who supposedly grew up in a gang infested barrio in east L.A) is actually a private school kid from Newport Beach. .
Or, the one about the Jordanian on the run, after witnessing her best friend's honor killing, is actually a con artist from Chicago.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/05/forbidden-lie-rewatched-disturbing-character-study-of-a-con-artist
And so on.
I now know of one that you won't hear about , cause I'm pretty sure I' was the pesky eyed peruser who made the deal go kaput before publication.
Stef Willen's manuscript ( titled Total Loss: An Inventory of Disaster, Theirs and Mine,) was set to go before being pulled seconds before publication. It had an ISBN number, an editor's description, an official publishers page.
Disclaimer: I knew Stef Willen. I know she is a pathological liar- an anti social schmuck, a narcissistic numbskull. So, when I heard she got a book deal that was for non fiction, I thought this will be a doozy , but I didn't expect her to leave such a trail of evidence up on the internet, for all to discover.
The evidence was up for years actually, and no one a the Atria(Simon and Schuster imprint) seemed to discover the doozies, but I did. I had motive. Motive can be found here:
It's a long and convoluted story so here's a quick summary as to why I'd suspect Willen of dishonesty issues and why I'd wish upon her ill. You see, she tried and succeeded in ruining my life with lies. She got help but she was it could be argued- the main instigator. I wanted to return the favor by using the truth. In this circumstance, I'd discover what she was trying to pass off as truth, and show it's a lie.
Total Loss was scheduled to come out in August of 2016. We know this from her twitter:
It's actually happening: My column Total Loss is becoming a book! Publication in summer of 2016 by Atria (Simon & Schuster). Thanks to all.
and then January of 2017.
Then a site called, Book Filter
http://bookfilter.com/2016/11/09/total-loss-2/said it was scheduled to come out in August of 2017
- $24.00 (Hardcover)
- August 29, 2017
- Atria Books
- 304
- 1501115286
- 9781501115288
I didn't copy it and now it's gone, but sometimes around January of 2017, Simon and Shuster's official publishing page said it was coming out in August of 2018. A few weeks later, it was changed to August of 2045. A year later, it was changed to January of 2040. Those are not typos, the official publisher page was saying there would be a two year delay, then a 27 year delay, and then a 34 year delay. Not sure what that was about.
AS of today, January 21th 2018, This is what you'll see if you look up Stef Willen's Simon and Schuster publishing page
Looking for something?
Sorry, the page you've requested has been moved or taken off the site.
So now it's not a three month delay, or year, or two years, o ar 27 year or 32 year delay. Now, it's looking more like never.
What could have gone wrong?
It was a big deal - A first time author gets an agent and then a book deal, with a majorly major publisher, and then it gets delayed and delayed till it appears to get totally pulled. What went wrong and why?
Since it's never been released, I haven't read Ms.Willen's book, either the first or final draft, but I would bet anything there is a wealth of untruths or straight out lies but let's just stick to the lies or if we are to be kind- inconsistent statements-found on by just using her own words, and good old Google.
Stef Willen's education:
Willen would say in her bio, on her own website, that she had a B.A in anthropology and Biology, and graduated Cum Laude. In the editors's description it would be a B.A in Paleoanthropology.
In the editors description , she'd say that she'd messed up her college years with drugs and drink.
In the Mcseeney's column(of which the book apparently stems from) she'd say in once chapter that she graduated cum laude and one part of the same column that she graduated with a Phi Beta Kappa Key. On the website for the movie EM it was magna cumlaude in Biology and Anthropology.
Willen's Education according to bio for movie EM ( From
http://emfilm.blogspot.com/2009/03/cast.html)
A. 2001, Stef graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in anthropology and biology.
VS.
At the very least, the doors my little golden Phi Beta Kappa key were going to open weren’t supposed to be X’ed with yellow caution tape and kicked in with my own foot.
A few lines later, in SAME PAGE: I thought: You have to be kidding me. I graduated Magna Cum Laude; I was the star of several student films.
Note: You have to be kidding me, Willen! In the same page you say magnacumlaude and Phi Beta Kappa. Also, in the editors description there is no mention of her being the star of any student film, absent the uh thesis film that got that talent manager's eye. On the Em website it was one "thesis film," her roommate cast her in no mention of any other short or long films.
