Part of a series: Cassie Edwards 1: The First Post | Cassie Edwards 2: Savage Longings | Cassie Edwards Part 3: Running Fox | Cassie Edwards Part 4: Savage Moon | Cassie Edwards Part 5: Savage Beloved | Follow-up: Penguin (Part 1?) | Official Statement from Signet | AP Article Contains Response from Edwards | RWA Responds to Allegations | A centralized document for the Cassie Edwards situation
I heard this morning from Penguin. It was a canned response. Now, keep in mind that a) I didn’t know people at Penguin I could contact directly, so I used their all-purpose “Hi, I’ve found problems with something in one of your books” e-mail, and b) these things take time to work through. If somebody wants to email me (candy @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com) a better contact at Penguin/Signet to forward on all our findings, do it, do iiiiiiiit.
So here, in its entirety, is the response I got from Penguin:
Dear Candy,
We appreciate the many questions, comments, suggestions, and ideas that are submitted by our readers and are happy to share them with our Editorial, Publicity, Sales and Marketing departments. Because of the volume of mail received, we cannot guarantee that you will receive a personal response, however, we will certainly forward your comments to them for review.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
I may or may not hear more from them.
Dorchester, on the other hand, hasn’t written back yet. If they haven’t replied by tomorrow, I might try sniffing around for another e-mail address to send this material to.
Color me ignorant. I thought she’s ChangelingPress not LooseID?
Being of advanced age has not given people immunity to being called to account for their past crimes in infinitely more serious matters than this: think of the 80-something year old who was charged with Nazi war crimes last year after leading a blameless life somewhere in the US for the intervening sixty or so years (sorry, I can’t remember the name to attribute this more accurately). I am not for a moment comparing romance novel plagurism with war crimes, in case someone thinks I am (though I imagine the Bitches are all too smart to think that anyway), but making the general point that age alone is not generally regarded as grounds to avoid responsibility for one’s past actions. There was another case in Britain last year, of a mother and son team who were prosecuted for long-term antiques forgeries: the mother was well on in her eighties, but she was still prosecuted, though I think she escaped a custodial sentence.
If Edwards turns out currently to be suffering from dementia or a terminal illness, that’s a different matter, IMO. But if she just happens to be 71 but is still the same person who carried out this sustained plaguirism for so long, why shouldn’t she be accountable for it? She’s old enough to know better!
Whoa… I just got back from googling the controversy and my goodness has this kicked up a storm. I’ve noticed most of the negative responses are because Sarah and Candy outing CE isn’t “nice”. Which has lead me to want to say a couple of things.
First, as has already been said, the fact that they brought people’s attention to the fact that CE may have plagiarized isn’t mean, it’s just honest. It may not make everyone happy but there you go, life isn’t always happy and telling the truth isn’t the same as being mean (yeesh!) And if someone *does* do something that’s wrong they *should* be confronted with it.
The second thing is people hating on the SB’s for being generally “mean” – Of course people are entitled to their opinion, and if they feel the need to express said opinion that’s fine… so long as they don’t start getting all rabid and foamy at the mouth. But this site’s called “Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books” and they’re very upfront about their snarkiness. It’s why I check this blog out religiously every day. Well, it’s not just their snarkiness, it’s also that their freakin’ comic geniuses 🙂
So, while I support people duking things out in a principled way (which can only be a good thing!) I also wanted to say that I *love* the SB’s for being mean! (Actually, I don’t think they’re all that mean… at least unless the person really deserves it *g*)
It is Changeling rather than Loose ID. Rather than focus on the whole publisher thing … I mean Ms. Riley of Changeling is trying to stay OUT of the fuss … let’s just nod our heads and smile. It’s not like any publisher has come out in support of CE after knowing all the facts. NO more pot stirring, please! 😀
Changeling Press!
Oh my god! There those the poser/furry vote!
Quick we need spin doctors to cover that area. Get Candy and go pet some LOL cats.
Um – are y’all surprised? The authors she’s lifting from are long gone – everyone has known for decades that she’s craptastic, and she makes them pots of money. since no one is going to sue, and if they tick her off someone else gets pots of money….
What did you expect?
Since when is it mean to be honest? This whole concept literally kills me.
Why even bother having the right to speak out against something when all the masses say that even though its wrong, you are mean for saying anything?
