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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Return of David Boyer

Two years ago I'd never heard of this scofflaw. Then he sent a story to Dark Valentine called "Bugs." It was a very good story--creepy, atmospheric, dark. I accepted it.  One minute after the issue dropped I knew more about David Boyer than I ever wanted to know. My colleagues and I were horrified by the thought that we'd unknowingly published a plagiarized story.  We sent emails to Mr. Boyer who was shocked, SHOCKED that we would even bring up the P word, which actually we didn't in those first communications. As we got more information, our feelings of betrayal grew.  And so did the number of questions.  Would someone really go to all this trouble to rip off a story for $10?  Really? 
We were never able to prove the story didn't belong to Boyer. We reached out to as many blogs as we could, directing readers to the story in hopes of finding out the true author. We copyscaped the story and didn't find a single sentence match. In the absence of proof, we felt we could not simply remove the story, so we left it in. To this date no one else has come forward to claim the piece. So, apparently  he got away with this one.  But a couple of writers he's victimized are not going to let him get away with it. Read Brian Keene's blog today to find out about the legal action they want to take against him. The wheels of justice grind slowly ... but they grind exceeding fine.

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