On her acting career
http://emfilm.blogspot.com/2009/03/cast.html for an independent film(EM)
While attending the University of Colorado, she obtained a more demanding role when her roommate asked her to be the lead in her senior thesis short film. In 2001, Stef graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in anthropology and biology. She was planning on going to Africa to study apes or dig for ancestral humans, but her film was seen by a talent manager in Los Angeles who encouraged her to pursue acting. Stef moved to Denver and studied acting with Brian McCulley. Shortly thereafter, she was signed by an agent and moved to Los Angeles in 2003. There, she studied acting with Nina Kether Axelrod and improv at the Groundlings and ACME Comedy Theatre. She has since starred in many short films and works as an editor to a syndicated columnist.
Ok, so here it's after being spotted in a student thesis film, a talent manager suggests she take acting seriously and Stef Willen doesn't pass up on such a once in a lifetime opportunity. A talent manager in Boulder Colorado in charge of watching Student Thesis Films has spotted something very special in our budding fabulist oops I mean... thespian.
As of 2009, when this bio for EM was posted, she is claiming that not only is she starring in a full length indie film but has since starred in many short films
Any google search or IMDB check will show that in fact ,Stef Willen, till that point, and till now(2018) has starred in one short film ( A Lesbian short callled, "Long Ago." A short made by her friend, Christy Wegener.)
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-19-im-here
So I didn’t really decide anything for myself. Someone said I should take an acting class. I did. I got signed by an agent in L.A. and she said I should move there. And I did.
(Ah, so it was an L.A agent in Denver that told her to "move there." And once there she got one who lived in Denver?) OK!
Someone said to take class. Did. Got signed by agent in Denver who lived in L.A. Agent said move there. Did.
No Denver. No talent manager discovering her.
How did she describe it on her Website
After taking one acting class in college, she moved to Los Angeles to be an actress
What does it say in the official editors description? As found here http://bookfilter.com/2016/11/09/total-loss-2/
Her dreams of a Nobel prize-winning career in paleoanthropology had been derailed in college by emotional turmoil and addiction,and after taking just one post-grad acting class,
she made the grossly naïve decision to conquer Hollywood.
(So now it's pretty much deranged levels of recklessness. Forget about that Cumlaude, Magnacumlaude or was it Phi Beta Kappa, and sans the agent, classes, talent managers mentioned in other bios, she moves to L.A to be a stah after one single class in college.)
Also, So now Phi Beta Kappa is considered a sign of academic derailment? Now there's no agent,no talent manager, no thesis, and not even a college course. Now it's on POST grad acting class.
Total loss was supposed to be based on the conceit that Ms. Willen works full time for a company that details losses in fires or perhaps other disasters. Loss specialist is the job description. The editors description says she is working the job full time and she is 26. I met Willen when she was 28 and then she was working for an advice columnist named Amy Alkon full time. But, let's give Willen the benefit of the doubt and assume she worked fulltime at that job at some point.
Let's just explore the other careers she planned to write about for the now mysteriously missing memoir.
This leads us to the dooziest doozy of them all.
Let's take a look what she says about her jobs in just the Mcsweeney's column. It was a 19 part column.And by all indications Willen forgets the lies she's spouted just a few columns previous.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-19-im-here
I spent two years, working on a popular reality show. I made my way up from a lowly Production Assistant to an Associate Producer, but I quit the day Deb from clearance started decorating the office window with Halloween decals a month in advance. It wasn’t the fact she was covering up our only natural light source with pumpkins that felt so suffocating, it was the sudden realization that there was no light at this job for me. I didn’t want to become a producer.
I spent two years, working on a popular reality show. I made my way up from a lowly Production Assistant to an Associate Producer, but I quit the day Deb from clearance started decorating the office window with Halloween decals a month in advance. It wasn’t the fact she was covering up our only natural light source with pumpkins that felt so suffocating, it was the sudden realization that there was no light at this job for me. I didn’t want to become a producer.
Note: So rose to associate producer but quit cause didn't want to be producer. Rather work as a loss specialist or as an assistant to Amy Alkon(who she despised.)????
