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
Wikipedia on Oliver La Farge: La Farge, a New Englander of French/Narragansett descent, was an anthropologist who discovered two previously unknown languages while on scientific expeditions to Central America and the American Southwest. He is well-known for his pioneering visit, with Frans Blom in 1925, to Mexico and what has since become known as the Olmec heartland, (re)discovering San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 and, most importantly, the ruins of La Venta, one of the major Olmec centers.
La Farge also spent much of his adult life championing Indian rights and was president of the Association on American Indian Affairs for several years.
The last poll I saw, which had to do with how people wanted to be described by the U.S. Census, indicated that the term preferred by Native Americans was in fact “Indians.” Though I’ll bet they would have gone for “First Nations” if it had been offered; I really like that. I hear it a lot because I’m a regular on a language forum with several lively, well informed, and intelligent Canadians participating.
OK, here is a list of Edwards’s earliest half dozen books: By checking these, we can tell exactly how long she’s been at it:
Portrait of Desire (1982)
Rapture’s Rendezvous (1982)
Secrets of My Heart (1982)
Silken Rapture (1983)
Passions Web (1984)
Savage Obsession (1983)
Savage Innocence (1984)
And I’d nominate Bravewolf for the Pulitzer Prize if only someone would provide me with proof that Bravewolf is a real person and not an escaped Cassie Edwards hero.
On a more serious note, the more that comes out, the more that I tend to believe Edwards’ claim that she honestly didn’t understand she was doing anything wrong. It is a belief similar in kind if not in degree to the belief of some men that it’s perfectly OK to beat their wives, or even kill them if they catch them in flagrante delicto. Or consider a more recent newsmaking incident: the adults who invented a fake teenaged boy online persona who flirted with a friend of their daughter’s, then rejected her so cruelly that she hanged herself. From all I’ve seen of comments the press has been able to extract from them, they still don’t think they are at fault.
In effect, Cassie Edwards would appear to be a sociopath. Someone who never quite grew a conscience. Note that not all sociopaths are Charles Manson types. There is a very interesting book called The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout (which I have carefully NOT lent to my best friend and neighbor), which states that something like 20% of the population are sociopaths. But their behavior range stretches from serial killing to not scooping after your dog poops on a neighbor’s sidewalk, so they aren’t all dangerous. I think she honestly CANNOT understand that she has committed theft of intellectual property; so as far as hoping to reform her is concerned, our efforts are wasted. We can hope for two positive outcomes: (1) Better policing of MSS before publication by both authors and publishers; and (2) recognition that romance readers in general are, as I’ve said before, intelligent, educated, perceptive, and principled. Gee, just like the people who read Real Books…
highlystrung, I agree with talpaianna that the use of the term Indian wouldn’t be enough to say that CE hasn’t studied indigenous tribes. Here’s why. 1) My grandmother was an anthropologist who studied and worked with tribes (mostly in California) and she’s always said that they prefer American Indian over Native American because the former term has American first which reinforces that they were here before the Europeans came. 2) I was taught the same thing when I took an Ethnic Studies class in college. 3) I live in California and we’re constantly having to vote on tribal casinos and every time the tribes air an ad, it’s always referred to either as Indian gaming or tribal gaming. So to me, it’s the use of the term Native American that stands out as odd in her email.
Of course this is just my view from out here in CA; the preferred terminology may be completely different in other parts of the U.S.
Has there been any word from Edwards other publishers? Is Signet really the only one who has responded?
Whats up with that?
When I found out about this from the NYT, I couldn’t stop laughing I recently had to give several students zeroes for copying and pasting. Four of them used the same exact passage. Most of them straight out admitted to it especially ince they used words like empirically and congruent. They couldn’t spell thos words much less define them. Mind you they are juniors in high school but they didn’t even understand why plagairism is wrong or how it can affect you. All I can say is; thank you CE for being lazy, sloppy and smug becuase you thought that you could get away with this.