WTF?!?
I read this blog everyday. I read it because it is funny & intelligant. I do not read it to feel warm and fuzzy (although sometimes I do). I have bunny slippers for that shit.
Vive la SBs.
You know I still hate her more for the racism than the plagiarism.
I want to get one thing straightened out here.
For those of you calling Mrs. Edwards a racist, you need to read about Mrs. Edwards before assuming something like that.
Mrs. Edwards is part Cheyenne. She writes about the Native Americans and uses their history so her readers will see that they were not murderers, theives, or savages.
The “Savage” Series is the name given to the books published by Dorchester. It is in no way racist.
For some reason this site enjoys slamming Mrs. Edwards. It has been done before. This is the only review site I know of where authors get put down, called names, and have their names dragged through the mud.
Everyone knows you don’t like Mrs. Edwards or her books. So why keep reading them?
Don’t keep saying you didn’t intentionally set out to discredit the author. No one goes looking on the internet to try to find quotes as you did.
A normal person/reader does not do that. Only someone trying to get some kind of dirt on a specific author does that.
At first I was angry at your actions. Now having read all the posts by the same people, saying the same thing, I feel sorry for you.
You have your following, however small it may be and they will agree with you on whatever you say.
I personally find your actions childish, vindictive, and unprofessional.
Using research material is not copyright infringement nor is it plagiarism. Most publishing houses do NOT print the research sources even if it is provided. It simply isn’t done.
Mrs. Edwards did not steal a story line, she did not copy someone else’s story. She used research to help her readers understand the life and culture of the Native people.
It is not illegal, nor is it plagiarism.
It may not be illegal if the passages she copied weren’t copyrighted, or if the copyright expired already—but it is plagiarism. All the bleating in the universe won’t made this theft anything but the unethical and immoral bullshit it is.
Hey, I’m repeating myself.
No hay peor ciego que quien no quiere ver.
It is not illegal, nor is it plagiarism.
Honey, please to find a dictionary and look up plagiarism? Plagiarism is taking another’s words and passing them off as your own. There’s no question that this is what Ms. Edwards has done.
Whether exposing this is a kind thing may be a matter of opinion; me, I favor the truth, especially in light of the fact that Ms. Edwards has been representing to her readership for years that she actually wrote those words—when in fact she did not.
In other words, what Smart Bitches is doing here is a service to the readership, who far outnumber Ms. Edwards. I’d rather be kind to the readers, who spent their hard-earned money on Ms. Edwards books, only to be offered some flabby rehash of (outdated) academic texts: if I were one of her readers, I’d feel cheated.
I’m sorry you feel that Ms. Edwards has been unfairly maligned, but very little I’ve seen on this site has been about her person, merely about her writing, and the value of it. And discussions of literature have always been properly held in the public sphere, that’s part of what the public sphere is for.
The SBs (and the rest of us) aren’t really maligning Cassie Edwards’ writing per se, but rather her lack of it. I work in academics, and every professor and teacher I know has at least once googled phrases from their students’ papers just to make sure there’s no plagarism going on. And while it may not be illegal, it is taken very seriously because the entire idea of cut-and-paste is anethema to the process of teaching and education.
As a reader of fiction, however, one generally does not look for outright plagarism because, naive readers that we are, we expect the writer with his or her name on the cover to have actually written the entire book! Imagine. The idea that there is a published author out there with the same mind-set as the laziest and most apathetic teenager is mind-boggling to me. Is it really that much trouble to write a sentence on your own???
But whatever. I don’t read her books anyway. 😛
For those of you calling Mrs. Edwards a racist, you need to read about Mrs. Edwards before assuming something like that.
Mrs. Edwards is part Cheyenne.
Whooptee-doo for her.
You know what? There are lots of people who are part Native American. Having a mixed heritage doesn’t confer some special “can’t-be-racist” pass.
I *have* read some of CE’s work, and it struck me as *highly* racist. Even if I didn’t have my own small amount of Native heritage, it would still have offended the hell out of me. Her portrayal of Native Americans as one-dimensional “noble savages” is highly offensive—especially their dialog. It doesn’t get to the, “How, white man,” level, but damned if it ain’t close to it.
She says she’s working her way through every tribe. Wouldn’t be surprised to find out some of them had their fingers crossed not to be chosen for this dubious “honor.”