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Wired editor and the author of the forthcoming, Free, Chris Anderson has been drawing fire for lifting passages from Wikipedia and using them in his book. The Virginia Quarterly Review has the story.

Okay, sorry. I didn’t write that, folks. My fault. Let’s try again:

In the course of reading Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion, $26.99), for a review in an upcoming issue of VQR, I have discovered almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources. These instances were identified after a cursory investigation, after I checked by hand several dozen suspect passages in the whole of the 274-page book.

Okay, stop. Again, sorry. Didn’t write that, either. I truly apologize and hope to make it up to everyone. Let’s go again:

Chris Anderson is the editor for Wired Magazine, a prominent tech journalist and a long-time advocate of the “free” business model. His upcoming book, entitled “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” has been the talk of many in the tech sectors as it deals with the idea of giving content away for free and then earning a living through other means.

However, even before the book has been officially released, it has become mired in controversy. Waldo Jaquith of the Virginia Quarterly Review (VGR), a literary review journal associated with the University of Virginia, noticed similarities between some passages in Anderson’s book and other sources. After putting some passages through Google, he found over a dozen instances where it appears Anderson copied content from Wikipedia as well as other sources. These allegations were furthered by Edward Champion on his site, who compared several more passages from other books and blog posts. This has sparked a firestorm of controversy on both Twitter and the comments section of the VGR post.

Um, okay. So I’m starting to get confused. Did I write the above passage or not? I can’t remember! Here’s what I think happened: I cut & pasted those sections from other online journals and then removed the quotation marks without much thought as I drafted this blog post. Silly me, ha ha. Please don’t judge too harshly. After all, I only hold a BA in English, and a master’s degree in writing. I’ve only worked as a freelance writer for a handful of newspapers and other tiny little publications. Oh, and I teach writing – and I’ve published in a few journals. (And I have a novel just released.) So I’m off the hook, right? Not like I work for a huge, internationally renown magazine that you can find at B&N as well as many grocery stores.

Oh, wait. That sounds familiar, too. Here’s what Chris Anderson told The New York Times:

Mr. Anderson said in a telephone interview. “Mea culpa.” He said that he originally had put the Wikipedia material in quotations, but that he and his publisher had not been able to agree on a format for citations. When he took the passages out of quotations, he failed to attribute Wikipedia or rewrite the material in his own words. “That’s my screw-up,” he said.

Now I’m getting depressed. So I can’t even plagiarize originally? Indeed, no. I’ve plagiarized Anderson’s plagiarism. The horror. Here, let me redeem myself. I’ll give you links to the original sources I’ve used. There, and there.

Hey. This is, like, the easiest blogpost I’ve ever made! Now, let me point out some ironies. First, Anderson’s selling his book on the merits of “free content” for $25. Does he plan to post the whole thing online? Also, I’ll bet making everything you write free sounds pretty good if all you do is sew together Wiki notes. Me, though, I think I’ll hoard my single digit royalties from book sales. Not that I’m complaining. These days to have a book published at all is a huge accomplishment, along the lines of landing on the moon without a rocket.

Now I’ll ponder whether or not I can legitimately fail freshmen for slipping big chocolate bar chunks of uncited wiki into their final papers. Hmmmmm. Herrmmm. Tick tock, tick tock. Yeah.

Oh, and Michael Jackson’s dead. More on that soon. Not that I plan to make fun of Michael Jackson for being dead. Or that I ever made fun of Jackson. In fact, when I was seven I almost got into a fight with some kids who were making fun of him. Well, the hole gets deeper with every word. Doesn’t it?

I’m glad to hear Sanford’s back home, safe and sound, from his trip. This ordeal has got me thinking of all the great jokes South Carolinians can expect in coming months. First: California’s governor says “I’ll be back;” Carolina’s govy leaves you wondering. Second: Fall off the radar for a few days and your friends will say, “We thought you’d pulled a Sanford. Ha, ha!” The Simpsons will manage a Sanford slap. Colbert, being from South Carolina himself, is bound to weigh in.

