Part of a series: Cassie Edwards 1: The First Post | Cassie Edwards 2: Savage Longings | Cassie Edwards Part 3: Running Fox | Cassie Edwards Part 4: Savage Moon | Cassie Edwards Part 5: Savage Beloved | Follow-up: Penguin (Part 1?) | Official Statement from Signet | AP Article Contains Response from Edwards | RWA Responds to Allegations | A centralized document for the Cassie Edwards situation | Updated Statement from Signet | The NY Times Art Section Story | Cassie Edwards: Remarkable Similarities to Laughing Boy
Update! Thanks to Raj and Gemma, I now have included more complete quotes from Laughing Boy. The table below has been updated accordingly. All Hail Amazon.com Previews!
When Amy, one of our readers, contacted us and volunteered to check some Cassie Edwards novels for us, I said “Sure!” and expected more examples that have been typical to the pattern: passages lifted from old ethnographies or Native American memoirs, with scattered instances of wildlife articles from conservation organizations or encyclopedias. Several other readers have volunteered to look at various Cassie Edwards novels, and I was going to compile these instances into the PDF I’d created to document everything, and update the PDF without creating any new posts, because really, we’ve made our point: the instances are widespread and egregious, and people who aren’t interested in tracking this closely don’t need to have their faces rubbed with blow-by-blow updates.
What I didn’t expect in my inbox last night was a comparison from Amy detailing the similarities between passages in Savage Dream and Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge.
Laughing Boy, unlike the other works, is not an ethnography, academic book or memoir. Laughing Boy is not only still under copyright, it is a fictional novel published in 1929, winning the Pulitzer in 1930.
This, in my opinion, drives the sheer wrongness of what happened to new heights. Using passages, word-for-word, of research material still isn’t a good thing by a long shot, but I can understand somebody being confused about the protocols of how much to acknowledge in a work of fiction. Using descriptive passages from another work of fiction, however, changes the tenor entirely. I talked to Sarah about posting this—I was very leery of driving the point into the ground when it’s been made with ample clarity—and we both agreed it was a different thing than the multitudes of other instances we’ve found, and that this deserved its own post.
Below is the table Amy compiled, comparing Savage Dream with Laughing Boy. I’m not bothering to include the reference works used in Savage Dream; I’ll be updating the PDF in a few hours and you can just look at that. I want to focus on the fact that this particular instances involves a work of fiction, and how it changes the tenor of the situation in a fundamental way.
| Savage Dream (2003, ISBN 0-7862-5881-0, Thorndike Press [Large print edition]. First published 1990, Dorchester) | Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge (2004, ISBN 0618446729, Houghton Mifflin) |
| At first light the desert is intimate, and somehow Shadow felt the presence of others as an intrusion this morning. …the blinding light of full day had not yet supplanted the soft greys of dawn, the uncertain forms and shapes of the cliffs had not yet become harsh with daylight, and the canyons were still soft with wells of coolness. The world was a secret place to each man… p. 59 …and then rode into a canyon, its cliffs harsh by daylight, yet looming soft with coolness. |
At the first light, before dawn, the desert is intimate, and each man feels the presence of others as an intrusion. Blinding colour has not supplanted soft greys, uncertain forms; cliffs harsh by daylight, and thunderous-walled cañons loom soft with wells of coolness. The east is white—mother-of-pearl—the world is secret to each one’s self. p. 42 |
| Little and compact, he was like an arrow notched to a taut bowstring. A movement of the hand would send him flying swiftly to a mark. p. 61 |
Little, compact, all black save for the tiny white spot on her forehead, she had the ugly Roman nose of character. She was like an arrow notched to a taut bowstring—a movement of the hand would release level flight swiftly to a mark. p. 4 |
| Shadow gazed with admiration at Racer, at his sleek, gleaming haunches, the bunched muscles at the juncture of his shoulder and chest, the ripple of light and shadow on his withers, his arched neck and smooth head, and the character and intelligence of his eyes. p. 60-61 |
The chestnut stallion was coming into its strength, gleaming, round quarters, bunched muscles at the juncture of the throat and chest, a ripple of highlight and shadow on the withers, arched neck, pricked small Arab ears, bony head, eyes and nostrils of character and intelligence. p. 157 |
