Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Nora Roberts has been quoted in a revised AP article regarding the Cassie Edwards story:

Roberts, whose fiction has sold hundreds of millions of copies, told The Associated Press on Thursday that “it seems clear” Edwards acted improperly.

“Given the side-by-side comparisons I’ve read, it seems clear Ms. Edwards copied considerable portions of previously published work and used them in her books without attribution to the original source,” Roberts wrote in an e-mail to the AP. “By my definition, copying another’s work and passing it as your own equals plagiarism. As a writer, a reader and a victim of plagiarism, I feel very strongly on this issue. I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t see it as fair use, or fair anything when one writer takes another’s work.”

Both Roberts and Edwards are published by Penguin Group (USA), which on Wednesday defended Edwards, saying: “She has done nothing wrong.”