I have recently been writing under a pseudonym. I feel I have been forced into this. I entered a comp last year, throwing in 3 very strong pieces (two have won comps since (one a very a big comp) and the other was an unpublished winner from elsewhere and has since gone on to be highly commended). I entered them into a comp where I had done well several times before, always been on the shortlist and been on the podium twice. I bombed. It made no sense. This happens in entering comps, so I just shrugged. But then someone sent me an anonymous e-mail saying I was not being read by some comp judges... but every comp I had entered had duly accepted my entrance fees! So I felt I had to adopt a pseudonym if I was to be sure in my head that I was being judged fairly.
A writer called Benjamin Judge accepted some of my freely given pieces for a site he had set up. Then my pseudonym was unmasked and he presumed that my adoption of the pseudonym had a malicious intent. It did not. Even VG has written and subbed under a pseudonym before and her mentor AK and many others besides. I did so in order to be read and in order to save others from being targeted by an 'anonymous' person who seeks to undermine my successes at every turn: I had three stories accepted by 100 Stories For Haiti; these were subsequently pulled because someone threatened the editor that he/she would go to the publisher and inform them of my 'past' and so risk having the plug pulled on the whole charitable venture. Again freely given work, to do good only, and again the rug pulled out from under my feet.
Vanessa Gebbie, Jane Smith, and Tania Hershman have all at some time acknowledged that I am a writer with some ability, even some talent. The word 'gifted' has even been used. And yet I am forced to adopt a pseudonym to be read.
Someone on Benjamin Fudge's blog commented that I was a sociopath. This person is called Beebe Barksdale-Bruner. (A sociopath: someone who commits antisocial and sometimes violent acts against others and shows no guilt for the harm that they do. *(see below)) I do not know this person and she does not know me and clearly has not read my blog or any of my defence. Calling a person a sociopath without appreciating the sensibilities of the person and without any consideration of the impact of that act of calling, does, it seems to me, rather epitomise what a sociopath is. I hope Beebe stumbles along here and sees the sense of what I am saying. I bear her no malice.
I have apologised to VG and JS and to TH. I apologise to Benjamin Judge and to anyone else I have hurt or who feels let down because of me... but in what I did, including the posting under a pseudonym, I do not admit any wrong-doing. I have asked for a definition of what plagiarism is and what it is not. I have pointed to how writers going back to Shakespeare and coming right up to date with VG have taken from other writers and shown how I simply fit into this process. I have resolved not to write in this way again (without any admission of guilt in what I did, save that I am sorry for any hurt caused). If Benjamin Judge or anyone else can suggest how I might now go on being a writer and having my work seen and read, I would appreciate it, because I am a writer and worth being read... after all Benjamin Judge, you posted several of my pieces and thought they were good.
* This definition is written in my own words, but it conforms in general to what can be found in a standard dictionary. Online dictionaries sometimes refer you to the word Psychopath as they are related in meaning.
2 comments:
Dear BJ
Thanks for your response. First off I am sorry if I misunderstood your intentions in your removing my work from your site; actually I think I was rather inferring from your strong use of langauage against me (wanker?) that you thought me guilty. I am pleased to read that you are now saying you do not know if i am a plagiarist or not.
There's a lot you do not know about the case or about me. If you had read my blog - and there's a lot on the subject so I do forgive you for not having read it - but if you had you'd know that I have studied Skakespeare (et al!) and that with a play like Romeo and Juliet he was not taking from an oral tradition but rather from several published sources, including a narrative poem that he adheres very closely to for his plot and his ideas. I am not, as you suggest, making 'glib generalisations'.
You would also know that words are my love, and it is the aspect of my writing that is most praised. I have never, repeat never, taken another's words and passed them off as my own. I have never, repeat never, infringed legal copyright. When I talk of writers borrowing form other writers, I do so in the same way that you do with your references to Smith's 'On Beauty' and Swift's 'Last Orders'... I would add Martell's 'Life of Pi' and Fielding's 'Bridget Jones' to the list for breadth. If I have borrowed it as these writers have and as VG herself has and no more than that. And that was 2 years ago and involved two stories out of hundreds that I have written - I have publicly declared that I do not borrow in this way now.
You say I should act like a man in this. Putting aside the unacceptable sexism of your comment, does that mean that I should not vigorously defend myself when one or two individuals seek to undermine my character and my writing? In a comment elsewhere you suggest I should confront what I did. Does this not seem like a contradiction? I am not afraid to confront what I did; I believe I did no wrong. I have been completely honest throughout. The same cannot be said for those who are against me.
My intention in using a pseudonym was never to cause you harm or anyone else. That it has done so I am sorry for. But look instead to the intentions of the person who pulled back my pseudonym. They must have done a fair bit of reading and detective work to be sure of what they said. Why would a person go to such lengths? What was to be gained in telling you and putting you in the difficult position of knowing? This person's motives must be questionable at the very least, and probably downright bad if we are being honest... and not just bad but maybe dishonest, too?
I wish you well in your writing, and I do not hold any of this against you. I would, however, urge you to read more before you comment on what I have done and who I am... but then I completely understand if you do not... there is a lot to unpick.
Thanks again
Best
D
And BJ's response is not to publish this reply on his site. Have I been too critical of him here? Sorry if I have.
He says he has read enough of my blog to have an opinion on the matter. I do not wish to get into a war against him and so I leave him to his opinion, but it seems to me that you would need to read all the evidence in order to arrive at a considered opinion rather than a vague feeling.
He says I should stop being the martyr. Since when is defending your position and your character considered being a martyr?I defend myself against the half-formed ill-informed mud-slinging of others; that is not being a martyr. I ask that others look into the specifics of the case and to make a judgement of their own - that is not being a martyr.
The whole idea of plagiarism is far more complex than BF acknowledges in his blog. I have spent the past two years looking into it in ever greater detail and even with a degree in philosophy I am no nearer an absolute understanding of what is and is not allowed or why. And who makes these rules anyway? And if they are not logical but arbitrary, how is a writer to avoid falling foul of them? I say again that I have never used another's words; why would I? That's what I do well! And if I have borrowed ideas I have always been open about it and done no more than other writers from the beginning of writing up to the present (VG and TH and JS included,)
If you anyone finds reading this tiresome, then they don't have to come here and they don't have to read what I have written. I won't stop writing my defence. I won't stop writing.
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