| As the insides of Shadow’s calves touched his horse’s barrel, he felt a current run through them and felt at peace with himself…at home. He was a skilled horseman, having spent half of his waking hours on a horse’s back. Not even the longest day of riding had ever destroyed his pleasure in the mile-eating lope of his stallion. p. 61-62 |
Her man was a Navajo and a horseman; when he settled in the saddle, as the sides of his calves touched his pony’s barrel, and he felt the one current run through them, there was always that little look of uplift. Probably half of his waking life had been spent on a horse’s back, but not the longest day could destroy in him a certain pleasure in even the workaday jog or mechanical, mile-eating lope of a good pony. p. 93 |
| …Shadow swung himself into his high-cantled Navaho saddle with its seat of stamped leather held together with silver nails and draped with a dyed goatskin. p. 61 |
The high-cantled navajo saddle he had made for her, with its seat of slung leather over which a dyed goatskin was thrown… p. 93 |
| Beyond were red-brown cliffs, dull orange bald rock, and yellow sand, leading away to blend into a kind of purplish brown with hazy blue mountains for background. p. 63 |
Beyond its level were red-brown cliffs, dull orange bald-rock, yellow sand, leading away to blend into a kind of purplish brown with blue clouds of mountains for background. p. 115 |
| Looking up, he saw magnificent dark firs growing along the ledges. Up there, the ruddy rock, touched by sunlight, became dull orange and buff with flecks of gold and a golden line where the earth met a cloudless sky. p. 63 |
Looking up, one saw magnificent, dark firs growing along the ledges and hanging valleys. Up there, the ruddy rock, touched by the sunlight, became dull orange and buff, with flecks of gold, and a golden line where it met a …” (free Google preview ended here) p. 96 Amazon.com Previews has the following text listed on Page 96: |
| It was now late afternoon and sandy dust was rising from the trail in clouds. p. 87 |
Midday was warm, sandy dust rose from the trail in clouds. p. 157 |
| He had brought her to a high place after a fatiguing, scrambling climb, alleviated by the increasing growth of jack pine and spruce. They were following a winding path under firs; warm golden cliffs, painted with red and purplish brown and luminous shadows, loomed straight ahead. p. 89 |
Now they were come among warm, golden cliffs, painted with red and purplish brown and luminous shadows, a broken country that changed with the changing sun, narrow canons, great mesas, yellow sands, and distant, blue mountains. p. 95 [also, the “fatiguing, scrambling climb” “jack pine and spruce” and “wandering path under firs” bits get a Google hit with Laughing Boy p. 96, but it is unavailable for view.] Amazon.com Previews has the following text listed on Page 96: |
| Below, the world was red in late afternoon sunlight where fierce, narrow canyons were ribboned with shadow and the lesser hills were streaked with opaque purple shadows like deep holes in the world. p. 89 |
Amazon.com Previews has the following text listed on Page 96: It was red in the late sunlight, fierce, narrow canons with ribbons of shadow, broad valleys and lesser hills streaked with purple opaque shadows like deep holes in the world, cast by the upthrust mesas. (Linking not possible, but go to this link and search for “purple opaque shadows” to confirm this finding.) |
| There was shade and peace and coolness with a sweet smell of dampness. p. 89 |
Here was all shade and peace, soft, grey stone, dark, shadowed green, coolness, and the sweet smell of dampness. p. 19 |
| Along the cliff was a long ledge, with the rock above it rising in a concave shell of light reflected under shadow. p. 89 |
Along the north cliff was a long ledge, with the rock above it rising in a concave shell of light reflected under shadow. p. 101 |
| The world was full of the roar of hooves. The saddles and bridles were heavy with silver and brass as the Navaho leaned forward over their steeds’ necks, shrieking “E-e-e-e!” … p. 108 The world became full of a roar of hooves and noise rushing together, the boys leaning forward over their horses’ necks, their mouths wide as they shouted, “E-e-e-e”! |
The world was full of a roar of hooves and two walls of noise rushing together, the men leaning forward over their horses’ necks, mouths wide. “Eeeee!” p. 3 |
| Charging Falcon staked his horse out where uncropped spears of grass stood singly, each inches from the next, in brown sand. A beaten track toward an oak tree and a break in the rock caught his eye. He followed it. Behind the oak, currant bushes grew in a niche of red rock, like a fold in a giant curtain. At the back was a full grown, lofty fir tree. Behind the tree a cleft opened at shoulder height into dark shadow. The footholds were worn to velvety roundness. p. 201 |
