Thanks to Nikki, who posted the following in the comments of our previous entry, we have the text of what is allegedly a response from Cassie Edwards issued via her MySpace account:
Original Message
From: Cassie Edwards
Date: Jan 11, 2008 11:58 AMHi, Lisa,
I just got on My Space and I found your wonderful encouraging letter. Thank you for believing in me, for I have done nothing wrong. My publisher is standing behind me 100%, for they know my work better than anyone, and they know that all romance authors who use research for historicals have to use reference books to do this. My readers love this accurate material about the Indians. And if I couldn’t use this material my books would not be worth anything to my readers who depend on me.The sad thing is that I am writing these books now in a way to honor our Native Americans, past, present and in the future. And I am honoring my great grandmother who was a full blood Cheyenne. She would be so proud of me if she could read what I am writing about the Indians who have been so maligned for so long. And do you know? I feel picked on now as our Native American Indians have always been picked on throughout history. I am trying to spread the word about them and what do I get? Spiteful women who have found a way to bring attention to themselves, by getting in the media in this horrible way.
Right now I am getting hit from all sides….CNN, The New York Times, AP, everyone who those women could think of to contact. And what is also sad is that a fellow author, has spoken up and condemned me.
Thanks again for your support. When I am feeling stronger I plan to write a bulletin on My Space, but right now I am totally drained of energy from what has been done to me. I hope that you will tell your friends, who are so much also mine, the wrong that has been done to me, and tell them that I will get through this. I will be found innocent and vendicated of any wrong.
For now, it's all too raw and horrible, but I will be alright.
Love, Cassie
Regarding Savage Longings and its heroine, Snow Deer—there is an old song called “Snow Deer.” Interestingly enough, it’s about an Indian Maiden and her Cowboy Lover. Some lyrics may be found here:
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=7733
I don’t have Savage Longings, so I can’t check it out and see if any lines from the song appear in the book, though 😉
I think Dear Author was trying to verify whether this was really a message from CE through the person it was addressed to. Did anything come out of that?
From Dear Author: “Updated to add: DA contacted, via telephone, a representative of Cassie Edwards to authenticate the statement below. In response, the representative replied that there would be no comment. You can all draw whatever conclusions you want from that.”
It’s not exactly a resounding “No, I never said that!” is it?
LOL!
Yeah, she wouldn’t have to plagiarize if you guys would only STOP INTERFERING WITH HER BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS!!!
I’ve waited for some sort of verification to seriously comment on the statement purported to be from CE.
As she’s chosen the no comment route instead of denial, I have to assume it came from her.
And that it follows the general pattern when someone’s accused of plagiarism.
Denial, excuses, a bid for sympathy and blaming others for the situation they’re in.
I will qualify that in my statement to the press I didn’t condemn Ms. Edwards. I condemned the act of plagiarism.
I still do.
“No comment” is PR-speak for “yes.”
Pardon me while I go shuffle my deck of race cards so that I, too, may use them when I am called on the carpet for misdeeds.
Wow. I am really grateful for all of your and your readers’ research on this topic. From The Education of Little Tree to The Blood Runs Like A River Through My Dreams, Native writers are not unfamiliar with outright plaigarism and general theft of our very real history as fodder for some seriously whack white writers’ game.
Marginalization of Native people not only includes the physical marginalization of reservations, but also the academic marginalization to historical prologues and it seems, the artistic marginalization that gives these white writers the gall to subsume an entire continent of a people’s history.
Two years ago, Sherman Alexie wrote a small essay after the outing of Nasdijj called “When the Story Stolen Is Your Own,” and asked:
So why should we be concerned about his lies? His lies matter because he has cynically co-opted as a literary style the very real suffering endured by generations of very real Indians because of very real injustices caused by very real American aggression that destroyed very real tribes.
“I do find it a bit weird that in the About me portion it’s written as if some one else is writing it. Don’t know about anyone else but if I ever got a myspace and I was talking about myself I’d use me instead of She.”
LadySnarky, I have a friend who works for a company that manages myspace pages for popular country artists- it’s a service they offer in addition to keeping the artists’ websites updated. I’ve saved the friend request she sent me from Popular Country Artist, just so I can look at it and giggle at “Popular Country Artist wants to be your friend!”
Maybe CE has a similar setup going? I mean, myspace is an unparalleled timesuck, and she clearly needs lots of time to do such thorough research.
Nora,
I’ve always liked you, admired your storytelling abilities, and happily bought and read your books. You are (rightly so) an icon in publishing.
Unfortunately, now I have to add “moral crusader” to the list of things I admire about you, and I fear it’s pushed me over the line into total squee-fangrrl territory. *sigh* Damn you and your integrity!
Ahem.
