The harrowing list of accusations against acclaimed indie poet Gregory Sherl, whose recent debut novel drew warm praise from the Washington Post and fourth-wave feminist Roxane Gay, has gone unchallenged—and largely unheeded—for nearly 10 months.
It was in January, when Sherl was crowdfunding an inpatient treatment for what was characterized as obsessive-compulsive disorder, that writer Kat Dixon first felt the need to speak out. “DO NOT SUPPORT GREGORY SHERL,” she wrote on her blog:
Poet Gregory Sherl is the subject of this fundraiser seeking $10,000 from donations. Gregory Sherl is a known abuser of women. I lived with Sherl for the better part of a year and endured constant physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I later learned that I was not the first (nor the last) to be victimized by Sherl. PLEASE help me in sending the message that ABUSE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE by REPORTING THIS FUNDRAISER, REFUSING TO CONTRIBUTE, and SHARING THIS MESSAGE.
Commenters alluded to similar histories with Sherl, and soon enough, QuaintMagazine editor Kia Groom joined Dixon’s grassroots campaign—which also encompassed a relief fund for abuse victims—with an essay on her destructive long-distance relationship with him.
[T]he psychological abuse was intense. It was very real. I exited that relationship very hurt, very broken. He completely demoralized me, ground me down, and submitted me to what I can only describe as severe psychological torture. The specifics are not important, in my view, but I felt it was important to add my voice to Kat Dixon’s. If Gregory Sherl could make me attempt to slit my wrists in a bath tub from thousands of miles away, I can only imagine what he would have been like to live with.
A “Helen Power” commented on this piece, saying that she had watched her daughter endure similar abuse from Sherl while enrolled in an MFA program in New Orleans:
It was a particularly bleak experience to watch her suffering as a result of this callous and cruel individual’s psychological abuse. As a mother, I suffered too, watching my much-loved daughter begin to doubt herself, her future plans, her very existence, as this vile piece of human-kind manipulated her mind and made her feel worthless.
Groom and another woman, Donora Hillard, had initially leveled claims against Sherl in a comment thread on an HTMLGIANT post about Dixon’s rallying cry, reported Dena Rash Guzman in Luna Luna Magazine at the end of that month. Writer Ryan Bradley launched a petition aimed at convincing the Good Men Project to delete posts by Sherl, who had contributed to the site through 2012 and often wrote about his romantic life. Here’s an excerpt from one of his final entries, “I’d Tell a Joke Here, but I’ve Got Nothing”:
Out of the shower I run my new book idea by Elizabeth. First, I tell Elizabeth, I need the names and addresses of all the men you touched below the waist. In my mind I have already rented a car, bought a tape recorder that fits in the breast pocket of the new black T-shirts I have also bought, some Clif Bars for energy. A chapter for every guy, a monetary reason for me to think the things I think. Epic, I tell her. We’ll be rich or at the very least, not nearly so poor. My beautiful future wife says, You can have a book or a marriage. And this is the end of that conversation.
Bradley scrounged together 136 signatures—64 short of his goal. At least two small presses made public statements about dropping Sherl’s books. Then: nothing. Gene Morgan became managing editor of HTMLGIANT in late February and labeled Kat Dixon a troll for raising the issue of rape in the ensuing comment thread; in an April interview on Hobart, another literary site, writers Elizabeth Ellen and Juliet Escoria concurred with that assessment. Ellen had this to say about Sherl’s case, then already fading from view:
i found myself wanting to defend him from the public stone throwing because from what i know, he's not guilty of the charges. he’s gulity [sic] of other things, like being (questionably) a douchebag, but...i can't get into details. but...we have to admit that what is public ‘knowledge’ is public ‘gossip.’ to cancel someone's book based on gossip? idk, man. that just seems really really wrong to me. and i refuse to align myself with this sort of...public shaming based on hearsay. and i think that makes me a ‘bad feminist (shout-out to roxane).’ lol. or something.
Summer came, and Sherl’s new book, The Future for Curious People, rolled toward publication without any apparent obstacle. Then, in August, poet Sarah Certa, one of Sherl’s ex-fiancées, came forward. Writing for HTMLGIANT, she identified herself as the organizer of the OCD fundraiser that sparked the first flurry of abuse claims and thanked Dixon for speaking out at the time. Dixon’s persistence despite the backlash, Certa said, gave her the strength to finally break free of Sherl’s emotional manipulations.