As a professional writer she should know what plagairism is and as an adult she should just take responsibility for her actions.
I don’t have anything new to add, but in amongst all the sideline discussions about grammar and who meant what when they said whatever, I keep coming back to the sheer scale of it. There can be no doubt at all that this was deliberate, cold-blooded plagiarism for financial gain – the swathes of examples people have turned up just by Googling! It’s unbelievable and indefensible, and I hope she is prosecuted. And would someone please give Nora Roberts a medal – she’s distilled the situation very elegantly and eloquently. A friend just told me the Janet Dailey story, and I can only sympathise.
PS – as an editor, I do feel for the publishers – I can’t believe they didn’t notice discrepancies in style, but I can’t imagine ever suspecting one of my authors of plagiarism. It just doesn’t seem like something a right-thinking person would do! As her style is so patchy throughout, I imagine they just saw it as another weakness in her writing..
I know people are moving past the grammar debate, but as I was one of the first snobs (apparently) to point out the “alright” problem, I just want to respond to Alice:
A lot of early posters commented on Edwards’s use of “alright.†Alright is a controversial spelling, but it is pretty widely accepted, especially in journalism and fiction.
As a professor of journalism, I can assure you that this is not the case for the former. The Associated Press Stylebook, which is the standard for most U.S. newspapers, clearly states that it it “all right” and never “alright.”
To Victoria, I’m uncomfortable shrugging my shoulders and saying, “Eh, if people are using it and it’s in some dictionaries, then it must be fine.” How long before OMGWTFBBQ gets entered into some dictionaries? This is an exaggeration, but I hope you see my point.
With netspeak and IMspeak and whatnot entering the popular lexicon, and certainly entering much of the e-mail correspondence my students send me, I’m totally comfortable being one of the snobs sticking with proper English. I fear we’re heading toward a language devolution, not evolution.
That said, I do agree that the alleged MySpace message isn’t the best subject to parse for writing mistakes, and I am sorry for bringing it up.
Anyhoo, I’m aghast at the the Hiawatha discovery. And I’m with MeggieMacGroovie: Edwards needs to provide an official response soon, and I’d love to hear what the publishers are thinking at this point.
~Edwards needs to provide an official response soon, and I’d love to hear what the publishers are thinking at this point.~
While I wish she would, because I think a brief, clear statement would serve her, I suspect her lawyers (must assume she’s engaged them) may be advising her not to say anything now.
As for the publishers, you’re unlikely to hear anything until they’ve completed due diligence. That’s proper procedure.
Ah, your point about the publishers makes good sense. And as for CE, I can see a lawyer telling her to just keep her mouth shut. But wouldn’t a mea culpa be nice to hear? It would tell the public that she’s taking the situation seriously.
Alas, we can’t speculate about things happening behind closed doors, can we?
Just a note re: Edwards’s earliest books.
I saw a statement by Edwards on some site (NAL? – didn’t make note, so may be incorrect) that her first book was “Eugenia’s Embrace,” published 1982, by Zebra Books.
Ah, your point about the publishers makes good sense. And as for CE, I can see a lawyer telling her to just keep her mouth shut. But wouldn’t a mea culpa be nice to hear? It would tell the public that she’s taking the situation seriously.
Yes it would, but by making that statement she’d be admiting fault. And I just don’t think she’s ready to do that yet- if ever.( I hope I’m wrong here btw!)
And Nora is right(as usual). The publisher can’t come out with any more statements about this until they have all their “ducks in a row”. Otherwise they could lose any possible court case that could come out of this. Either from the copywrited authors, or CE herself if they deem her guilty without having all the material to back that up.
Phew! Like the comment thread hasn’t gone long enough…
I seriously in way hope this alleged letter from Edwards is actually from a misguided fan who wants to defend Cassie…which is in its own a way a problem, but a DIFFERENT problem (Let her defend herself and don’t make it any worse for the poor woman!)