To readers who’ve never lived in South Carolina: Really, this isn’t as nuts as it sounds. We’re used to absurdity. We watched Sanford drag a bunch of hogs into the state house. Remember? We’ve also dealt with the likes of Maurice Bessinger, and let’s not forget where Bob Jones University is. When Lisa Simpson wails, “I don’t want to be a gamecock,” we took that one to the chest. America, why do you always laugh at us? Besides, governors get paid to do weird stuff. Read the fine print of their contracts. Our politicians, I believe, were still dueling each other well into the nineteenth century.

And now for the lit news we’ve been waiting for. Simon & Schuster announces that Dick Cheney will publish a memoir. I haven’t heard the title yet, but I’ve got several suggestions – all of which involve his first name. By the way, Cheney’s not the only Bush boy to have a book deal in the works. From my fav newspaper, The NY Times:

Mr. Cheney, who had been looking for a publisher for about two months, joins a roster of Bush administration figures writing memoirs, including President George W. Bush; his wife, Laura; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; and Karl Rove, the former presidential political adviser.

That’s right. Collect them all! Man on man, does that sound like a lot of dry prose. Think I’ll wait for these to hit audio. Of course, we don’t read them for their style or narrative arc. We’re on the lookout for truthiness.

Since I blog about books, I know you’re all waiting for the Where’s Waldo? Give you a rain check.

This just in. The book ripping-off Holden C will not be published, at least in the US. But the question on everyone’s mind is this: How much does anyone besides Salinger and his lawyers care? I guess JD California, who wrote the knockoff, probably does quite a lot. Personally, I’m used to bad sequels. Must say, I loved the continuation of Gone with the Wind. What was it called, Butler takes a Wife? And who could forget the retrospective on A Hundred Years of Solitude, Another Hundred Years of Solitude? But Spielberg and Lucas should sue each other for the last Indiana Jones film. In other news, political strife tears apart Iran.

Which makes me think. California had the wrong idea. Here’s what Catcher in the Rye needs: In addition to my book on Palin, I’ll also begin a new project entitled Reading Catcher in the Rye in Tehran. I’m going to fly out to Tehran tomorrow, find a nice park bench, and read the epic coming of age story aloud. Meanwhile I’ll keep a journal of what happens. You see, knocking off one book is easy. Knocking off two takes style. Hmm, wonder if I’ll get sued for posting a Salinger pic on my site. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

After a “long time” of writing about people and things for newspapers, there’s now a story all about yours truly in The State. Mother Nature made a considerable effort to stop this one. Being the obsessive “get it done now” maniac, I returned Bertram Rantin’s call while driving through a rocky patch of West Virginia and tried to give an interview at a McDonald’s fenced in by mountains on the heels of a storm. Not a great idea. He asked a question, and then the connection died. I called back. The interview got rolling, and then the connection severed. I called back and called back. Finally, we finished with my car on the outskirts of Louisville. We’re both patient and determined fellows. The interview went well once my phone cooperated, and we wound up talking about teaching and books. Hope everyone enjoys this as much as I do. I have to read this story out of the corner of my eyes – still a bit timid when it comes to attention.

Been away so long I hardly knew the place. Gee, it’s good to be back home. Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case. Honey, disconnect the phone. I’m back in the USSR.

Wednesday night a girl hops up and says, “Will you marry me?” I say, “Sure, but why?” She says, “Because I get 50 more points.” Then she slips a ring on my finger and throws her arms around me, shouting “yay!” Such is the neon smothered tourist-friendly area of downtown Louisville. Bachelorette parties roam the streets looking for defenseless young men. Horrible karaoke blares from the rooftops. I’ve completely underestimated how much soul-force AP grading takes. By 5 pm I have just enough fumes left to hit the gym and then be productive for two hours before 1) giving in to peer pressure to “check out the night life” or 1) lying on a sofa in a state of despair at the thought of tomorrow. I’m in bed by midnight all week, so I can be on the way to our convention center by 7:30 am.

