As you may all know, I like Steven Goldman a lot. I've been reading his stuff for about 7 years since he was writing his Pinstribed Bible column for the MLB version of the Yankee page. The links to his work on the side of this page are not for nuthin'.
Today in the Pinstriped Blog, I found this entry:
NOTHING TO DO WITH BASEBALL IIGood heavens, I know exactly how you feel Mr Goldman!
Can’t tell you how happy I am that the book “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed” is being pulled from stores, that the author, Kaavya Viswanathan, had her contract cancelled, and that further revelations of plagiarism have scuttled plans to cleanse the book and reissue it — and not to pile on, but I hope Harvard punts her, too. (See link) As a writer, I admire anyone who gets a first novel published as a 19-year-old. That being said, I admire real writers, not agency-packaged, editor/agent-rewritten frauds. Real writers shouldn’t have to compete with robots. Most importantly, anyone who produces a book with something like 40 examples of copied or closely paraphrased material and then claims that the copying was “unconscious and unintentional” is a liar, much in the same way that you can’t claim to have accidentally shot someone 40 times. Accidental plagiarism is a myth. You either know how to compose your own thoughts or you’re a thief. Please, lady, get out of my profession.
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