With October’s arrival, the alt lit (or “alternative literature”) bubble was rocked by rape allegations against novelist Tao Lin and Stephen Tully Dierks, editor of Pop Serial. This prompted reply from all of the websites mentioned above—Kia Groom reiterated her experience in a Quaint article on the death of the scene, while Hobart ran a bewildering essay by Ellen, later demolished by the Toast’s Mallory Ortberg.
Ellen’s pseudo-defense of the men accused in the scandal elicted an open letter from Certa, who had continued to add details to her own story. She had been engaged to Sherl “up until May 31st” of 2014, she wrote, and none of what Dixon had said about him shocked her:
I can also tell you that during my relationship with Gregory I was emotionally, psychologically, and sexually abused by him. I can tell you that I was raped on more than one occasion. And that should be enough. But over and over I see victims of rape and sexual abuse have the legitimacy of their claims questioned. People demand details. Context. Evidence. Proof. This is problematic for many reasons that to even think about addressing the issue makes my head spin. But at this point, on behalf of all the victims who continue to be silenced, questioned, and criticized, to say something is to further resist oppression.
Later that month, Certa wrote an email to both an editor and a reviewer at Oprah.com, which had selected The Future for Curious People—a sci-fi novel in which matchmaking technology can also predict the outcome of a couple’s romance—as a featured book for November. She urged them not to enable the success of a “serial abuser.” With no answer forthcoming, she mounted a new petition, which also took publisher Algonquin Books to task for failing to pay their promised lip service to victims of domestic abuse:
The publishers, Algonquin Books, as well as the co-author, Julianna Baggott, [and the agent, Nat Sobel] are well aware of [Sherl’s] enacted violence against women. When I first spoke up in the summer they told me, via phone call, that they would make a statement acknowledging the suffering of the women who have been abused by Sherl. But a statement never came, and it pains me to see his book continue to be promoted, especially since he preys on women who admire his literary work.
In an email to the Daily Dot, Certa outlined her interactions with Algonquin further:
Algonquin Books knew about the allegations as soon as they came out—I was still dating Gregory at the time, and no one at Algonquin seemed to question whether or not they could be true. I mean, they didn't question Greg and they certainly didn't ask me anything except to make sure he would be on time for his conference calls. He just told everyone the allegations weren't true, that (also like [Jian] Ghomeshi), Kat Dixon was a crazy ex-girlfriend who’d been waiting for an opportunity to bring a smear campaign against him. This is the classic defense of many abusers, and anytime we hear this defense we need to recognize it as the red flag that it is. Julianna Baggott, Greg's co-author for the novel, as well as Nat Sobel, Greg’s literary agent, also knew about the allegations as soon as they came out. As far as I know Nat Sobel dismissed them without much thought, saying, “there are two sides to every story,” and when Greg pitched an idea for a memoir on having been cyber-bullied (because of course that's how Greg interpreted the allegations, since he is always the victim, since he is never responsible for his actions)—Nat and Julianna both loved the idea.
Certa and Dixon are now working in tandem to thwart Sherl’s career. Both continue to write about him, and Dixon has even taken the fight to Amazon, where she argued with a reviewer who said that he had Googled Sherl’s name and found only “a really high-quality catalogue of writing”—a dubious assertion, as Dixon’s January post about him is currently Sherl’s top-ranked search result.
In a separate email to the Daily Dot, Dixon made the case that it’s irresponsible to divide Sherl’s actions from his work, as one has everything to do with the other.
What Greg did to me, well, is something I'd prefer no one ever have to experience, and the literary community, in all its insularity, is particularly inclined to foster this sort of behavior—or, at the very least, to shut down discussion of it under the guise of some grand separation between so-called art and artist. In the case of Greg, who exploits his relationships for his work and uses his professional status to prey on women, allowing this false separation comes at a detriment to all women, and it sends the message that the lives of the women he has already victimized are of lesser value than his final product. Speaking personally, I am unfortunately aware of the ways in which the horrific abuses I suffered didn't end when the relationship did. Greg went on to write and publish Monogamy Songs, which re-detailed our relationship—and me—from his perspective, the same perspective he'd used to gaslight me for months. It, of course, contained no mention of abuse, and he was again able to present himself as this mystic victim of love.