If it is indeed from Edwards, then I do find the tone self-pitying, and would have so much more respect for a person who would admit wrong-doing, and offer to apoligize to any and all whose works she stole. Granted the list would be lengthy, and the letters themselves a monumental task, but she has her publishing comnpany monkeys to help, I s’pose.
The Native American card…well, I’m disapointed deeply by that. It’s a weak, weak argument. I would hope for straonger, but I can give the writer of the letter the benefit of the doubt. It was self-pitying, and in denial of the whole situation, and seemed like a knee-jerk reaction written on emotional overload.
Of course, denial ain’t just a river in Africa, and whoever this letter writer is, she has to get past the first stage. I know it’s a terrible thing to admit when one has done wrong, in the third grade or when one is 70 years old, but it has to be done. Forcibly or otherwise.
Of course we can also then look forward to the next few stages of the process, as illustrated by http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/119793/Robot_Chicken_Quicksand.html
And if she throws down the Old Age card, as was merely hinted at in the letter (“Oh, I’ll post when I’m feeling stronger…”), then I’m totally calling Godwin’s Law on her for playing the age card, and she loses!
Oh. My. God. Okay, let’s just get the snob thing out in the open. If you think it’s okay to mock someone’s misspellings in their casual writings, then just say so. If that’s the way you feel, embrace it, but don’t deny that it’s snobbish.
As for the change of language, I understand your panic. But language isn’t static and it never has been. If netspeak has entered the language there’s nothing you can do about it. If it’s entered the language then IT’S PART OF THE LANGUAGE. You don’t have to use it. You can punish your kids for talking that jive. You can mark student papers down. That won’t stop it.
I’m sorry if I now represent the world of bad spelling and the devolution of language for you. I’m a great speller. I have trouble condensing my words during texting, because it’s hard for me to deliberately misspell. But the young ‘uns? Nothing you can do about their chosen informal language. Sorry.
As to formal language… Here’s my original example, and there are many, many words that have lost the sanctity of their original (longer) spelling. It’s the circle of life, my friend.
Tomorrow. Used to be “on the morrow” and then “to morrow”. It was written as two words until the 16th century when it became to-morrow, according to the Online Etymoloty Dictionary. Then, in the early 20th century it became “tomorrow”. So will I miss “all right” when it’s gone? No. Neither will your children.
To borrow from JDRobb, “I’m a cynical so-and-so” because after Ms Edwards statement to AP the “she didn’t know any better” and that “you don’t do that for historical fiction” (wildly paraphrased, but you can check the original article online for the exact wording if you like), I just stopped expecting her to be able to admit—accept—understand the sheer wrongness of her actions.
There’s no way, IMO, that someone who’s consistently stolen other people’s intellectual property in order to make millions has what it takes to see—let alone admit—just how wrong it is.
So whether this letter was written by Ms Edwards or not is, for me, irrelevant.
Oh, gosh, you don’t represent the world of bad spelling and the devolution of language for me. It’s just another way of looking at language, and we have different approaches to it.
On the other hand, I’m not going to apologize for being a stickler for proper grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage. If that makes me a snob, so be it.
CE has a public persona, and she wrote a message that she encouraged the recipient to forward to her friends. If it had been me, I’d have been sure it was written properly because I would want my public persona as a writer to remain strong. And there were problems with the message beyond alright-gate. But as has been pointed out, it’s the content and not the execution that’s open for debate here. I just wanted to explain why the problems in the writing bothered me. If I were a best-selling author, I’d make damn sure every last i was dotted and t was crossed if any of my fans were going to read it.
If I were a best-selling author, I’d make damn sure every last i was dotted and t was crossed if any of my fans were going to read it.
Oh, I TOTALLY get that. As a writer, I HATE to realize I’ve posted a comment with a misspelling. And it’s even worse when I send out an email to my neighborhood association. “Isn’t she supposed to be a writer?” My son’s teacher feels the same way about notes she sends home. I do get that.