Laughing Boy took the horses down to the windmill for water, and staked them out in a corner where uncropped spears of grass stood singly, each inches from the next, in brown sand. A beaten track toward an oak tree and a break in the rock caught his eye. A spring, perhaps. He followed it. Behind the oak, currant bushes grew hi a niche of red rock like the fold of a giant curtain. At the back was a full-grown, lofty fir. A spring, surely. Behind the fir a cleft opened at shoulder height into transparent shadow. The footholds were worn to velvety roundness in the sandstone… p. 18 |
| They met in a great swirl of plunging, dodging horses and swept on, all together, whooping for dear life, with some holding lances, others grasping shields. p. 229 |
They met in a great swirl of plunging, dodging horses, and swept on all together, whooping for dear life, with the staff in front of them, almost onto the …[preview ended here] p. 3 |
| Silver and stones with soft highlights and deep shadows hung around her neck, glowing against her buckskin dress. Oval plaques of silver surrounded her waist; ceremonial jewels were sewn in the fringes of a sash that was draped across one shoulder. She wore moccasins with silver buttons shining at their sides. p. 472 |
She was well dressed to show off what she wore; silver and stones with soft highlights and deep shadows glowed against the night-blue velveteen of her blouse; oval plaques of silver were at her waist, and ceremonial jewels in the fringe of her sash. Her blue skirt swung with her short, calculated steps, ankle-length, above the dull red leggings and moccasins with silver buttons. p. 6 |
| Maria blushed when two small naked boys brought ears of roasted corn on a wooden platter … Several women came and placed broiled goats’ ribs and corn bread before them. p. 474 |
Where they went, they reclined on sheepskins, while two small naked boys brought ears of corn as they were roasted, and calm women set broiled goats’ ribs and corn bread before them. p. 12 |
Lynne,
I agree about the English names. That certainly did happen, and still happens. My fiance is Navajo, and some of his relatives use an English surname, and some do not. That said, her relatives are listed as white on the census records. I have been looking through the available tribal rolls, but have not yet found any of her ancestors listed on any of them, assuming I have the right ancestors.
What Lynne says is true about Sir names. The two most common last names of the Catawbaw (local tribe to my area) are Harris and Brown. Nearer to the sandhills if your name is Oxendine people will assume you’re Native Amercian.
The comment about Ms. Edwards’ meticulous research appears to be true—what is at issue is whether she accurately attributed that research when quoting directly.
As for Oliver LaFarge’s “Laughing Boy”, I had to read it in 8th grade many (many) years ago. I grew up in Arizona at a time when young people from various tribes were still brought to a boarding school in Phoenix (on Indian School Road) in an effort to “americanize” them. The book made a big impact on me, in part because it took place so close to where I lived but mostly because it presented a portrait of the Navajo as a different culture that neither demonized nor romanticized it. However, I’ve no idea how I’d react today.
To what extent is CE’s copious plagiarism tied up with her limitations as a writer? Is there a correlation between the two? Should this have been discovered sooner – before her hundredth book? How culpable are CE’s editors/ publishers? Does the fact that CE’s novels were left alone by credible reviewers/ critics account for why this went undetected for so long?
These are some of the questions I want answered. I truly don’t want to whap on Edwards, or participate in a witch-hunt, but perhaps my curiousity is leading me into that territory.
Well, I just found a passage in Passion’s Embrace—was that her only Harlequin Historical? It’s from Green Timber: On the Flood Tide to Fortune in the Great Northwest By Thomas Emerson Ripley Published 1968. American West Publishing Company, Tacoma, WA. I’ll send the specifics just so someone doesn’t end up redoing it.
Could we please stop referring to all this as witch hunting? There are plenty of holier-than-thou genteel blogs doing exactly that, and frankly, when you have evidence up the wazoo, there ain’t no witch hunt.
/rant
OMG.
I didn’t think it could get any worse.
For one I didn’t believe that the “I didn’t know” plea was valid with regards to research. This just shows it’s “I don’t care” rather than “I didn’t know.” Intent verified (even though stealing is stealing no matter who you steal from fiction or non-fiction.)
Wonder what her husband will have to say about this to the media?
Holy hell. So who’s going to volunteer to read the Bible, to see if she lifted anything from that novel? ^_^
Oh, you betcha she knew. Move a word here and there, look up the thesarus, and so forth. Too not to be a sheer coincidence.
