Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Wow. Just… wow.

I firmly believe plagiarism includes all works, nonfiction and otherwise, but honestly, with this (and a Pulitzer winner! Did she think nobody would notice??): There can be no doubt.

Okay, I’m pissed now.

I am speechless.

Holy WTF

Has Dorchester made a statement yet, and what about Kensington?

Did she assume no one would read a 60 year old book (at the time)?  In some ways the rewarding of some of these passages disturbs me more than the word for word instances. 

How many books of hers have now been verified to contain plagarized passages and how many sources are we talking about now?

Oh, wow.  Savage Dreams 1990.

it’s official: my head a’sploded.

I’m tempted to compare the audaciousness of it to when I had to explain to another writer during this year’s NaNoWriMo that the title “Of Human Bondage” was not only already taken, but fairly famous… and she had not heard of it. **headbrick**

But this is…

daaaaaaaaaaang.

There are a couple of passages in this table that I’d say don’t really count in the “passages plagiarised” tally.

But there are more that do. Wow. It just goes on and on.

Looks like Jove was the first publisher.  Who owns Jove now?

My cynical mind:
I am not really surprised.

WAITAMINIT! Go down to the one that starts “the roar of horses”

am I reading this chart right but did she put the same paragraph more or less in TWO separate places in the SAME book?

and nobody caught this? Not even to tell her when it first came out that “hey, you repeated yourself here”?

I am seriously questioning the abilities of anyone involved in the prepublication editing/proofing process of this one. I mean come ON!

Answered my own question.  Penguin owns Jove.  All right, will make it all tidy when there is some ‘splainin’ to be done.

As if this cake needed any frosting. . .

whoops, that should have read “the world was full of the roar of hooves”

and, I don’t know if this occurred to anyone else, but in a few of the old Warner Bros cartoons, Bugs Bunny used “Laughing Boy” as a derisive term to Daffy Duck. “Hey, Laughing Boy! One bullet left!”

**sad I knew that off the top of my head, but true…**

Okay, well Savage Dream is Dorchester, right, so maybe it’s time to send some public pressure their way, too, to address this.

That’s certainly putting the sprinkles on the frosting on the cake.

Okay, lone voice in the wilderness, but WHY does this take it to a fundamentally different level?  Part of me agrees with you, much to my chagrin, but why is it more egregious to have her steal the words of a novel than a non-fiction source?  Why?

Anyone else feel like crying at this point? I mean, I had this whole post planned about the assumption (in my experience) that “copying” non-fiction of all kinds is okay*. 

(BTW, this wasn’t meant to imply in any way that the earlier examples posted here were at all justifiable (IMO). But I was trying to understand why this sort of thing happens and how people can defend it.)

Now I just want to hold my head in my hands and weep.

Shit…

*It was just me and a soapbox ranting about how non-fiction is often seen as glamorous fiction’s boring, nerdy stepsister. And how there is a conflation of “facts” and the language they’re couched in. And how because non-fiction is merely the recital of “facts” little creativity is involved.

Which, as anyone who’s ever sweated days to try to make information interesting, readable, digestible and entertaining will tell you, is sweet, savage horse patootey.

Because by plagerizing fiction, it can’t be claimed as “research”.

As someone who used to teach college English, I looked at the previous samples and wondered if Ms. Edwards was like some of my students—genuinely baffled about the correct way to incorporate references. Doesn’t make it right, but it made me wonder . . .

This discovery really demolishes that theory.

This is just . . . just . . .

Sweet heaven.

Sarah: it takes it to a fundamentally different level because now there’s no longer even the veneer of a “shoddy research citation on non fiction material” defense. I agree that it should be no different/worse/bad to plagiarize nonfiction than it is for fiction, but once you swipe from fiction, the “research” angle goes out the window. That’s the angle, not from the inherent ethics POV, but from the perception of it POV.

Sarah Frantz—I think it bothers me that the book won the Pulitzer.  I mean, if you’re gonna plagiarize, go for the best.

Why this strikes me as so much worse, even CE has gotta know, you don’t copy from somebody else’s work of fiction.  If her only excuse is well, hell, it was published in 1929, that still isn’t like saying my research was sloppy.

I think it goes beyond careless to not giving a flying fuck whose phrases she borrows.

if she wants to recycle her own passages, that’s not exactly great writing, but it’s not heinous in the same way.

Although it could be copyright infringement, especially if those other books are out under other publishers.

