On Public Plagiarism
I'm not as fierce and ready to pounce in public in cases of plagiarism as I was five years ago - nowadays I prefer to contact the author privately before too many people find out - people make mistakes, and I don't mind giving them a chance to redeem themselves.
But then, what do you do if a colleague writer brings you the news of a friend - one you shared your works with on several occasions - winning a fairly big prize for a poem that you, in fact, wrote - that you've won national prizes with, even?
Yes. I couldn't do much in private this time: it's a public prize. So I called the coordinator of the competition, and she's going to withdraw the prize and contact some people who have the authority to speak up to The Plagiarising Friend. And I'm going to make this public - for the first time since 2004, I'm going to call out a plagiarist in public.
*sigh*
All that in one hour.
And the irony in the story, and this is what kills me, is that under my own name I haven't won any substantial/important prizes this year (yet, hopefully).
But I did win! Perhaps not under my own pseudonym, but still.
But then, what do you do if a colleague writer brings you the news of a friend - one you shared your works with on several occasions - winning a fairly big prize for a poem that you, in fact, wrote - that you've won national prizes with, even?
Yes. I couldn't do much in private this time: it's a public prize. So I called the coordinator of the competition, and she's going to withdraw the prize and contact some people who have the authority to speak up to The Plagiarising Friend. And I'm going to make this public - for the first time since 2004, I'm going to call out a plagiarist in public.
*sigh*
All that in one hour.
And the irony in the story, and this is what kills me, is that under my own name I haven't won any substantial/important prizes this year (yet, hopefully).
But I did win! Perhaps not under my own pseudonym, but still.