Christ on a fucking piece of toast.
Thank you, Candy and Sarah, for sticking with this. And kudos to everyone who’s slogging through an Edwards novel: your stomachs are stronger than mine.
My brother-in-law is 3/8 Cherokee. Does this give my sister or nephew any rights in the Indian romance genre? I’m sure my sister could use the extra money from publishing a book.
bible’s out of copywrite..unless she pulls it from some “new” translation LOL
All I can say is “my God.”
copyright.
Not that I’m defending CE here, because this is clearly a continual thing across many of her works. But in my personal experience, I once sat down to write a story and dreamed up this fantastic intro (which never got further than the intro)… only to learn, several years after that, that my first paragraph was nearly verbatim from someone else’s published work.
I had read the published work as a kid, and it came back to me almost word for word as a teen, *without* remembering I had ever read it. It was only when I purchased a book by an author I’d loved as a child – and not a book I remembered reading, either – that I discovered the source.
That could explain maybe one or two instances of “borrowing”. But this many? Come on.
Some of the issues that have been brought to light…
A) Do romance readers forgive too much from authors? (i.e. why has this been undetected for so long) Why? Is it some sort of syndrome not unlike reading bad fanfic on the internet?
B)Publishers must be held liable for plagiarism (including insuffecient paraphrasing and lack of reference) and copyright, even if it is between their own texts. Discuss.
C)A first-time published author must be put through training first, in order for them to fully appreciate the responsibilities and legalities of their position. Discuss.
D) The law of the land is insufficient to cover potential atrocities of publishing practices. Discuss.
Plagiarism is an ethical error. Repeated plagiarism may show moral deficiencies in the plagiarizer.
Plagiarizing from a Pulitzer winner is like juggling matches while standing on a powder keg. The question isn’t if the plagiarizer will be caught but when.
That’s all I’m going to say about this from now on. These alleged cases of plagiarism are making me sick to my stomach.
Warning Will Robinson…
Long freaking post…go to the P.S. for a short contribution…otherwise, I did warn you.
I’ve been reading and not commenting on this whole situation, feeling like my WTF pov had been covered, as well as wanting to think about why this bothered me so very much, because the ethics of it—while a compelling argument for my feeling of upset—does not seem to cover the amount of outrage and attention paid here and as well as within my internal debate team (Go Tigers! ‘Cause yes, they have a name).
Beware, Huge Side Note Ahead—(also, I think that ethics are something that few people make well thoughtout/verbalized/written down rules for within themselves…hence situational ethics…which can be seen as a type of ethical rule if you’re desperate…and yet it has become so much the norm that I suppose a person could indeed argue for sit. ethics as a choosen form of personal ethics)
Detour Over Now—
This was what I have come up with and what I offer to this community for mulling and/or disagreeing etc—it goes along with the “broken trust” idea that has cropped up in numerous posts…
CE has broken a rule of expected behavior, and not by accident but with intent (as todays bit of evidence shows). This is a BIG DEAL as it goes deeper then a question of ethical standards.
Here’s why I think whats I think,(not being a cultural anthropologist [english major—and yes, the grammar and sp here are bad, I save up for my papers—] I don’t have “authority” in the subject, er…outside of my own observations)so here it gos:
I think every person in a culture in any given situation has a reasonable expectation of behavior from those they are interacting with, and when someone breaks away from the expected behavior we (the culture) view it as being dangerous in some way, shape or form, especially if said break is done knowingly…(i.g. when a driver on the road does something like cut you off while speeding and you almost break a blood vessel while screaming “ASSJACK!!!”…its ‘cause he went against expectation and for that moment the whole world wasn’t safe because what that one person did was tell you anyone could break the rules at any time [of course, that could just be me]). CE’s break from our expectation of behavior is a break of the type of trust used to determine our understanding and even our perception of the world we move in.
To me and the Tigers (go team) the above is the essence of what has happened here when broken down; decloaked from the debate of legal definitions and ethical questions, this is the reason it has not been put away…I think we are all trying to reafirm what we understand to be behavior that is safe…behavior that allows any person to reasonabley expect that a stranger will treat you well, that a newspaper being read will tell the correct day and an approximation of a weather forcast,and that we will all move past eachother and along with eachother in such a way as to allow a relaxed stance in our own environment.
