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Blowing a career?

Meet Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan, author of the new book: "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" published by Little, Brown last spring. She got a lot of publicity as well as $500,000 for the book and a sequel. Too good to be true? According to this NY Times article -- yes:

Young Author Admits She Copied Another Writer
In an e-mail message this afternoon, Ms. Viswanathan said that in high school she had read and loved the two books she is accused of borrowing from, 'Sloppy Firsts' and "Second Helpings," and that they "spoke to me in a way few other books did."

"Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel, 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,' and passages in these books," the message went on.

Calling herself a "huge fan" of Ms. McCafferty's work, Ms. Viswanathan added, "I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words." She also apologized to Ms. McCafferty and said that future printings of the novel would be revised to "eliminate any inappropriate similarities."

Michael Pietsch, publisher of Little, Brown, said Ms. Viswanathan planned to add an acknowledgment to Ms. McCafferty in future printings of the book.

Of course, now that the subsequent printings will be edited, this makes the first editions that much more valuable... Probably an honest mistake but her editor should have caught that in a heartbeat. This is what a book editor does. At least she is graciously owning up to the error -- I will submit these two images as an example of someone who doesn't own up to their blatant plagiarism:
Thomas Mails


Ward Churchill The top image is a pen and ink sketch done by Thomas Mails in 1972. The bottom one is a silk-screen done by Ward Churchill and presented as his own work in 1981. And he still continues to teach? Posted by DaveH at April 24, 2006 8:13 PM