Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Harvard Cheater: Gosh, How Did That Happen?

That Harvard plagiarist went on the Today show to say yes, she'd read the best-selling books of Megan McCafferty several times but she never "referred" to them when she "wrote" her own book so she has no idea how the major plot points and dozens and dozens of similar if not identical passages popped up in her own book. Happily, McCafferty's publisher is not accepting their tepid apology and a claim to change all the coincidences in future editions and include an acknowledgement to McCafferty (what, something like "Shout out to the woman I ripped off?"). They want the book off the shelves and rightly so. Oddly, McCafferty's publisher insists all their focus on her new novel is being derailed by this incident and they can't get any publicity. Youd imagine instead she would be embraced by her fans and have more interview opportunities than ever. What continues to puzzle is Little, Brown's defense of an author that defrauded them. Quite simply, they gave $500,000 to a 17 year old girl who delivered a cheap rip-off of an established author. Why haven't they dumped her?

3 comments:

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Michael in New York said...

Now that's funny.