In 2024, almost exactly two years ago, Los Angeles writer and The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker author Jack Skelley co-hosted a Valentine’s Day event called “House of Pies” at the Los Angeles Review of Books office in Koreatown.

“It was just a poetry reading,” a former LARB editor told me. “But it’s LA and, you know, 90% of the poets are sex workers and strippers.” That included Jack’s event co-host Lily Lady, a multidisciplinary artist and writer.

According to those familiar with the situation, this is the IG story that made then newly-installed LARB editor-in-chief Medaya Ocher lose it. “Medaya called an all-staff meeting,” one former editor tells me. “And she was like, ‘This is inappropriate, it’s disgusting. It’s demeaning.’ And we were all like openly like, what the fuck are you talking about? This is an arts organization.” They say Medaya objected to LARB being associated with “prostitution or sex work.”

The main target of Medaya’s ire was then-managing editor Chloe Watlington, who told others in the office that she had received dozens of frantic texts from Medaya over the weekend. According to a former employee, Medaya and executive director Irene Yoon called Chloe in for a meeting and then fired her.

But the former employees claim Chloe’s firing wasn’t about the pie-sit. What got Chloe fired, they say, had far more to do with a pattern of workplace aggression, wage exploitation, and clashes over how the outlet covered the genocide in Gaza.