Let us flash back to 10 columns before:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-9-the-balloon-bottom-epoch
Let us flash back to 10 columns before:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-9-the-balloon-bottom-epoch
Five years earlier, I was working on a popular reality show.
Before the holiday break, the executive producer pulled me into his office and said to call him in January because he was moving to another show and wanted to bring me with him and make me a producer. I bragged about it to family and friends. I think I even bought a blazer. When I was back in Los Angeles, I called him but the line got all fuzzy when he answered.
“Hello? Hello?” He’d said. “HELL-O-O-O? Who is this?”
I told him it was me several times then hung up, and feeling nervous and embarrassed, waited a week before I rang him again. I called him from a laundromat because it seemed less scary to crowd the phone call with the sounds of strangers instead of the silence of my apartment and hope.
“Hi Todd, it’s me…”
“Hello? Who? I can’t hear you. Hello?”
The line crackled and got fuzzy, so I hung up and never called him again. I convinced myself he had changed his mind about me. But quite possibly the only reason I’m not a reality TV producer right now is because of bad phone reception. I think I’d hate being a reality producer, though. I’d rather have the freedom to document people’s lives as I see them instead of getting network notes to cut and paste their thoughts, splice their boring humanity with B roll footage of them doing something dramatic.
So now it's this: Head honcho, Todd, noticed that same specialness that attracted that Talent manager and agent.Wanted to make her a producer. She naturally wanted it badly. Pursued it but Todd had no interest in giving it to her. She makes peace with that though cause you know she is on her way to a big fat book deal with Simon and Schuster. That is if they don't pay any attention to how her stories change and how very bad she is at lying. Mcsweeney's didn't catch it. Simon and Schuster didn't and probably wouldn't.....
More fabulistic Madness ensues - that time that Nick Kroll(whose family are big big funders to NPR) -- gets Willen a spot on NPR's This American Life. You can even tell that Ira Glass doesn't believe a word she is spouting.
Act Four. Underling Gets An Underling.
Ira Glass
Act 4, Underling Gets An Underling. This is the story of somebody in a job that sounds like the kind of thing that would be, sort of, exciting. Stef Willen worked on a bunch of reality TV shows, but she was a production assistant, a PA, which is the lowest rung on the ladder. She did a lot of emptying trash cans.
Stef Willen
I remember running around town with the weirdest lists of stuff to get, like toilet paper with a specific pattern on it. I've had one boss, she would do things like ask me to hang curtains in her office. And I was like, "Oh, but your wall is made of concrete." And she was like, "Oh, you can do it." You know? Stuff like that. I would be given these bizarre tasks, and if you didn't do them right, there was always this sense of are you stupid?
Ira Glass
And so the way understand it is that towards the end you came up with a plan. Can I ask you to just describe the plan that you came up with?
Stef Willen
I just thought it would be hilarious if I came in the next day with an eager young person who was my production assistant.
Ira Glass
Oh. So you would be a PA and you would have your own PA.
Stef Willen
Exactly. Which is really unnecessary. It's a gopher with a gopher, so I don't know. I wanted to make a point. It'd just be like a little sweet revenge, you know?
Ira Glass
Right.
Stef Willen
I don't know.
Ira Glass
No. No. I understand. You'd be upsetting the natural order.
Stef Willen
Right. Totally. It's like, if you can get someone under you, it's simple math, but you are not at the bottom. I just knew that I was somehow taking control over what was happening in my life if I could put someone just right under me.
Ira Glass
So, OK. So you're a PA hiring a PA. How'd you go about it?
Stef Willen
I wrote up a Craigslist seeking a production assistant on a popular reality TV show. For the ability, I said must possess a medium work ethic, the ability to take out trash, and then sit for hours and work for free. And 21 people responded. 21 people. I was amazed.
I ended up going with this guy, I'll call him Adam. It was interesting, I hired him because I actually felt like he might be slightly delinquent. When we had our, quote, unquote, "interview," he never turned down his car radio. And it was that kind of thing. And I'm like, OK. Well, we're going to meet at the coffee shop and we're going to drive to set. "OK." I'm like, "Do you want to get out a pen and a paper and write this down?" "Oh, OK."
