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Is Imitation a Sincere Form of Plagiarism

Is Imitation a Sincere Form of PlagiarismA recent New Yorker short story entitled Foreign-Returned by Sadia Shepard was criticized by Francine Prose as being a rip-off and a retelling of a Mavis Gallant short story published in the magazine in the 1960’s. Prose’s contention is that Shepard’s story took the same plot, the same situation between characters and even some of the same language found in the Gallant story and appropriated it. At the very least, Prose seems to feel, the story should have been published with some sort of attribution to Gallant. [Read more…]

Too Old to Write?!

by Steven Gaines
Bestselling author of Philistines at the Hedgerow and
now his memoir One of These Things First

Too Old to Write - A Blog Post by Steven Gaines

Last week, I was in a bookstore when I overheard three young men in their late-twenties making fun of the photo of Tom Wolfe on the back cover of his book Back to Blood. Sacrilege. Alas, the photo was a little silly. It was typical showman Wolfe, dressed in his trademark white suit and tie, a snazzy hat in hand. He’s 84 years old now, and he looked a bit more like a geezer in a costume instead of his usual debonair self. But who cares what Tom Wolfe looks like as long as it’s another great book? “I didn’t know he was still writing,” one of the guys sniffed. “He’s too old.” [Read more…]

How I Came to Write My Light-Hearted Novels

by Joseph Caldwell
Bestselling author of The Pig Trilogy

The Pig Trilogy by Joseph Caldwell

The Pig books are the most light-hearted of all my books. I would not have written them if the AIDS epidemic had never happened. As a volunteer at Saint Vincent’s hospital in New York City, I helped take care of many people who were ill with the disease. I had many friends who died. [Read more…]

When Good Novelists Write Not-so-Good Novels

Book Publishing and Editing - A Fine Balance

What separates someone like myself from most other book editors is that I am a writer first and foremost. There are many advantages to this – sometimes using my own craft I can easily conjure up an example of what I think should be done in a manuscript: embroidering a scene; a certain kind of character description; or even a punctuation of a moment that gives a sense of marking time. [Read more…]