But I admit to being fascinated by the evolution of language. (Bill Bryson’s one of my favorite writers.) So for me the change of language is not horrific so much as interesting. And I really HAVE had fun talking about this with you. (It’s much more fun than pondering how very much plagiarism has been uncovered here. *shudder* But less important.)
HIAWATHA???
I think my brain hurts now.
Best (ie totally snarky yet accurate) summary of the Cassie Edwards fiasco can be found at Gennita Low’s blog:
http://rooferauthor.blogspot.com/2008/01/plagiarism-play-or-brain-plaque.html
Highlystrung … Yes, people whose ancestors arrived on foot from Asia do refer to themselves as “Indian”, and by the Anglicised version of their tribal name, and by the name as it is pronounced in their own language.
At various times, I have heard one person use Navajo, Di-Neh, Indian, Red Man, Redskin, Noble Savage, Native American, American Indian and American. He’s Navajo. Sometimes he’s sarcastic.
I don’t mind being a spelling snob. I’m horrified by the way it has been relegated to the back of the school bus. A kid asks me to look over their homework and I point out spelling errors. Their response? “It doesn’t matter, the teacher isn’t checking that.”
And as a bookstore employee my skin literally crawls every time I hear “I’m looking for a book but I don’t know the ARTHUR’s name.” grrrrrrrrr
Diane: HA! I loved that so very, very much. Great fun.
That’s all I’ve got. Well, that and CE is crazy plagiarist. (My brain took a vacation.)
I’m sorry, I don’t absolve the editors of responsibility here. When 15 minutes of work by a librarian, or random Googling a review quote, turns up troublesome passages, there is absolutely no excuse for editors missing this stuff for years.
I totally disagree. Most editors wouldn’t have all those books by heart to recognize the plagiarisms and I doubt googling text at random is a standard part of an editor’s job. (I doubt an editor has time to google text at random.) The author is responsible for what she did, not her editors. From comments made here, it doesn’t sound like she had much editing in the first place. 🙁
“I don’t absolve the editors of responsibility here
there is absolutely no excuse for editors missing this stuff for years”
Well, apparently that IS what’s happened.
“I doubt an editor has time to google text at random. The author is responsible for what she did, not her editors. “
From an editor—THANK YOU. And you are totally right.
I do not have time to Google random passages.
Nor do I automatically assume there’s plagiarism on the pages that come under my little blue pencil. I am trusting that the writer has been honest with me.
Yanno why? Because EVERY book contract I’ve ever seen has a clause that says to the effect that the words in the work are the writer’s own words and she swears she is not a low-down, stinky ol’ copy cat.
I expect every contract Ms. Edwards signed has that clause.
It’s HER own fault if she chose to be an idiot and ignore it.
Ignoring it has given her publisher the legal right to sue the pantaloons off her unless she can hie herself to a country with no extradition treaty with the US.
If she has done this thing, then she’s ruined her career, embarrassed every house that’s ever bought her books, and shown a remarkable contempt for her readers by serving them up sloppy seconds year after year.
Give me a break! I may not be an author but I have written my share of term papers in my life. Any time you take a direct quote from a book, you give the author his due credit! How hard would it have been to just ask? From one fellow writer to another, I’m sure he would have been more than happy to help you out. He writes about nature and extinct species for God’s sake! I’m sure he would love to get the word out to as many people as possible concerning the ferrets. A small credit section in the back of the book would have been great for both Cassie and Mark. It would show Cassie in a much better light than she’s in now. I personally like it when the author gives a little history of the era and how they changed it to fit into their story line. And one last thing: It’s all about honor, isn’t it? Stop your whining Cassie and take your mistake and learn from it! People aren’t persecuting you, they are asking you to step up to the plate and own it! From one bitch to another…Sit down and eat your humble pie like a woman!