Ira Glass
Oh, wow. So he's really a real beginner. Like, he really was not necessarily ready for the responsibility of a--
Stef Willen
Of a phone conversation.
Ira Glass
Yeah. Or a job.
Stef Willen
Yeah. I met him at a coffee shop. And he was this nice looking young guy. And he was wearing this argyle sweater and this scarf and a beret. And I was like, "Oh, my gosh. What did I just do?"
Ira Glass
A beret?
Stef Willen
A beret. Yeah. He followed me in his car to set, and I was getting a little nervous because I actually hadn't planned anything past this point. The first person we see is the line producer, and she was frantic, as always. You know, "Come on. Come on. We've got a big day. We've got to get going." And I said, "Oh, well you'll be glad to know I have some help. This is Adam, and he is my production assistant for today." And she just sort of stopped and looked at me. And she goes, "Well, good. We need the extra help." And there was no Stef is a genius. Or, oh look what Steff did. It was, literally, like oh, thank you. Oh, we need the help. How did you get him to work for free?
Ira Glass
And so you did introduce him to your bosses?
Stef Willen
Yeah. I introduced him to everybody. I mean, I don't know why I thought that they would learn something from it, but I totally underestimated I guess, the joke, but also their need for workers. They were in production mode. They're not stopping to look at what I'm trying to say. They're like, OK. Well, we're 10 minutes behind. We can use Adam over here in hair and makeup.
Ira Glass
So you were hoping that they would get the lesson of, you see, this whole system you have is so arbitrary? And, we're not just cogs in a machine. Like, I could be a boss. And the lesson they took was not only are you all cogs in a machine, but you're such a cog, we can't even see that you're talking. Like you're not even an animal making noise here. Like, OK. Now, hand me that other animal over there.
Stef Willen
Yeah. Exactly. It's like, oh, two cogs for one. Awesome. We'll take this one, you know? I went from his boss to his sidekick to, I don't know, his buddy? I'd be like, oh, I got this trash can. So it would be really gross and disgusting, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to mess up his scarf. I made sure he ate first. Like, he got his lunch before me.
At one point, we were all sitting around the table. We'd been sitting staring at each other for about two hours, because they were filming, with nothing to do. And I looked over at Adam, and he had taken his beret off and it was on his knee. And he was, sort of, slouched down, and he was moving M&M's across his plate, one by one, with his index finger. And I think he said, "I have never not done anything for this long a time." And I was like, "Well, you know, it did say in my ad the ability to sit for hours." And he laughed.
But shortly after, I told him to go. I was like, "Well, you know, you did a great job today. Definitely send me your resume." He kept in touch, like, he would email, do you know so-and-so? Or just little questions, you know? And then, at one point, he stopped asking me questions. And I got this text from him at 8:26 AM, and it said, "I want you." Period. "I want your body." Period. "Right now." Period. And I was like, OK.
Ira Glass
What did that say to you?
Stef Willen
That he had not taken me seriously at all.
Ira Glass
So you got him into your life because nobody else took you seriously, and then even he doesn't take you seriously.
Stef Willen
Right. It just, sort of, made me laugh. I thought, OK. Well, he wants my body right now, which, 8:26 AM, that wasn't a good time for me.
Ira Glass
Stef Willen, she has quit her PA jobs. She starred in the independent film, M, which won last year's Seattle International Film Festival, and she's writing a book.
NUMBER 1. There was no Adam and no beret! OMG
it's now many reality shows she is claiming. when I knew her she never told me about one show and we talked about reality shows so that's a very bizarre omission. Also, none of this reads as remotely realistic or true.in general. Not just cause it has the ring of untruth, but because if you knew Willen she just is no fun prankster. She would never do what she is telling Ira Glass.
So much in that Mcsweeney's column also rings so false. I could show that in spades, but I just hope there is no longer need to.
This part in that piece does however ring true to the kind of sick puppy that I saw in action.
Ira Glass
No. No. I understand. You'd be upsetting the natural order
Willen: Right. Totally. It's like, if you can get someone under you, it's simple math, but you are not at the bottom. I just knew that I was somehow taking control over what was happening in my life if I could put someone just right under me.