Thanks to the SBs, all the Ja(y)nes at DA, and others (not the least of whom are those poor souls who’ve done the dirty work of reading/researching) who have brought this to light and kept it there. It’s unfortunate that ya’ll have to endure the slings and arrows aimed at you for *gasp* telling the truth. Mean girls, indeed.
Dak
I’ve been following this, as many of my friends have, since the news broke. Hats off to the Smart Bitches for uncovering this information, and for standing up and reminding anyone who claims not to know that plagiarism and copyright infringement are WRONG.
As a writer, I can only say that anyone who deliberately copies whole chunks of information verbatim from another source and claims it as his or her own is guilty of plagiarism, possibly copyright infringement, and most certainly theft.
And there is no excuse for stealing someone else’s work. None.
If anyone wants to check Edwards’ My Space page for updates, it’s here:
http://tinyurl.com/3c98fk
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=109400810
NOTE: you need a faster computer than mine. I have midbroadband and a computer with, I believe 2 gigs of RAM, but loading the page tied up my computer for a while.
dude. she’s comparing her plagiarism to the murders, thefts, and persecution of the indigenous peoples of north america? tell me she did not just go there.
You know, you guys and Dear Author were doing well until you all decided to post this letter. I went and read the PW article and they haven’t put ‘allegedly’ in there anywhere. So now this letter is being attributed to CE and no one nows if it really was written by her.
I was going to comment at Dear Author last night when I saw it but too many people were happy to believe what they wanted.
You have clear proof that Cassie Edwards plagiarized and even though some of the comments were a little too personal and gleeful I recognized the wrong committed and like many am wondering at the ramifications while hoping that the romance community does not take the brunt of the fallout.
That said, posting this ‘supposed’ letter without knowing exactly who wrote it makes everything you worked for now seem like gossip.
I refuse to comment on this letter until I know who exactly wrote it. I guess I am wondering why you posted this – was it to be the first ones out of the gate? If so, maybe a little commentary about what you both think would help to keep people from just assuming this is fact.
CindyS
CindyS, check at Dear Author—they did try to get confirmation or categorical denial, and got a “no comment” instead. Take it as you will.
I’ll say exactly what I think and that is this letter was written by Cassie Edwards. We sent emails to three different individuals and place a phone call to an Edwards representative and rec’d a response that was “no comment.”
If Edwards did not make this statement, she had the opportunity to refute it and choose not to do so.
Ah. So no comment is now proof. Anyone figure she’s getting a ton of questions tossed at her now and maybe someone told her all answers were to be ‘no comment’.
No comment is not proof.
CindyS
CindyS – you asked what my thoughts were and that is what they are. As I said in the post, everyone can draw their own conclusions. Your conclusion is different from mine.
Are the misspellings and other errors in the original?
Gwynnyd
Yes, the message is posted *exactly* as the original bulletin read. I verified the exact wording, spelling, etc. three times before posting.
That said, SB Sarah is right. This isn’t about the typos, it’s about the content. As appalling as it is.
Fair enough.
CindyS
Wow. I’m still stunned, which after a week of this comes as a surprise.
She lifted the intro of her book?
**headdesk**
As to the statement on MySpace, all I can think of is where is her publicist? If indeed she wrote the note, it makes the situation look even worse.
There is nothing like pulling out a race card to get people, who weren’t interested in the debate to begin with, ticked off for co-opting their heritage as a legitimate defense for what’s been done wrong.
I’m certain she’s likely overwhelmed by the response to all of this and if the note is her’s, clearly she still doesn’t understand the import of what she’s done or she doesn’t care.
Thank you Smart Bitches for continuing to stand up for the rights of writers. Thank you Nora for being so damn professional despite how hard this must hit home. And thank you to all of you intrepid souls who’ve done the hours of research to show that this is a serious issue across numerous published works, not a one-time instance.
Did she WAAAHLETE her MySpace?
This is like LiveJournal drama, but with less porn. 🙁
Just as an FYI, in my state, in a civil case, a defendant’s assertion of his privilege against self incrimination can be inferred against the defendant.
This is not true in a criminal case whereby the 5th Amendment strictly prohibits negative inferences.
In civil actions, however, (and any action against CE would be a civil one), “The rule permitting adverse inferences from the failure of a party in a civil cause to testify as to matters in issue within his personal knowledge is commonplace and elementary in our jurisprudence”
I know a “no comment” doesn’t necessarily mean “yes, but we don’t want to admit it.”
That said, my gut tells me this email was, indeed, written by Cassie Edwards. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have posted it.
I’ve slogged through four or five—dear Neptune, I’ve lost count—CE books and have become familiar with her writing style. Not the stuff she copies but what is *hers.* And this email sounds like her. I hope I’m wrong.
