Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79

Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com:

Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, ‘The Women’s Room,’ propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan. . . .

With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. ‘My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world,’ she once declared.

Photo of the Day

This is Fred, a Royal Palm Turkey, in full strut. Here's what the sign says about Royal Palm turkeys:

Meleagris gallopavo ssp.

• Bred for ornamental feathers, usually not for meat
• Are rare and listed as a critical domestic species
• One of smallest species of turkeys
• Are active, good flyers, and excellent insect foragers, making them great pest controllers

Fred was strutting his stuff this afternoon at the World Bird Sanctuary in Lone Elk Park, St. Louis County, Missouri. In all his finery, he reminded me of a wedding cake.

Quotation of the Day

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life; they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our byoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again."

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, p. 237

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

--Julian of Norwich, Christian mystic
(ca. 1342- ca. 1416)

‘Conversations With God’ Author Accused of Plagiarism

‘Conversations With God’ Author Accused of Plagiarism - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com:

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 that was nearly identical to a 10-year-old article originally published by a little-known writer in a spiritual magazine. He now says he made a mistake in believing the story was something that had actually happened to him.

Oh dear. People who do this are always sorry--when they get caught. I stand firmly with Candy Chand, the woman whose work was lifted:

“I have strong issue with anyone who would appear to plagiarize my work and pretend it is his own,” said Ms. Chand. “That takes away from the truth of the material, it takes away from the miracle that occurred, because people begin to question what they can believe anymore. As a professional writer, when someone appears to plagiarize, they damage the industry, they damage other writer’s credibility and they hurt the reader because they never know what to believe anymore.”

And the fact that the man who got caught doing this is supposedly a man of God--well, I stand with Candy Chand on that point, too:

She added that it was ironic that Mr. Walsch in particular had been the one to appropriate her writing. “Has the man who writes best selling books about his ‘Conversations with God’ also heard God’s commandments?” she asked. “’Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie, and thou shalt not covet another author’s property?’”

With ‘Angel at the Fence,’ Another Memoir Is Found to Be False

With ‘Angel at the Fence,’ Another Memoir Is Found to Be False - NYTimes.com:

In media circles, there is a joke about facts that are too good to check. This week Oprah Winfrey and the New York publishing industry stumbled on yet another unverified account in the form of a Holocaust survivor who said his future wife had helped him stay alive while he was imprisoned as a child in a Nazi concentration camp by throwing apples over the fence to him.

And so another memoir is pulled from publication. This is getting to be such a common occurrence that it's almost not worth pointing out. Really, where does the blame lie for this kind of thing? You could lay it on the agent, who should have made sure of the manuscript's authenticity before she shopped it around for publication. Or you could lay it on the publisher, who should have checked out the manuscript's veracity before agreeing to put its imprint on it. But I place the blame squarely on the writer. It may be a good story, but if it's not true, it's fiction, not memoir.

Photo of the Day

Happy Holidays to all,
And to all a good night