In short, CE has made all of our shoulders hunch up into our ears because she broke major trust by cutting us off on the highway, right where the SmartBitch interstate exchanges with the RomanceReader freeway.
This is why CE-isms will be the conversation until we feel safe again in our romance-reading-smartbitch-participating environment.
So, for all those who feel that this has been going on for long enough…I say Road Trip!…we should follow the detour signs until what she broke is rebuilt in this community, until we feel safe again.
P.S. “What endangered safety is this lady taking about, for Gods sake?” you ask…the way I see it, it is our investment into a form of lit. that has been looked at askew by all and the sundrey, which we have supported and held up and said “look, this has value and good writing and something to offer…and I’m not stupid for reading it, you are for dismissing it.” She has taken that and unraveled part of the new identity that romance lit and romance readers had begun to be seen in and, more importantly, identify themselves in. One does not f!ck with another’s identity, it just isn’t done.
Here endith my mini essay on shit I think. Tanks SBs for listening…it’s because you all make me feel safe to spout forth.
Can one of you tell me how you used google to find all these? I’d like to try it with another of Ann Rinaldi’s works of historical fiction for children. My email is debreese @ uiuc.edu.
Thanks,
Debbie
Uh-oh. I feel badly for everyone involved.
Wow…
Since anything I could think of has already been written, I just have a question of curiosity:
Have the Bitches made a decision about the question of repeated material across books with different publishers? Will it be included in the PDF and sent to the publishers with all the rest? I admit, it was the first thing I thought of when Candy brought it up. Like I said, just curious as to the answer.
http://mrsgiggles.braveblog.com/entry/30611
Mrs. Giggles is going soft and seems to think that Smart Bitches and Fandom_wank are connected. Or that Candy posted on fandom_wank.
My respect for Mrs. Giggles has plummted greatly.
Wowee wow wow.
Y’know, in all fairness, if she were a writer I read (which I don’t… but not for any personal reasons), I would probably forgive her a few lifts here and there… albeit if she actually CHANGED the words around and didn’t copy them verbatim. And even if she did.. well, if she was a NEW writer, just finding her groove, etc.. OKAY. I’ll even forgive her that.
But Holy Crap on a Cracker, Batman! The woman’s sold over like what, 100 books? And she hasn’t figured out you can’t copy everyone else’s homework? How can she possibly plead “I didn’t know…” when she’s supposedly a professional
WRITER
? What would she say, I wonder, if someone had lifted her words? Hmmm.. I suspect she’d be the first one on the bullhorn hollering she’d been plagiarized. But that’s just MHO…
Ok, now it’s just… I don’t know. Words fail me.
I held out the small ( tiny, if truth be told) hope that she really DIDN’T know she was doing wrong. This last revelation however blew that right out of the water. ( I am not a fan of hers, but I can’t help but to be hopeful that a well known, published author would somehow NOT have been doing this out of ignorance or worse yet- knowingly!)
I have a question for Candy &/or Sarah. Are you two expecting any feedback from the publisher(s) and RWA in regards to all this? Because I’d really like to hear how they rule when all of this is investigated/reviewed. Not that I wish ill will on the woman herself. But she’s done wrong, and must therefore face the consequences. IMHO.
Anna makes some good points. I’d like to give my take on why people seem to fall into two different camps on this topic.
I think a lot of the difference in reaction can be parsed back to the idea of the ‘sisterhood’ of romance readers.
Since we are continuously attacked, vilified or ridiculed for our reading choice, a knee-jerk reaction to yet another thing that opens us to further ridicule is to say, ‘Let’s not talk about it, because it will just give us another black eye’.
Many of us get frustrated with the idea of ‘sisterhood’ at all cost, because we are told not to voice our negative feelings about certain books or make negative reviews public, because ‘it hurts the authors’ feelings and these books are their babies’, and similar arguments.
This seems also where the ‘they demean us by calling themselves bitches’, ‘we don’t like them because they are mean’ feeling comes from since it’s considered ‘soiling our own nest’ and after all, don’t we get attacked enough without doing it to our own?
If we go further on the spectrum of the ‘sisterhood’, however, we come to the majority of posters here. Those are the ones who seem to me incensed on behalf of themselves and for all their sisters out there who have spent their hard-earned money – or if the anecdotal reports of CE’s readership being a majority of elderly ladies can be taken as correct – their hard-earned pensions, on something that is not original work.