As for whether she would use the phrase “Native American Indians,” the answer is yes. Throughout her “Savage” books, characters refer to themselves as both
and Indian. When explaining the native language the characters are speaking, the chief/maiden/whatever will say something like, “That is Indian for ____________.” Not Chippewa, Sioux, etc.
I’m just as repulsed by the self-pitying tone of this alleged whine as the rest of you. But more so by its refusal to respond to the most important element here: that plagiarism has occurred, and that plagiarism, because it has been well-defined by law, is not a matter of mere opinion.
But I’m also getting the feeling from the prior Cassie Edwards response and from this letter alleged to be from her that reorganizing research material, then writing her own original sentences, then making a note to credit her sources, and finally telling her editor about her sources—well, it all seemed like too much work, such an onerous task, and one she should not be expected to do.
And one which if in fact she has never been asked to do is scary, but likely.
Who was the person who said wealth was the great deodorant? Well, it applies here. If CE’s books were selling, her publishers would not rock the boat by upsetting her and requiring her to work harder. They just wanted the pages on time.
Somewhere along the line, certainly at the copy editing stage, people at the publishing house would have noticed the obvious inconsistencies in grammar and in writing style. My guess is that they were told to shut up. As for people higher up, there’s a good chance that they might have found CE’s mss. so tedious and repetitious that they did not read closely after a bit. Or they got distracted by all the heaving bosoms. Sorry. Sex does that.
And I have to give some editors a bye on parts of this issue, because before the Internet, they would have had to know the original sources to catch most of the theft. And they were trusting Cassie Edwards to be honorable and to behave professionally, as most writers do, and cite any permissions needed, and so on. Which obviously she did not do, and from these letters, it appears she truly does not understand that she has committed both a moral and a legal wrong. Repeatedly. But ignorance of the law is not a defense.
CE’s claim to innocence and ignorance in this situation is laughable. Or maybe pitiable. Or maybe both. Even if this second letter isn’t by her, it’s by someone who thinks that plagiarism is OKAY. And it’s not.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m the only one who noticed that she used the word spiteful to describe the SBs.
What do they have to be spiteful about? That she rights what I would truly categorize as “Trashy Books” that may be well researched but still deal with the stereotype of Native Americans, whatever their tribe or nation, being savages?
And on a side note I have always been a horrible speller and the one book I always keep close at hand is a dictionary. I have a degree in journalism and can tell you that spelling properly will just give you that much more credibility in any forum.
Also you don’t have to contact the news media sometimes because they enjoy reading sites like this to get away from some of the daily grind. In some places even the lowest person in the chain of command is asked to come up with story ideas and to provide some sort of a springboard for the writer’s research.
I am so repulsed that I can barely think. I don’t know where to start: her idea that her horribly offensive stereotypes of Native Americans sexing up the white wimmins are “honoring them”? Her stance that she has done “nothing wrong” despite the fact that she STOLE, WORD FOR WORD, other peoples’ hard work? Her complete and total lie about Sarah and Candy contacting all those news organizations? Hiding behind her dead grandma?
Good God. There really is nothing to say.
This is like LiveJournal drama, but with less porn. 🙁
And fewer cat macros.
see I told you I was a horrible speller. I meant “write” not “rights.”
oh poor poor pitiful CE…not hardly.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the popular “it’s not my fault” stance, when clearly it is. Is she afraid that she will seem weak if she admits she was wrong, or does she feel it has just gone to far for her to back-up now.
I can respect a person who makes mistakes, admits it, and is willing to pay the consequences. I know that is one of the hardest things to do, but the RIGHT thing.
Now is time to step up to the plate and take it like a woman.
sorry for my ramble…
Okay, CE is in a self-made, inexcusable mess, agreed. I also agree it’s likely ‘no comment’ means she did indeed write that post herself.
HOWEVER, we must also consider another possibility, which if she didn’t actually write it, must make her ‘swooning distress’ all the worse—-It could be that her lawyers have *finally* told her to just shut up and not respond to anything==ANYTHING==not even to say she didn’t write that pathetic example of taking no responsibility whatsoever. If ‘no comment’ is the lawyers’ new law to her, then, well, there you go…or there she goes…
“Notice how Edwards slips in “a proud people†(which seems in line with the portrayal of the “noble savages”) and also deletes the references to shipping and tourism, perhaps because these industries are either not noble or not savage enough.”
I noticed the same thing, but couldn’t be as witty or cogent. Thank you, Laura!
Misquoting Monty Python… that’s almost as bad! 😉
This makes me sick, especially since she invoked Native Americans and they experienced as a shielf of “geez whiz, I’m getting treated just like them!” I’m not gonna beat around the bush, this lady is an idiot, a coward and I hope she doesn’t get away with this.