I must say, that I think that people are missing an important piece here (and yes, my tongue is FIRMLY in my cheek):
Considering the vast quantity of evidence piling up from the most cursory Google searches, I don’t think that anyone alive could successfully identify anything that CE has written herself – since there seems to be none of that rarity circulating in print.
So obviously, the Myspace response *must* have been written by the author in question. I mean, isn’t it apparent that she can’t actually write anything worth reading all by herself? And that tripe was certainly not worth reading, ergo…
Lastly, I am fully in accord with those who are now pathetically enamored of Nora Roberts. I really love it when people whose works I enjoy show themselves to be personally worthy of respect as well. Brava!
Has anyone officially named the beyond-the-call-of-duty band of researchers combing Edwards and the rest of Western lit for these examples? Could they be anything but “The Black-Footed Ferrets”?
Some, would call them The Ladies Who Lynch…
I call them Google Bitch Search.
and here I had a hope there was no one else in this world that was as manipulative as my mom. Let me explain that. My mom has told me upon occasion that she and her father only remember things the way THEY see them, not as people like me and my granpa do, which is almost from a sidelines straight up facts point of view, but only how SHE sees it. Thusly, she is never wrong about anything and will not apologize for doing wrong when you point it out to her because to her she is not wrong. This is what I grew up with for all my life.
Now, I’m a smart person and I know my limitations and I will bow my head in defeat if I am wrong about something, but generally speaking, I don’t get into an argument with someone over something if I know I’m wrong about a subject. In fact, I don’t get into a conversation when I only have so much information to draw my conclusions from. That being said, I have ended up in arguments with my mother on subjects I know a lot about and can pretty well quote straight from whatever TV program or book I got it from and she will sit there and tell me I’m wrong. No. Matter. What.
Because of her general ogre like attitude toward not just me, but my grandmother, who couldn’t even hurt a fly, and my grandfather who she treats like an outright criminal to the point of passive-aggressively accusing him of theft or doing anything else wrong in the house. She never blames herself for it unless it makes her look good. She has even made certain to put on the beat up upon teary eyed woman act to my violin teacher, who’s an old hippie, so that my violin teacher, who’s as sweet as you can get in anybody, will not take anything I say my GRANDPA says as true. She asked me who told me about the money coming from HIS paycheck when I was a kid and we were renting a house and he gave it to my mom to pay the car payments and utilities with. I told her that my granpa told me this and she asked “and you believe him?”
This corrosive personality is what drove all three of us to move out and live in Bastrop to keep from being anywhere near her. (She was badgering my grandmother for rent of $1000 dollars, badgering my grandmother to pay her $1000 for some bogus charge. She claimed it was because she “overpaid” my grandmother on the house we had bought in my senior year of highschool. My grandma had been paying the house payment for all the time we were living there which was about seven years and my mom got the house put under HER name and the settlement was half of what it should have been, meanwhile, she claimed she overpaid my grandma and wanted the 1k in bucks back.)
See something familiar? I sure as hell do. My mom would think Mrs. Edwards was being bogus, because it takes a thief to spot one. My mom stole my grandma’s jewelry box and claimed it just disappeared in the house, my grandpa allowed my mom in the past to keep his expensive jewelry hidden for him so no one could steal it and he never got it back from her, which she also claims it has disappeared mysteriously. Both women have rationalized their behavior as being not their fault that some mean people have targeted them for their sick behavior. Oh NO. She’s not accountable for any wrong doing because in her head she thinks she is the one that’s in the right.
As I said; I can’t believe there’s actually another woman as manipulative in the same areas as my own blasted mother. That sickens me to no end and makes her even more deplorable because of it.
Dear Bitches—
I’m not a romance reader (I prefer
mystery/crime/suspense, in which genre there was recent controversy over Da Vinci Code’s Dan Brown plagiarizing from Lewis Perdue; I thought Perdue presented his case well, as you did, with multiple side-by-side comparisons, but the court threw it out). I’d never heard of Cassie Edwards until today, when someone on a mystery list mentioned this case, and I came to visit and scan the evidence.