Okay, lone voice in the wilderness, but WHY does this take it to a fundamentally different level?

Like EAP, I don’t see it as any worse, but I’ve now lost any ability to even entertain the possibility that this was all about a confusion over factual information.  Now I’ve shifted over to the “there’s NO WAY she could think this was okay” position, even though we know it never was.  And yeah, now I’m starting to wonder more directly about her editors and publishers, too.

[Everything I said before, without the generous benefit of the doubt I gave Edwards].

This is just horrible news. After reading through these absolutely lyrical passages, I can understand the temptation to copy and paste much more than I could in the case of the academic prose. But now the question for me becomes how much of Edwards’ manuscripts or indeed her writing “style” itself really belong to her? These passages would presumably be much much harder to spot as transcriptions. What are her fans really enjoying? If it is her descriptions, well we now know that many of those were taken word for word from other sources. If it is her “voice” then these examples bring the authenticity of even that in to question, as far as I’m concerned.

My sense of humor tends to the bitingly sarcastic, unfortunately, and I have exercised it—perhaps too freely—in my earlier posts. But this is just beyond the realm of humor and verging on a real tragedy for all involved. Please, please let the trolls understand that this is not something that can even begin to be excused as a lack of knowledge about proper attribution. This is behavior that any writer should instinctively shun, in my opinion.

Okay, I get what everyone’s saying.  It’s not more worser from our POV, but from the understanding of her supposed intent.  Check.  I can get that.

I’m just going to watch the new Persuasion tonight on PBS and try to forget all of this for a while.

“why is it more egregious to have her steal the words of a novel than a non-fiction source?”

I can only think of one reason—and that reason conflicts somewhat with your post earlier today.  There are instances in historical fiction when using someone else’s words verbatim is accepted.  E.g. using an historical soldier’s journal for a fictional journal entry.  If the use is acknowledged, it’s lauded as realistic detail.  It doesn’t even need quotes or a footnote to get a pass—just (usually) acknowledgment of the source.

“am I reading this chart right but did she put the same paragraph more or less in TWO separate places in the SAME book?”

and nobody caught this? Not even to tell her when it first came out that “hey, you repeated yourself here”?

I wouldn’t necessarily jump on that.  It’s a grey area in style.  Often it’s a good thing to reinforce (or mirror) an earlier description.  Making certain passages echo each other can give the book cohesion.  That doesn’t mean it’s always good writing—too much, and it’s simply repetitive.  But neither is it always bad writing.

That basically colors the whole situation with intent, if you know what I mean; it’s much harder to argue for ignorance or innocent confusion in this sort of case.

Even if she did think this was okay—heck anything’s possible—I think we’re finally at a point where it’s going to be tough for ANYONE ELSE to make the “it’s no big deal” argument or to dismiss this as *using* research material.

Before I was appalled, but hoping for the best, “Well she’s 71, they might not have covered plagarism versus research and proper citation way back when she was in school, I know pleanty of kids who never learned even now” 

But from a ficitonal piece? The even if you never learned proper citation practices, sheer logic should tell you its different to use research material from a nonfiction than a fictional piece.

There’s probably a lot of “She’s 71! leave her alone!” going around.  And even though I’d feel a lot better if this stuff were being thrown around on a 35 year old, I just keep reminding myself, she’s still writing and publishing so she is obviously not a poor senile old woman.  My own father is 72, and if somebody tried to pitch him shit he’d be perfectly capable of handling it himself.  And how old is Ursla LeGuin? Far older than Edwards.  She’s a brilliant and fiesty author, and if anyone accused her of plagarism you bet she’d go for the juglar herself.  What’s more, she may be 71 now, but she certainly wasn’t when she did this stuff.  This certainly isn’t a case of a poor old woman, feeling to exhausted from her old-ladyness, couldn’t bring herself to carry more than one library book home.

Yes, it is very sad that a woman’s career could be destoryed by this (although whoever it was that copied Nora Roberts is still publishing, so there you go), but itn’t even sadder that her whole career is based on pulling stunts like this?

I keep thinking it might all come down to, “I just wanted to write, I didn’t think anybody would notice”.  But writing is hard work, and any writer who takes pride in their work will tell you they are constantly trying to improve themselves.  A writer wants to be able to say his or her latest book is the best of the collection, because it would certainly suck to start off well and then go completley downhill.  Constant self improvement is as much of a goal as finishing the next story, so I’d feel a lot better about CE if, even if she’d done this at the beginning of her carreer, she’d tried to improve her methods later down the line.  But from what I can see, she found a formula that seemed to work, and stuck with it.  Now it’s come back to bite her.