Many also feel that the trust between author and reader has been broken, the ‘sisterhood’ has been violated, because this author lied to us.
These ‘sisters’ have moved away from the knee-jerk reaction of defense for defense’s sake and moved on to the concept of ‘we need to police our own, so we don’t get laughed at for reading romance any longer’.
I do know that the hope that one day we won’t have to justify our reading tastes is probably futile, but hey, most things in women’s evolution have been hard to come by (personal freedom, property ownership, voting rights, etc.).
So, the vast gap I see here between the different positions, does spring from the same root cause, the sense of ‘sisterhood’.
We just differ in where we see the betrayal in the sisterhood. By the author ‘sister’ who plagiarized or by the reader ‘sisters’ who didn’t stay in the fold of sticking together at all cost.
I wonder if we would see an age slant on this topic if we knew the age of posters her and elsewhere.
I have many more thoughts on this topic, but this was muddled enough. I just hope I made some of my reasoning clear.
Where’s The Fruitbat? My head just went ‘splodey.
I’m in (sarcasm)love(/sarcasm) with people who say, “I don’t read the meanies blog, but I agree with you, they are so mean!!!!” or words to that effect.
Hint: to state an opinion as fact you need to know whereof you speak.
Not that I know jackshit, since I’m myself am a meanie
GC you hit the nail on the head.
That’s exactly what’s happening on one of my main loops “It’s really bad, let’s drop it”, “Shhhh, it’s bad enough don’t say anything else”. It’s so frustrating! But what I think they don’t understand is that many will see silence as consent and if we don’t stand up and say it’s wrong that will only hurt us more.
I wonder if we would see an age slant on this topic if we knew the age of posters her and elsewhere.
I doubt if it would be age but I wonder about education or at least having been involved in some activity that required intellectual rigor. The women who taught me—and it was mostly women until I went for my professional degree—would be far older than CE now but they would not have tolerated this for a minute.
Anyone else remember the kerfuffle over the similarities between L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle (published 1920s, LMM died 1942) and Colleen McCullough’s The Ladies of Missalonghi (published 1980s)? I don’t remember hearing how or if that was resolved. The fact that they fall into genre/women’s/romantic fiction makes me wonder if it ever was (this being, of course, a lesser field of ‘litteracher and writting’ than Real and Important Fiction, ahem).
“I don’t remember hearing how or if that was resolved. The fact that they fall into genre/women’s/romantic fiction makes me wonder if it ever was”
These things often go unresolved, in any genre. Sometimes it’s just too hard to establish the connection legally. Sometimes there’s no reasonable remedy—the damage is done.
Then there’s all the fuzzy stuff, like the JK Rowling/Jane Yolen conflict, which is mostly about story structure; and Bob Mayer’s issue with the Lost TV series, which is of a similar magnitude but probably unactionable. The JK Rowling/Stouffer case, which has more specific details and sounds really bad depending which facts you look at:
However, the court ruled “Ms Stouffer lied to the court and doctored evidence to support her claims.”
Going along with GrowlyCub’s drift…let me know if I’m wrong GrowlyCub…
The definitions we use for ourselves (our “sisterhood” definitions)can be also be broken down into the sisterhood of: I choose a book—my choice is a reflextion of me—therefore the genre is a reflection and writers within the genre are as well—what does this mean when a writer is revealed to be unethical, one who has sold 100 bks to other romance readers…oh shit, betrayed stinks…sisterhood.
And then there is the reverse…the sisterhood of the writer; that a writer’s readership is a reflextion of the writer’s craft etc. On that note…how do authers feel when they have fans of the rabid/embarressing kind who go bizarro for the writer they adore, responding to this and that as if they represent the whole of that writer’s readership to the world at large?
I think sisterhoods are like overlapping circles, each person falling into as many ideas and groups as the ring of themselves passes through…you know, the whole “we are all linked” thing, which is why I think the CE raises so much ire…
And yes, I said it Chicagoland style—THE CE
I found this site only recently.
CE’s publishers had to know about her modus operandi (lifting from fiction and nonfiction sources). They’ve published over 100 books by this author.
If a couple smart bitches on a romance blog could uncover this why wasn’t it recognized by at least a few of the hundreds of editors who worked her copy over the past 20+ years? I’d bet my shoe collection they knew about it.
It would appear that the industry had an unwritten, ‘wink and look the other way’ code of ethics. Romance publishing is a business first, and CE was a brand they’d carefully nurtured, an investment they couldn’t risk.