I’m not an Indian (though I did teach high school English forty years ago in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation).
I’m not a lawyer (but I’m pretty familiar with the “fair use” provisions of the copyright law).
What I am is a long-time writer, and as such wanted to commend you on your excellent research into what to me is conclusive evidence that the writer in question did indeed lift substantial portions of material from other sources. Whether the numerous citations are enough to substantiate charges of plagiarism is a matter for the courts to decide (and I suspect that the decision would be simillar to the Perdue-Brown matter).
However, on an ethical basis, I have to agree with your many responders that apparently Edwards has, aided and abetted by publishers’ sloppy fact-checkers and editors, managed for years to get away with an incredibly lazy way of constructing her fiction: large passages clipped from the work of others, spliced together with (possibly) original characters and plotlines.
While, as the Bible claimed, some 2000 years ago, “there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), it is the task of writers to make things seem new with fresh combinations and permutations of characteristics and situations that produce unique stories. It’s a matter of trust, a compact between writer and reader, that a work appearing under one’s byline is supposed to be substantially the product of one’s own efforts. Betrayal of that trust wounds all of us who hurl nouns against verbs in an attempt to strike sparks with readers.
Certainly, most writers have suffered lapses: we borrow ideas from earlier wordsmiths, unconsciously take favorite phrases from other works, perhaps quote fragments of dimly-remembered passages. In the white-heat of creation, we don’t always pause to cite sources. But this Edwards case seems like a clear-cut example of wholesale appropriation, with only minimal, clumsy attempts to paraphrase, and as part of the writing fraternity, that offends my sense of fairness and honor.
I appreciate your vigilence. And I thank you for reminding me again to rely primarily on my own skills and experiences while toiling to offer something at least slightly different than what came before.
Nora – what’s the matter, writer’s block? Can’t find any more strange plot twists to write about today to add to the drivel being published in your genre?
If you’ve got time on your hands to cross-referenced CE books with Hiawatha…
What a sad day for the romance genre.
Do any of you realize that no one cares? That you and this genre is going to be nothing but the butt of jokes from here on out (as if you weren’t before?) and you all taking it a.) so very seriously or b.) being snarky bitches about it, is going to come back and bite you in the ass big time.
Oh well. yawn.
This blog itself is here simply to support or trash someone else’s career. What a lofty goal. You do nothing here but gossip… or gossip about gossip. This is like watching some surreal Twilight Zone show where someone who uses plastic flowers is judged on their arrangements complaining someone else used their plastic flower ideas.
I can’t believe someone wasted hours of their life pouring through fiction they hate to find evidence of something so minor in the scheme of things. I can’t believe a published author with novels in the genre herself spent time doing so.
Then again, maybe I can.
What damage has really been done, legally? How could a court possibly determine what damage has been done to the authors of these reference books or the readers who read CE’s fictional twist on their information? Who really cares? Even the authors of the reference material are making light of it (hot ferret sex anyone?) and this is just the tip of the iceberg if this issue gets as big as you all seem to want to make it.
And hell, for some of you, it may be your first chance to hear from Longfellow, or hear about the plight of black-footed ferrets. Maybe CE was really doing the romance genre as a great service.
Yes, CE plagiarized. It’s very clear. And so?
“Oh, gee, wasted my time reading her!”
Like you couldn’t have said that before the plagiarism issue came out in the first place?
Discovering this does what – protects the good integrity of the trashy romance industry? Please. Yours is nothing but a genre of pure escapism. If Toni Morrison or Alice Walker or Amy Tan had been found to be a plagiarist, then THAT would be news.
This? This is just pathethic.
Dear Joanna,
Bless your heart, you’re just not a happy person are you?