I love how she’s acting like people are attacking her for no reason, I can’t stand people like that… especially ones that have made a lot of money and fame by stealing and acting innocent about being thieves.
I really want to hope that this message wasn’t written by Cassie Edwards. The tone of it smacks of the girls’ locker room in eighth grade—definitely as close to an evocation of Snacky’s Law as makes no difference. Plus, the comparison of getting called on the shit she pulled to race hatred gets on my nerves. A professional author ought to know better.
Sadly, I find myself believing that she may well have written it. A lot of authors have blogs and suchlike nowadays, and all sorts of folk in the public eye keep MySpace profiles. And Lord knows that professional writers are capable of throwing tantrums when called upon (Laurel K. Hamilton, Anne Rice). If she didn’t write it, she should deny it immediately, because it’s not doing her any good in the public eye.
And on a completely insensitive note . . . the mental image of the Smart Bitches in high-school-girl getups, tormenting a poor CE in the hallway, made me grin. Somebody needs to photoshop that.
I’m still shocked that she had the audacity to compare her (well deserved) public humiliation to the sufferings of the Native American people. It reminds me of PETA saying that chicken farming is a modern day Holocaust. It’s offensive, disgusting, and it trivializes the suffering of innocent people.
No, Cassie, your embarassment is NOT equivalent to the Trail of Tears.
You’re right, Liz. Needs moar cat macros!
Yes, still off topic, but COME ON:
(And I do apologize… I think it has nothing to do with Ms. Edwards, but grammar & spelling snobbery gets me every time.)
Why is it that writers are the only artist who are given a bye for not polishing their own work? “They’ll fix it in editing” is not an appropriate response. What painter says “Oh, the art dealer will finish the details”? What sculptor says “I’ll leave the rough bits for the installers to smooth out?” What composer says “Okay, here’s the melody, I’ll let the conductor work out how the harmony goes”?
How is learning how to use the tools of your craft correctly “snobbery”?
I think I disagree with you anyway, Arlene. I know I read about a journalist on the Times who dictated his copy, because he was so dyslexic they couldn’t decipher it if he wrote it down: I’m wondering if it was A.A. Gill, but I’m not 100% sure.
And I think Agatha Christie dictated her books because she was dyslexic.
Dyslexia is not laziness, it’s a medical condition. They are NOT the same thing. A writer who dictates because of dyslexia is not lazy, any more than one of my LJ f-listers who has crippled hands is lazy because he’s now using speech recognition software. DUH. Apples, orangutangs.
And let’s face it, the grammatical errors here span far beyond “alright”. Dissect this sentence and see for yourself:
“I hope that you will tell your friends, who are so much also mine, the wrong that has been done to me, and tell them that I will get through this. I will be found innocent and vendicated of any wrong.”
who are so much also mine ??
and it’s wrongdoing, not wrong.
Bad structure, inappropriate word choices… this is poor craftsmanship. Nothing snobby about it. Or do you not care when you buy furniture with nails sticking out?
If this is her statement this damns her as much as the cited passages do, because it shows clearly why she would feel the need to do something like this in the first place.
Does/did Ms. Edwards do her own research? I’m not giving her an out. I’m anticipating, if she has assistance with the research, that she’ll blame it on the researcher.
How is learning how to use the tools of your craft correctly “snobbery�
XD I cracked myself up. My HTML fu is not strong… let’s try that again:
How is learning how to use the tools of your craft correctly “snobbery�
Arlene, this isn’t something she’s trying to have published. This is (allegedly) a message she sent on MYSPACE. Picking on her grammar and spelling for this is like being upset that a person who shoplifted had bad hair; it’s completely missing the point.
I’m sorry, but i’m a little confused as to why there is any debate about this? She plagiarised. Period!
I really don’t see how the fact that she writes romance makes a difference. Ideas that are not your should be sited. If she was ignorant to the fact that what she was plagiarising then she should release a formal applogy (not the self indulgent whine fest she released) and start citing her sources!
I can reccomend an excellent book to her by Sylvan Barnet. Infact, i’m going to quote it right now!
From A Short Guide to Writting About Art:
“If you borrowed any ideas, be sure to give credit, usually in footnotes, to your sources. Remember that plagiarism is not limited to the unacknowledged borrowing of words; a borrowed idea, even when you put into your own words, requires acknowledgment.” p.166
“Never copy a passage by changing an occasional word, under the impression that you are thereby putting it into your own words. Notes of this sort may find their way into your work, your reader will sense a style other than your own, and suspicions of plagiarism may follow. It is worth saying again that you should either quote exactly, and enclose the words within quotation marks, or summerarize drastically. In both cases be sure to give credit to your source.” p.267