Kaavya Viswanathan's appearance yesterday on the Today Show seemed not
to convince interviewer Katie Couric or many viewers that she had
innocently and unintentionally borrowed parts of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty for her How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. The Harvard sophomore apologized to McCafferty for any "upset" she might have caused.
In today's New York Times, Viswanathan added that her photographic memory might have caused the problem.
In another story, on the front page, today's Times explores the role of the book packager Alloy Entertainment in the development of Viswanathan's book, stating early on that "nobody associated with the plagiarism accusations is pointing fingers at Alloy." Still, in an odd twist, it turns out that Claudia Gabel, who as an editorial assistant at Crown helped work on McCafferty's books, was involved in the development of the idea for Viswanathan's book as an editor at Alloy after she changed jobs. (Gabel is now an editor at Knopf Delacorte Dell Young Readers.) Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum told the Times that Gabel worked at Alloy from spring 2003 until last November, "before the editorial work was completed" on How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. He stated that Gabel "told us she did not touch a single line of Kaavya's writing at any point in the drafts" and that she was one of several people who worked on the project.
The author added that the first piece she showed her future agency, the William Morris Agency, was in the style of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, but was considered too dark. "They thought it would be better if I did a lighter piece," she said. "They thought that was more likely to sell." Eventually she wrote four chapters and a synopsis of what became How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, which she sent to Alloy and became the basis for her contract with Little, Brown.
Viswanathan said that other than those first four chapters, on which Alloy made "very minor suggestions," the packager did not help and that she worked "almost exclusively" with her Little, Brown editor, Asya Muchnick.
Several industry people emphasized that the genre lends itself to broad similarities between books. "The teenage experience is fairly universal," Bethany Buck, a v-p and editorial director at Simon Pulse, told the Times.
In today's New York Times, Viswanathan added that her photographic memory might have caused the problem.
In another story, on the front page, today's Times explores the role of the book packager Alloy Entertainment in the development of Viswanathan's book, stating early on that "nobody associated with the plagiarism accusations is pointing fingers at Alloy." Still, in an odd twist, it turns out that Claudia Gabel, who as an editorial assistant at Crown helped work on McCafferty's books, was involved in the development of the idea for Viswanathan's book as an editor at Alloy after she changed jobs. (Gabel is now an editor at Knopf Delacorte Dell Young Readers.) Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum told the Times that Gabel worked at Alloy from spring 2003 until last November, "before the editorial work was completed" on How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. He stated that Gabel "told us she did not touch a single line of Kaavya's writing at any point in the drafts" and that she was one of several people who worked on the project.
The author added that the first piece she showed her future agency, the William Morris Agency, was in the style of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, but was considered too dark. "They thought it would be better if I did a lighter piece," she said. "They thought that was more likely to sell." Eventually she wrote four chapters and a synopsis of what became How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, which she sent to Alloy and became the basis for her contract with Little, Brown.
Viswanathan said that other than those first four chapters, on which Alloy made "very minor suggestions," the packager did not help and that she worked "almost exclusively" with her Little, Brown editor, Asya Muchnick.
Several industry people emphasized that the genre lends itself to broad similarities between books. "The teenage experience is fairly universal," Bethany Buck, a v-p and editorial director at Simon Pulse, told the Times.