7th
praise jesus!
Here it is, the holy grail, my perfect news story: Christmas Essay Was Not His, Author Admits.
Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling series “Conversations With God,” recently posted a personal Christmas essay on the spiritual Web site Beliefnet.com about his son’s kindergarten winter pageant.
Why do I say “perfect”?
1. Nobody died.
2. It’s a plagiarism scandal! Juicy!
Ms. Chand’s essay was reprinted, with her clearly identified as the author, in “Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul” in 2000, as well as on heartwarmers.com, a Web site for inspirational stories. In 2003 Ms. Chand copyrighted the story with the United States Copyright Office. Last June Gibbs Smith, a small independent publisher, released the story, “Christmas Love,” as an illustrated gift book. The story has also been passed around through e-mail and on blogs, sometimes without attribution.
3. Ooh, Christian hypocrisy!
Mr. Walsch — whose first book in the series “Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue,” published in 1996 by Putnam, a unit of Penguin Group USA, spent 139 weeks on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-seller list — added that he would never deliberately copy another writer’s words without attributing them. “It’s not like I’m trying to find an audience or trying to impress anybody with my writing,” he said.
Ms. Chand said in a telephone interview that she did not believe Mr. Walsch’s explanation. “If he knew this was wrong, he should have known it was wrong before he got caught,” she said. “Quite frankly, I’m not buying it.”
Ms. Chand said that she had seen others take credit for writing the story twice in church newsletters, but that this was the first time she had seen a professional appropriate her words.
4. This bit of hilarity at the end:
In a statement, Beliefnet said Mr. Walsch had withdrawn from the site’s blogging roster. “As a faith-based Web portal, Beliefnet will continue to hold ourselves and our writers to the highest standards of trust,” the statement read.
