Bostonist: Harvard Student/Author in Hot Literary Water

Camille Arnold

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:49:39 -0500

How Kaavya V Stole From Another Author Just to Be Able To Get Into Harvard; Cheated a Major Publisher Out of Half a Million Dollars; and Lied About to Millions of Americans. Lord help whoever works for her when she gets out of Harvard. Their ideas don't stand a chance.

JoeyCee

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:05:37 -0500

Let's all meet in the quad

ewwwww

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:54:21 -0500

a book called "sloppy firsts" spoke to her? is that a porno novel? seriously, are people missing the reference, or is that kind of title acceptable?

Sonya

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:10:42 -0500

I think Ms. Viswanathan's half-hearted admission of her actions is completely pathetic. It is obvious to anyone who reads the passages from the two texts that she copied the precise phrasing, merely changing incidental details to make the work appear original. I don't care how old she is, there is no excuse for plagarism and her response is indicative that she will never accept responsibility for her actions and or learn her lesson. Anyone who buys that book is wasting their money. Her advance should be returned to the publisher and I would hope that any option she has with Dreamworks will lapse. I work with writers who spend their entire lives trying to get a novel published or a screenplay produced. If she manages to achieve even a modicum of success after this, then that says precious little about the values in our society.

Jake

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:23:01 -0500

Great debate and links over at Metafilter. This thread started up early yesterday and is still going strong. http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/51136 The consensus seems to be in favor of throwing the ...(ahem) book at her, with which sentiment I couldn't agree more. Writing chick lit is bad enough as it is - getting caught plagirizing chick lit is just plain embarrasing...