Because by plagerizing fiction, it can’t be claimed as “research”.

Reading fiction, particularly fiction set in a similar period or genre, can definitely be considered research.  But to my mind, whether something is “research” is a red herring.  Intent is not what ultimately determines whether it’s plagiary.  What the author does is more important that what she means to do.

Oh - cringe. I had this book in my hot little mitts and only found (some, not all) of the reference works. Now I feel like a really crappy plagiarism-detector.

Must say, I’m not at all surprised by this latest development. If you can copy, word for word, 2-3 pages from an old reference text, why not fiction?

Plus, I’ve read her and she is a severely limited writer.

And Bernita gets ten points for predicting this development. Congratulations, Bernita. You have won this lovely lounge suite.

And our next questionis:
Does Cassie Edwards plagiarise-
a) Fiction
b) non-fiction
c) fan fiction
d) anything not nailed down
e) All of the above

Answer after the commercial!

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“if she wants to recycle her own passages, that’s not exactly great writing, but it’s not heinous in the same way.”

Someone up there mentioned that if it were different publishers then theoretically they could sue. That is correct. I remember a case where this happened with a songwriter in the 70s I think. One of his publishers sued the other because of the similarity between songs. I can’t remember how it came out though!

ooook..I agree, this did have its own place as a post, seperate from the others.

I assumed from day one (or two) that so much had been found so easily and quickly that there was no telling what else would be discovered.

As to her age, I am one that posted a discomfort about her age and how this may be affecting her and that stands, its a compassion for the elderly not a ” leave her alone you bitches” .

She’s been writing many years and her choices are coming back to bite her in the butt, by now she’s probably wealthy enough to have attorneys to deal with all this anyway instead of having to deal with it herself.

I’ve recovered somewhat.

For the people arguing that the SBs and their readers should stop and leave the matter to the publishers: what do you think are the chances that this latest example would have come to light from Signet, or from Ms Edwards?

I’ll tell you: Zilch. Zero. Ninguna. Rien.

Kudos for all of those (in the bitchery and otherwise), going through the books published under Ms Edwards’ name in order to find all the plagiarized bits.

Kudos to SBSarah and Candy for publishing it, and for contacting all the publishers involved.


===========


A personal concern: I hope there’s some way to find a consensus on what, exactly, is plagiarism of non-fiction, as I’ve had an online discussion with a self-proclaimed ex English teacher who thinks that “by defintion, taking out a coordinating conjunction and adding a dot for a semicolon makes it NOT plagiarism.”

Needless to say, I’m at a loss to explain how far from correct that thinking is. I need help here, and having authors, writers, publishers, readers, agree on some sort of baseline would help.

I think.

I hope.

Arggh. I apologize for characterizing those people who have posted in support of Edwards as “trolls.” Not accurate, and I’m sorry. Fingers are faster than brain sometimes, dammit.

Intent is not what ultimately determines whether it’s plagiary.  What the author does is more important that what she means to do.

Not necessarily. I just had a discussion of this unintentional echo syndrome; the story I completed for Nano this year had two major oopses, neither of them intentional: one line almost verbatim from “The Princess Bride” (and when it was brought to my attention I LMAOed myself sick) and a word I thought I’d made up that actually I’d forgotten was an item from a Final Fantasy game. Both are being rectified before the book goes out for the rounds, and neither, if I had noticed it as I was writing them, would have been in there in the first place.

Intent does matter, to a big degree. But intent as in “oops, forgot I knew that” and not intent as in “I didn’t know it was wrong to do that” or even the “it’s fair use, so nyaaa” as in the case of Ursula LeGuin’s one paragraph story being republished on BoingBoing without credit and the massive hassle that ensued, and the IMO inadequate response by the guy who did it.

snickers at E.Ann’s ” plage away”

the plagiarism line has been taken out of her Wikipedia page.

I think I find the whole thing arrogant. Arrogant in assuming that she’d get away with it, repeatedly.

BTW, my bestest chum, a librarian, should be sending you some info this weekend. She grabbed a book from the library she works in, and one set in New Orleans apparently lifted entire passages from material published by the Louisiana Folk Life Center.