I’ve seen the light. Thank you, Joanna. I now realize the romance is nothing but trash, and I need to devote my time to reading real literature that has been approved by you. Bless you. Bless you for telling me how very wrong my taste and opinions are.
In response, I say: “I can’t believe someone wasted hours of their life pouring through [a blog about] fiction they hate… I can’t believe [someone with such rarefied tastes] spent time doing so.
Then again, maybe I can.”
Or did you receive a psychic newsflash that told you that out there, somewhere, there was a blog in need of your truly edifying post about the sad state of our pathetic lives, thus eliminating the need to actually read through an enormous number of posts and comments to find one by an author that you’ve no doubt never heard of (since you don’t subject yourself to such trash)?
(Candy, SBSarah, tell me to shut up any minute, please?)
PSA: don’t feed the trolls—particularly one who’s skirting the line about accusing Ms Roberts of plagiarism.
spamfoiler: half65—I don’t think Joanna is even half here.
Joanna—
I’m quite confident Nora can speak for herself but there’s a *tiny* detail you’re missing.
Nora Roberts did NOT discover the Hiawatha phrases. I did. You may want to get your facts straight before you make such accusations.
Here’s the scoop: I sent the info to the SBs and Jane at Dear Author. Jane posted a portion of it in the comments section at Dear Author. I believe Nora saw it there and posted it here.
No far-reaching conspiracy by that wildcat Nora, I assure you.
And, as I’ve recommended to others, if you want to make an effective argument, then you’ll probably want to lay off the name-calling and watch your tone. It’s easier for folks to disregard what you say when you’re being rude. Just sayin’.
~Do any of you realize that no one cares?~
Golly, somebody named Joanna seems to. A lot.
For the record I didn’t cross-reference anything. Including Haiwatha.
And no writer’s block here. But thanks for caring!
I have to add I think Joanna has a little crush on me.
“That Wildcat Nora”
*snickers*
This is my first time here… found it in a round about way. I just have to say that I’m VERY disappointed in CE. Unfortunately, it doesn’t surprise me. My sister and I were discussing her about a year ago or so. I mentioned to her that I felt her writing would suddenly change voice and it was very distracting. Now I know why.
I think Joanna needs to take a pill and go find a loftier blog to spend her time reading.
One more thing, is there anything WRONG with escapism???
Nora… I LOVE your books!!!!!
Hm. Well isn’t Joanna an interesting individual. I work in a bookstore. I have the romance section (as well as Sports & Transportation). I can honestly say the sale of Nora Roberts probably pays my wages every week. And, perhaps, then some. Perhaps even my excellent insurance and generous 401K contributions. I could be wrong, but I’d bet the sale of Toni Morrison or Amy Tan doesn’t even cover my gas to work for a week. Perhaps even a day.
That is nothing against them, they are fine writers. However, we are a market driven economy, and I think women enjoy paying for this “escapism”, it’s a whole lot more enjoyable than trying to unwind with, say, Virginia Woolf.
It has been said more than once by my co-workers: “You are always in too good of a mood!” and similar remarks. My response? “It’s because I work in the romance section. I’m in a constant state of arousal. You have the KIDS section.” (or religion, or what have you.)
Joanna, you might consider escaping into the arousal zone sometime. It might improve your mood.
By the way, I’m reading “To Kill A Mockingbird” right now, it’s not like we are Stepford Readers, incapable of foraying into other more “respectable” genres. When I’m done, though, I think a Ms. Roberts will be in order. “Midnight Bayou” is on my shelf waiting. Here’s to ya, Nora.
P.S.
I certainly would like to know Toni and Amy’s opinion of Joanna’s comments.
If Ms Edwards gets away with it, what will protect the venerable Ms Morrison and Ms Tan??? I suspect we’d find Joanna leading the charge to hang the thieves!!! She was right about someone getting bitten in the ass, she was just wrong about WHOM.