Certa said that the petition and general push for industry acknowledgement became necessary when Oprah.com deleted comments advising readers to research Sherl’s past. “[I]t’s true that three small presses immediately dropped his books, publicly cutting their ties with him and standing in solidarity with the women who had spoken up,” she wrote. “This is what we need to see on a larger scale, but of course on a larger scale we run into even more problems—capitalism, the prevalence of rape culture, patriarchal beliefs and attitudes that the public at large continues to enforce, as opposed to dismantle. Money, business contracts, and company reputations have higher value than the lives of women.”
“Sarah has been very concerned that [The Future for Curious People’s] marketing to women, and endorsements from O Magazine and Roxane Gay, have and will continue to allow Greg more opportunities to find and victimize a greater number of women,” Dixon added. “I have to agree. These endorsements are hypocritical, at best, as they blatantly support a perpetrator outed by numerous women, and at worst, they create a greater risk for the women who may one day fall within Greg's sight line.”
Gay, for her part, bristled at the notion that she might be blamed for Sherl’s future actions. “I am just rather frustrated by the narrowness of this. I abhor this situation but a lot of responsibility is unfairly being placed on my shoulders,” she wrote in an email to the Daily Dot. Although she and Sherl moved in the same circles for years—she favorably reviewed Heavy Petting, a collection of his poetry—she noted that she has vigorously denounced him on Twitter and her blog. The blurb, she explained, was a matter of bad timing:
[Sherl’s] violent, physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive treatment of women is absolutely unacceptable. My heart breaks for the women who had to endure his abuse. I blurbed his novel because his co-writer, Julianna Baggott approached me and I am a big fan of her work. I had, previously, also admired Sherl's work. And then, after the blurb was turned in, the allegations began coming out. As a survivor, as a feminist, as a human being, it was sickening to know my words were out there, endorsing a book by a writer capable of such cruelty. Unfortunately, I cannot undo the blurb. I cannot turn back time. It has been frustrating that a blurb for a book that received little notice of any kind (and rightly so given the allegations facing Sherl; the market reacted accordingly), has now been assigned a disproportionate amount of influence. Because I haven't publicly performed my outrage on this issue in the exact way those involved would like, I have been accused of all sorts of things.
I blurbed that book before the allegations came out. I wish I could take it back but I can't. @aziadupont
— Roxane Gay (@rgay) October 10, 2014
You didn't give me the benefit of the doubt. You just made a flagrant statement because…. what? It's fine, whatever but still @aziadupont
— Roxane Gay (@rgay) October 10, 2014“I highly doubt my blurb will draw more women into Sherl's orbit and it is irresponsible and unfair to suggest so,” Gay concluded. “The only person responsible for drawing women into Gregory Sherl's orbit is Gregory Sherl.”
When asked how Sherl has continued to thrive professionally with so many people allied against him, Certa was blunt: “[P]artly because of his ability to manipulate others,” she wrote. “He is incredibly intelligent, charming, and knows exactly what people want to hear. He is always one step ahead of everyone else, often positioning himself as a victim of mental illness and passion only to then turn on those who empathize with him.” But Certa also laid blame upon “a system that enables him to do what he does for as long as he does without ever facing consequences or being held accountable for his actions.”
Dixon had more to say on that score:
From the time I first began speaking out until now, I've received the same kind of responses: it's no one's business but my own; this isn't the appropriate time/place to discuss this; what happens behind closed doors is unknowable; it's too easy to call out men on the Internet—thus more likely that I'm a liar; Greg is the real victim for having his reputation tarnished, etc. Greg has the privileges all male perpetrators have: his word (even if it’s a silent one) counts more than mine. His word counts more than even a number of women relaying similar stories. No matter how intimately I detail my experiences, he will always be given the benefit of the doubt, and as such, Sarah and I (and other women who have or might one day speak out publicly), are not. The literary community, in particular, is quick to make young male idols and very hard pressed to let them fall.
Does the pair expect a response from Algonquin or the Oprah empire? “To be honest, I don't,” Certa wrote. “Not any time soon. Not until more media outlets pick up this story and the pressure gets higher. It is slow work, it is hard work, but most important work is. I often say, ‘If you are working for women's rights and you are not mostly miserable, then you're probably not working hard enough.’”
Sherl did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication. When we called the office of Nat Sobel, who currently represents Sherl, we were informed that he was traveling and unavailable for the next week. No one else at his literary agency, Sobel Weber Associates, was able or willing to comment further.
Photo by Sean McGrath/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)