BUSTED! Plagiarists, Fakers & Literary Hoaxes

[ladyboy]

I guess if you're getting a ghostwrite at Fiverr you're probably going to get something copied and pasted...

[Ladybug]

That's the weird part, I've never heard of this author, but I've heard of every writer she (and/or her ghostwriter) plagiarized from: Kresley Cole, Tessa Dare, Courtney Milan, Bella Andre, Lynne Graham, Lisa Kleypas, all well known romance writers with thousands of readers!

[Auroranorth]

This idiot plagiarized NORA ROBERTS. That is a special level of stupid.

She's blaming her ghostwriter- so far three of them have come out and said she claimed this was all her own work.

[garnet927]

Lengthy list of authors Cristiane Serruya plagiarized

[seat6]

Wow, wow, wow, Naomi Wolf has really stepped in it this time.

Here’s an Actual Nightmare: Naomi Wolf Learning On-Air That Her Book Is Wrong

My hot take: I feel badly for her, but I’ve been reading about it elsewhere and it seems like she did not do her due diligence. She set out to debunk what was commonly known to historians (especially queer historians) of the era and flopped. If she had approached it like an a academic and done a review of the literature she would not have had a flawed thesis. She evidently made two huge mistakes: assuming sodomy was defined as homosexual sex only, when it had a much broader definition, and not bothering to look up the death dates for the people she assumed were executed (that info would have been fairly easy to find).

[Deleted]

She really screwed up on her research, which is somewhat shocking for someone who’s been a nonfiction writer for as long she has. She does seem to be handling it well though. I also feel kind of badly for her and I can sympathize a bit. I had a similar experience in college but with much lower stakes. It sucks to find out the premise of the project you’ve been working on for so long is flawed and thus the entire project and all of your effort into it have been worthless. Me and my group were all 19-20 years old though, so we at least had youthful inexperience as an excuse.

[americanchai]

I'm not 100% sure this belongs in this thread but this article is totally delicious and well written.

The Story of Caroline Calloway and her ghostwriter Natalie

I don't really follow Instagram influencers and their ilk but since there was the whiff of "Fyre Festival" about Calloway and then the weird cult-like way she seemed to inspire Natalie Beach to basically do a lot of her work for her is a pretty fun read. The cringing self-loathing of Natalie Beach really churns up some thoughts about some of my own past relationships, etc.

[chiqui]

I read that too. It exposes just how fake and contrived being an influencer can be, and any viewer who takes them even the tiny littlest bit seriously (as did the folks who shelled out big $$$ for these lectures and workshops) should read the article too. The technological miracle of being broadcast to millions via the internmet does *not* automatically endow legitimacy or authenticity.

But it's hard for me to feel too sad for Natalie, because she did hang on to the relationship long after she recognized it was damaging to her. OTOH, both girls are still very young, so perhaps I should cut them some slack. With age and experience, both of them will gain more perspective about the whole thing.

As producers of creative material craving legitimacy, Natalie's star is rising and Caroline's falling at this period in time. Natalie will be the one to monetize her experience and gain creative capital from it. She will get the book and movie deals.

Now I want to give Natalie a hug and tell her she's doing great.

[pachengala]

Sept 12, 2019 11:18:46 GMT -4 americanchai said:

I'm not 100% sure this belongs in this thread but this article is totally delicious and well written.

The Story of Caroline Calloway and her ghostwriter Natalie

I don't really follow Instagram influencers and their ilk but since there was the whiff of "Fyre Festival" about Calloway and then the weird cult-like way she seemed to inspire Natalie Beach to basically do a lot of her work for her is a pretty fun read. The cringing self-loathing of Natalie Beach really churns up some thoughts about some of my own past relationships, etc.

I lost almost this entire day deep-diving into this. The only thing I *didn’t* read is her endless, relentless captions. What a master she is at saying nothing in as many words possible. She is stultifyingly boring as a person but fucking FASCINATING as a phenomenon. I can’t look away.

[chonies]

I can’t link but there’s a very interesting story about two novels that have a lot of similarities—one by an unknown author who raised the alarm and the other by Jojo Moyes. The topic is about the Depression era librarians on horseback who visited rural Appalachia and other places. The timeline is and the artifacts aren’t entirely condemning; one of the items claimed as plagiarism was that it in both books a couple received a quilt for their wedding. I got married in 2010 and received a quilt for my wedding, and it certainly would have been SOP in 1930s rural America, no?

That said, right now I’m at the undecided phase—it’s interesting to see which tropes the authors could easily have both landed on independently, like a token Black character, a town vagrant, people who wanted to read the best selling book of that era. Or maybe it’s all a bit too similar.

ETA: here's the link to Buzzfeed.