“Intent does matter, to a big degree. But intent as in “oops, forgot I knew that” and not intent as in “I didn’t know it was wrong to do that” or even the “it’s fair use, so nyaaa” as in the case of Ursula LeGuin’s one paragraph story being republished on BoingBoing without credit and the massive hassle that ensued, and the IMO inadequate response by the guy who did it.”

Agreed.  I realized as I hit “Submit” that I should have been more specific.

Sarah Frantz - I don’t know why some consider it more awful when a fiction writer is copied over a non fiction author.  I think because we all have used non fiction sources at one time as a basis for writing that we did/do and therefore the knee jerk reaction is - but I wouldn’t plagiarize so it can’t be wrong.

This example lends some gravity to the situation for those naysayers out there and let me tell you - there are plenty.

Belated Credit:
I should mention that ‘lounge suite’ line is a direct rip-off of Monty Python’s Karl Marx game show sketch.

Thank you.

;-)

Well, there goes the “it was only research” excuse.

I’ve been checking CE’s official website periodically to see if she’ll post a statement about the situation. It used to have her photo, bio, book list, news about upcoming releases, and so forth. Today, it’s just a link that says, “Please visit my MySpace page.” Interesting. I guess she’s not going to address anything right now. There’s no mention of it on her MySpace page, either.

Websites:
http://www.cassieedwards.com/
http://www.myspace.com/cassieedwardsromance

francois, that was John Fogerty. He was sued by Fantasy Records (who owned the copyright to the Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog (Fogerty’s old band). Fantasy records said that his song “Old Man Down the Road” sounded too much like the Creedence song “Run Through the Jungle” but in the end it was ruled that it wasn’t plagiarism, just his style of writing/singing.

And in the interest of citation, the details of the above come from xponentialmusic.org, although I originally remembered it from one of those 100 most shocking somethings shows on E! or VH-1. Knew those would come in handy someday.

As to the case in hand, wow. After spending all day yesterday reading through all the comments on all the posts regarding this whole shitstorm, I ended up at Barnes & Noble in the romance aisle holding a Savage Something book, determined to find my own instances. I got through maybe three pages before I had to put it down, so good on you guys for muddling through. I’m really stunned at the sheer amount of the evidence at this point.

I have a copy of Don Poynter’s “Self Publishing Manual” and he says “Make it a rule never to repeat any three words in a row” when he advises writers on steering clear of plagiarism. And here this writer is not only doing that, but taking entire paragraphs by adding a couple of conjunctions.  And she’s doing this over and over ad nauseum.

If Edwards is not held accountable for this by her publishers and the courts, it will show that the whole publishing industry has become (and I pause for emphasis here and spit out the foul word) CORRUPT.

There is one thing I would like to see her address.  Her author blurbs claim that her grandmother was a full-blood Cheyenne, and in one interview she said it was her father’s grandmother who was the Cheyenne princess.  Savage Longings is, in fact, supposed to be based on this great-grandmother, Snow Deer and Charles Cline.  One of my interests is genealogy, and I did a little digging.  Her great-grandfather is a Charles Cline, but ‘Snow Deer’ appears in fact to be a white woman named Mamie Bolinger.  I could of course be wrong, but every census record etc. I have found suggests that back at least 3-4 generations, she has no indigenous blood at all.

Please note.  I am a classically trained mezzo-soprano.  When I sing out the word “BUSTED!” at full volume, the whole house hears it.  I only wish I could record it so that you could all enjoy.

BUSTED.

The wikipedia entry does still mention the plagiarism.  It’s now in its own section entitled ‘Alleged Plagiarism’.  Scroll down if you don’t see it.

I’m guessing that this latest discovery means that reading is no longer a pre-requisite for editorial staff?  You’d think someone in the office might have read a Pullitzer prize-winner, but apparently not.

P.S. .....  Just checked out Cassie’s MySpace page- from the touched up Glamour Shot photo, sure doesn’t look like she’s an unsophisticated 71 yr old granny who doesn’t know any better… take a look and see if you don’t gag like I did.

I just looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Edwards again, and didn’t see it. The discussion page says it’s been removed for more stringent citations.

Sara—

I’ve heard that CE sent out a bulletin via MySpace proclaiming her innocence while saying that she’s being picked on because of her Native American heritage.

I haven’t seen the bulleting but am tempted to track it down. 

Anyone else heard of it?