RWA, as the premier advocate for romance authors, should have been on top of this years ago. Surely it had been brought to their attention. There are a few smart bitches over there. Needless to say I won’t be renewing my membership. The integrity of the genre is at stake, and now the best they can do is to issue a “gosh, we don’t know what to do here” statement.
I don’t know which is more disappointing—CE’s actions or the industry’s response.
There have been many good responses to Sarah Frantz’s question about why this (copying fiction) seems more egregious than copying non-fiction, but I’m going to add my 2 cents’ worth.
I think, isolated from other considerations, they are equally dishonest and upsetting. In this particular case, what makes the fiction copying more upsetting to discover is remembering that pitiful comment CE made to AP – ‘I thought I was doing research, I didn’t know I was supposed to include in-text citations,’ or whatever the statement was.
At the time, there was a tiny soupçon of credibility to that. Now, … well, words fail me.
wow wow wow
where can i get my hands on this pdf?
I would guess the next step is to try the same exercise with a dozen other prolific Romance writers – Find out whether this is a problem specific to this writer, or an industry wide issue.
CE’s publishers had to know about her modus operandi (lifting from fiction and nonfiction sources). They’ve published over 100 books by this author.
If a couple smart bitches on a romance blog could uncover this why wasn’t it recognized by at least a few of the hundreds of editors who worked her copy over the past 20+ years? I’d bet my shoe collection they knew about it.
I respectfully disagree. Candy and Sarah have reviewed Cassie Edwards’ books and they didn’t pick up on it.
Tens of thousands of people have read Ms. Edwards’ books and apparently none of them picked up on it (enough to go checking facts).
Why would the editors pick up on it? They are hired to spot a saleable romance novel and fix any remaining problems in that novel, not to be widely read in every type of non-fiction that their authors might use as reference material.
In short, I can’t believe this was a conspiracy. If tens of thousands of Cassie Edwards fans didn’t spot this over the course of 100+ books, then it isn’t reasonable to think the editors would have.
“If a couple smart bitches on a romance blog could uncover this why wasn’t it recognized by at least a few of the hundreds of editors who worked her copy over the past 20+ years? I’d bet my shoe collection they knew about it.”
At least in part because the technologies used by the smart bitches didn’t exist for the first 90-odd books. That doesn’t excuse unobservant editing, but in the past if someone suspected plagiarism, it was much harder to confirm.
I agree with Anna: there’s the issue of breaking of trust between writer and reader that should have CE’s readers pissed off for being duped; I think once the anger and denial stages pass there’s going to be a massive riptide with regards to that. But anyway: here it is: writers lie all the time, and the readers not only let them, they expect it. The reader is prepared to believe even the most tenuously set up situation so long as the writer maintains the continuity throughout. Readers know that writers lie in the context of “you’re telling me a story that’s not true, but within its own context, it’s correct and plausible and I can escape into something that follows its own logic within the span of the two covers” and yet that is the ONLY way that readers will allow a writer to lie to them.
To think we do not know when we are being sold a pig in a poke is insulting. To think we are so dense that we won’t figure it out is condescending—even if it does take 20 years to be caught out in it, it comes out. It always comes out. The question is whether the perp will be alive when it does.
Keep in mind I do not read romance as a genre and admit, much to my chagrin, to committing many of the assumptive faux pas already outlined regarding the literary merits of the genre and the tastes of the readership in general, for which I apologize (and that includes my mother and sister… oops).
Twenty years ago before SF or fantasy or comic books or Anime was cool and hip and popular, we were geeks getting slammed into lockers and getting our books dumped and having our taste in literature questioned on a daily basis. That is now changing, albeit slowly. Romance can break its stereotype too, but not if the only reason it gets mention in the mainstream press is because of things like this. To write is to create, whatever you write, whatever the genre.
There’s a syndrome in the art world of (allegedly) stealing wholly and completely art from other sources, repainting it and claiming it as your own (cf: Todd Goldman, Roy Lichtenstein). This is no different, and cannot be condoned by any creator of any art form. Period.
“I do know that the hope that one day we won’t have to justify our reading tastes is probably futile, but hey, most things in women’s evolution have been hard to come by (personal freedom, property ownership, voting rights, etc.).”
Did you really just compare people mocking the reading of romance novels to women being denied the right to vote and own property?
Really?