Last week, the London Review of Books (LRB) revealed that our Dear Leader is the likely author of the celebrated series of Doppelganger novels that began with the seminal classic, Decorating the Dome. Since 1981, this legacy of inspiring novels has chronicled the challenged, yet ultimately triumphant lives of a southern family who overcame hardship to return to their aristocratic roots.

Written under the pen name, R. J. Williams, the Doppelganger series is considered by critics as one of the finest examples of Southern Gothic noir ever created. Rivaling the Harry Potter series in sales and vastly more advanced in their character development, the true creator of this oeuvre has long bedeviled literary historians who suspected authorship ranging from the late Gore Vidal to even President Obama.

But it was a placemat from the Gryphondor Tea Room at the Savannah College of Art and Design recently uncovered in the British Museum that pointed to Doppelganger’s origins in the low country of Georgia.

Researchers noted a chapter outline written in a Mont Blanc fountain pen ink that, throughout the 1980s, could only have been purchased at the Gilded Age pen shop on Madison Avenue in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Further research pointed to Dear Leader’s secret authorship.” Literary investigators, using American Express card spending histories and, of course, the tea room name on the placemat itself, traced the elite ink buyer to a Platinum (now Black Card) holder, Dear Leader.

“I am thunderstruck by this rumor,” said Dear Tik, the son of SCAD’s Dear Leader. “But given the hopeful and artistic way that my sister and I were raised by mom in an attic of a ramshackle house at the Landings, I can believe it just might be true. My sister and I grew up on a teacher’s income but we were open to the world.”

Mr. Glen Angora, a former SCAD interior design student and now a long-time ‘partner’ of Dear Leader is also a possible believer. “It is highly typical of Dear Leader to write with such brilliance and to never take the credit for herself.” Indeed, this much-honored president of the world’s largest and most profitable arts university has long been considered a pedagogical visionary who limited her writings to SCADentolology™, the mystic path to artistic success and wealth that she discovered during a meditation retreat in France during her youth.

Dear Leader has published a few popular books on the fashion industry and on the social life of southern porches. But, her purported authorship of the Doppelganger series has shaken the literary world. It is rumored that the millions of dollars in royalties have been returned directly to SCAD and its new storefront outlet brand, SCADlite™.

The SCAD administration did not respond to reporters’ phone calls concerning the authorship question. But, off the record, many top administrators were not surprised by the connection between literary genius and the modesty of anonymity—implying that they have seen such wonders from Dear Leader many times over the years.

From her porch at The Landings, Dear Leader said that she had never read the Doppelganger series but was flattered that critics might somehow connect it with her.  She encouraged all members of the SCAD community to read books. “The highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on www.SCADSECRETS.com are parodies.  All content on www.SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a University of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way.