Sloppy Stealing

I've not weighed in on the whole Kaavya Viswanathan story, mostly because it's YA and I don't care to comment on upsets in the YA sphere. Today, however, the story struck a little close to home. Now as we all know, Ms. Viswanathan allegedly stole large portions of her book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life from Megan F. McCafferty's 2001 novel Sloppy Firsts and the 2003 novel Second Helpings. Ms. Viswanathan apologized and today the publisher of Crown Publishers and Three Rivers Press rejected said apology.

So here's the kicker. Today Ms. Megan F. McCafferty, the gal Viswanathan stole from, is appearing at my library branch at 4:00. The fear of Teen Central at the moment is that there'll be more reporters there than kids. In any case, it should be a hopping author visit. I fully intend to stop by.

5:00 UPDATE

She's a classy dame that Megan McCafferty. Came in and knew exactly how to handle the situation. We had reporters from the Daily News and who knows what-all in here with their cameras and their note-pads. So what does she do? She makes certain that anyone who wants to ask a question just writes that question down on a piece of paper. Then she goes through the papers and answers the ones she wants to. The result? Her appearance was about her newest book and not the nasty business surrounding Viswanathan. I'm sure that after she spoke and was getting ready to leave the reporters hounded her on their own, but for the puposes of her appearance she knew precisely how to act and what to say. Class incarnate, that woman.