If Lisa is right, and it turns out that CE lied about being part Cheyenne as well, the resulting internet explosion will be EPIC!

**puts on helmet**

The last login on her myspace page is 1/13/2008.

I hadn’t heard that, Nikki. I believe only your MySpace friends can read the bulletins you post, so unless one of us has friended her, I’m not sure we’ll be able to see it.

I sincerely adore that she’s MySpace friends with John DeSalvo!

Oh irony of ironies, this is a line from her wikipedia page:

“Edwards is known for her meticulous research.”

it’s in the Wiki page, at the bottom of the bio, right under the line “Edwards is known for her meticulous research.” The heading is “Alleged Plagiarism” and reads:

Alleged Plagiarism

On January, 8 2008, the romance novel blog site Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books began a series of posts alleging extensive copying from sources without attribution in the works of Cassie Edwards. Signet Books initially dismissed the charges, but within a few days announced that it was investigating them further. The author denied any wrongdoing[1].

This in case it gets torn down again.

“Because she’s Native American?”

to quote Dr. Phil (and the Texas accent must be used) “Are you KIDDING me??”

Guh!  That should be “bulletin”—no “g.” 

My brain must be fried from CE overload.

This has been bothering me for days…

... how does anyone, supposed Native American heritage or not, get away with titling one book “Savage” something, much less several?

I don’t care what you Smart (not!) Bitches (totally!) say.  I’m still going to continue enjoying this delightful Edward’s novel called Proud Wind and Savage Bias:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Indian brave in possession of much wampum must be in want of a squaw.

“However little known the feelings or views of such a brave may be on his first entering a tribal lands, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding tribes, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their virgin maidens, especially those white maidens who were kidnapped from Midwestern families and have golden hair and snowy bosoms.”

More than one person I know received the bulletin yesterday. 

Lemme see what I can dig up…

~but I’ve now lost any ability to even entertain the possibility that this was all about a confusion over factual information~

Yes.

I felt, and stated, that copying from any source as illustrated by the examples struck me clearly as plagiarism. But the examples found from fictional work now erase, for me, any possible ‘research’ or ‘accuracy’ excuse for it. Even if I believed the excuse was faulty.

This is a pattern, to me, of abuse.

If she is indeed claiming she’s being picked on because of her heritage, shame on her again.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, back up, bitch allegedly said what to the who now? 

Cassie, your Native American heritage is pastede on yey.

Oh Marta…

you win the internet!

So this is like fiction by patchwork?
I saw David Bowie write a song for “Diamond Dogs” in a documentary. He wrote a poem, then cut it up and rearranged it.
Big difference is that Bowie wrote his own stuff.
So you pick some books you hope nobody’s read, at least the readers in your genre, pick some bits, retype or paste them into a document and kind of construct a story to fit?
Sounds like a lot of hard work to me, and nowhere near as much fun as writing your own. Hey, that’s just me.

Like the magnetic poetry sets?  There is a romance one at the bookstore.  It’s words though and not phrases from a book.

I think that it has become gallows humor by this point.  It’s just that you shouldn’t indulge in gallows humor in public.  A lot of people don’t understand you are just breaking tension.

as Nora and others have remarked on Dear Author, it’s gone past the point of outrage, and is just horribly sad. and gallows humor is one reaction to that sadness, I suppose.

has anyone found a book of hers that does *not* contain lifted text?

There is the possibility she was told she had NA ancestry, and just took it at face value.  It’s also possible that I just have the wrong people, and she is part Cheyenne.  I think, though, that if her ancestry is fiction, then it ties into the rest of this story.

Marta Acosta: I think I love you. You must let us know how the book turns out. ;-)

If she is truly claiming this is nothing but a racial attack then I am even more disappointed.

Wow, I’m speechless. Oh wait no I’m not, this is a work of fiction, and common sense alone should tell you that you don’t copy word for word from another book. I can understand that maybe she was confused about non-fiction and the use of citation, but fiction? Really?

The lack of Native-sounding names in a person’s genealogy doesn’t mean he or she is not of Native American descent. In the South, at least, Muscogee and Cherokee who intermarried with whites and did not move west with their tribes often took English-sounding names. The genealogy on my maternal great-grandmother’s side of the family has no Native names at all, but her relatives are on tribal rolls nonetheless.

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 .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thanks,
Debbie

Uh-oh. I feel badly for everyone involved.