Percival Everett is not Sidney Poitier. Likewise, I am not Robert Pattinson – who plays Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie. (I appreciate the compliment.) Yesterday a noisy woman I’ve been scowling at for days, as I’m trying to grade 150 essays in 8 hours, stops me coming back from the bathroom and points at me. “Edward,” she says. “That’s who you look like.” I think, “Edward who? Edward Scissorhands? Edward Norton? Edward…Hopper?” Upon explaining, she tells me the movie isn’t worth seeing unless it comes on cable – but the books are fun.

Copies of my novel arrived today, the hardback. They look swell; I like the compact dimensions, a little smaller than the usual size. The cover image is sharp. Even if you think my writing sucks (which it doesn’t), you can rest easy that your money has purchased a true work of art that’ll look wonderful on your bookshelf or toilet.

Right now is a helluva a time to head for the Smoky Mountains. I drove slow through them on the way back from KY. All I have to say is wow.

Salinger must not be that reclusive, or else his lawyers are the ones mainly behind the suit against this much talked-about sequel to Catcher in the Rye. Although I hate to admit it, I don’t feel strongly either way, and yet I can explain my apathy. First, let’s think about the title- 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Frankly, author John David California deserves what he gets for dreaming up such a horrible name for a book. Second, let’s think about the plot. A 70-something Holden wanders through New York after escaping from his nursing home. Don’t know about the rest of the world, but that sounds as interesting as a novel about 18 holes of golf. I mean, what all can we expect? Ancient Holden C visits the graves of his sister and favorite teacher? Gets beat up by some college girl’s pimp, again, except this time a hip’s broken in the struggle? This Holden wouldn’t just write laughably ignorant essays about mummies. He’d be a mummy.

Why not give us a Holden in his mid 40s? Holden in the midst of a midlife crisis. Let’s give him a wife, or an ex-wife, and an estranged daughter who he sneaks into the house to see as he did Phoebe. Why not a merry-go-round scene with his daughter reaching for a brass ring? Or if that sounds cheesy, how about we take her to an Apple store?

I’m now in Kentucky. Rain pours on statues of horses on street corners. At Borders, you can buy four books and get the fifth one free. The International Convention Center served Cajun chicken for lunch.

Book Tour ‘09 begins after a week in Kentucky, where I conduct top secret activities. The thing about Louisville I noticed, last year, is they have lots of pictures of horses but few actual horses downtown. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. They also have fancy hotels, a room in which I have the distinct pleasure of sharing with another grad student. Once there I’ll try to hit the Frazier International History Museum and maybe even swing by Thomas Edison’s house.

On to book tour notes. Most of the dates are posted on the website. As the first leg nears, a TV spot, I find myself returning to an Ann Patchett essay in The Atlantic’s fiction issue from last year. She recounts a conversation in which Allan Gurganus says “The only thing worse than going on book tour…is not going on book tour.”

Yet her own publicity run for her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, began like a soldier’s tour of duty: she covered 25 cities and “kept my expenses under $3,000.” Armed with one good dress she “would drive to Chicago, find the McDonald’s closest to the bookstore, change clothes in the bathroom…and present myself [once inside the bookstore] to the person behind the counter” as “the seven o’clock show.” Each sparsely-attended night of the book tour ended in despair and embarrassment despite a solid performance or at least an hour of friendly conversation. Maybe the most poignant anecdote involves the story of a woman Patchett meets – who abandoned her favorite author after hearing said author read aloud. Why? Because the woman couldn’t stand this author’s voice. Just goes to show that authors can never predict what effect they can have. Maybe I ought to practice my Truman Capote impression.

But the essay ends on a positive note. An equally poignant anecdote describes a meeting between Patchett and a girl whose mom drove her several hours on a school night to hear Patchett read. Heart warming, or something. Anyway, on this last day of actual “rest” before a hectic summer gets underway, I look forward to surprise and yet knock on wood for no car trouble.

Off the cuff, I’d say the publishing business has grown as tangled as the Christmas lights in someone’s attic. If it were ever simple, everybody knows those days are now gone – and big name authors can’t even agree on the ethics of e-books. Take Sherman Alexie, for example, who said at the latest Book Expo convention in NY, that he would rather sell his books on a street corner than sign off an e-book rights. (That’s my metaphor, not his, although that’s what Luddites might be doing ten years from now).

Alexie went on to say that he finds the Kindle an symbol of elitism in the publishing and literary world. But that statement strikes me as an oxymoron. The publishing world already has a large, entrenched elitist faction who decries things like Kindles and e-books. Isn’t it elitist to call the Kindle elitist? And why would Alexie want to hit a woman on an airplane reading one, as he said? These gadgets do cost about $400. However, I tend to want to hit people who carry on interminable-loud-conversations on airplanes or folks who crank up the volume on their I-Pods on cross-country flights. Nope, I have to say I’d be happy to see a cabin full of people quietly ensconced in Kindles any day.

In fact, I think we should go ahead and empty the libraries now. In fact, I advocate this: all libraries can be relocated inside drab gray buildings where librarians do nothing but scan, scan, scan, until the world’s books are efficiently and conveniently stored in cyberspace. Imagine the crystals Jerel gives Superman that contain the knowledge and literature of a dozen worlds. Next, let’s build an enormous temple out of all the books in stores and libraries. Next, let’s douse the temple with gasoline, now only $3 a gallon, and then light it up. Third, turn the libraries and bookstores into Apple retailers and McDonald’s. Okay, okay, some of them can be Applebee’s.

What else about Book Expo? Ah, there’s the issue of trend chasing (as opposed to trend setting). Apparently this year the tables were stacked with vampire novels attempting to snatch a small piece of that Stephanie Meyer market. It’s good to know that at least one thing hasn’t changed thanks to the Internet. There will always be a herd of copycats.

Of course, I wasn’t at the Expo. The past several days I’ve been scrubbing every inch of my apartment in preparation for a move. Ironically, the dogs have stopped barking. Maybe the fumes of cleaning chemicals wafted upstairs and drove my neighbors away. If so, that would be good incentive to clean more often.

From Neverwhere. Rat-speaks for itself, I’d say:

They reminded Richard horridly of an exhibition of contemporary art Jessica had once taken him to: an exciting young artist had announced that he would break down all the Taboos of Art, and to this end, had embarked on a campaign of systematic grave robbery, displaying the thirty most interesting results of his depredations in glass cases. The exhibit was closed after the artist sold Stolen Cadaver Number 25 to an advertising agency for a six-figure sum, and the relatives of Stolen Cadaver Number 25, seeing a photo of the sculpture in the Sun, had sued both for a share of the proceeds and to change the name of the art piece to Edgar Fospring, 1919-1987 Loving Husband, Father and Uncle, Rest in Peace, Daddy.

Netlix’s “Watch Instantly” becomes my best friend in the slow weeks between May and June. Although I’ve stayed productive, I still manage to squeeze in a movie every day or so and yesterday saw the ‘07 adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play “Sleuth,” with Jude Law and Michael Caine – who plays a mystery writer a bit preoccupied with his estranged wife. So I’m thinking as I watch this: this mystery writer has a helluva nice house out in the country with tons of security cameras and a closet full of his wife’s $5,000 coats. Oh, he also owns a shiny string of bling-bling valued at a million pounds. So in many ways this movie should be included in the fantasy genre. Or should it? I remember being pretty stunned that author Don DeLillo – once one of the most obscure writers in America – now lives in the most expensive neighborhood in the US. (Of course, I think his wife’s a banker.) Now, I would do anything to find a house out in the country, or else just have enough cash to completely soundproof a room in my 1-bedroom apartment, or invent earplugs that block 100 percent of the sound coming from my ridiculous upstairs neighbors’ two pet dogs.

Booklist just notified my publisher and me that they’re giving Through the Pale Door a starred review. I’ve been called a “talent to watch.” To celebrate I’m going to drive up to New England and start looking for a summer cabin. But I can’t decide which $5,000 dinner jacket to put on my credit card. Or should I get a blazer, a smoking jacket? How about a writing jacket? Do they make those?

And before I forget, and to end on a less solipsistic note, here’s a link to a recent NPR interview with that reporter, Roxana Saberi, that was locked up in Iran for four months: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104612989&sc=fb&cc=fp. I’m glad she’s free now. Of course anybody would understand why she would want to return to Iran. But in her shoes I sure would think twice.