How To Destroy A Plagiarist Antho -- In Email Format

Seriously, folks, there is no such antho - the title is a parody/satire on David Boyer, recently exposed plagiarist, who sent out a submissions call for an anthology, (and I quote verbatim from his email invite) "Emails from the Wasteland, which will be stories written in the form of an EMAIL." His emphasis on the word "email" not mine.

Allow me to begin.

Back in August, I was contacted by the now infamous David Boyer; he put forth his anthology idea, inviting me to submit. Before I did anything else, I did what all smart writers do -- I researched him. At the time, however, nothing had yet come to light or broken on the forums about his misdeeds, such as the most notable ones, stealing from Lisa Morton and Ferrel Moore. Ferrel Moore's story "Electrocuting the Clowns" actually garnered Stoker recs, which HWA removed, and you can read all about it on there main site here.

Since I could find nothing damning on Mr. Boyer, and he appeared to have legit book out previously of collected interviews, I thought, why not? I took into account that no news did not necessarily mean good news -- I took the gamble knowing full well he could be thief. A few things that made me think so might surprise you -- his photo's facial hair, and his proclivity for all things Christian.

Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of great Christians, and I happen to love the theology, particularly as it pertains to horror -- however, the facial hair struck me as distinctly . . . oh, how to put this -- ex-convict? And when you're bending over backward to publicly proclaim your religion, it smells of the clink. For those of you who've never had loved ones in the prison culture, a lot of cons get religious while behind bars, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this blog.

However, you can find the results of my federal inmate search under David Boyer's name here, and take particular note of the convict whose age matches Boyer's exactly -- 50 years old. Might be him, might not be. Happy Birthday, Mr. Boyer, you just turned 51, but the inmate locator search engine won't reflect that until the year is up. It's the way they roll.

Long story short, I submitted a story entitled "Fulton's Garden," for this Email Antho. Later on down the line, I got a heads up via email from Boyer that "The folks at Pill Hill Press have sent me the contract, and I am signing it as we speak," and he would let me know more.

In the interim, news broke regarding his misdeeds, and on the heels of that, others stepped forward on various blogs and other media. You can get the basics at the Writer's Beware blog, which if you don't already read or follow, you should.

As soon as I heard, I pulled all my email transmissions and sent out an email to other authors he'd included in the last note he sent me. I had a few get back to me, and the next step was obvious -- I had to contact Pill Hill Press to find out what their involvement with David Boyer was. Writers had submitted work, and the work was circulating in the ether, in someone's hands. Had Boyer taken it to Pill Hill under one of his many aliases? I emailed the staff there directly to ascertain the situation.

Pill Hill told me that they had nothing to do with Mr. David Boyer.

So, I have a plagiarist claiming to have a business deal with a publishing company, and I have the company claiming to have nothing to do with him. The plot thickens! Mr. Boyer's submission call used to be up at his website (such as it was) before he took it down; now people, you can pretend like it disappeared and never existed, but I make a habit of printing out the submission calls I intend to submit to, and I have a print out copy of the text from that page, along with the date, time, URL it was accessed at. It looks like this:


And Boyer's submission call looks suspiciously like Pill Hill's submission call here.

What a coincidence! Now, I'm not given to gossip or speculation, so the viewer may draw what conclusions they like from the evidence provided. My first and primary concern for myself and everyone involved was to be assured that our work was not being published under David Boyer's name, and I was told by Pill Hill that they are not publishing anything by Mr. Boyer; however, I feel I cannot trust anything Mr. Boyer said in regards to Pill Hill, and quite frankly, I can't trust Pill Hill with anything they have to say about Mr. Boyer.

This leaves me in an odd position. You see, "Fulton's Garden" has not seen the light of day anywhere, and unless it's registered at the copyright office, I can't prove I actually wrote it if Mr. Boyer whores my story out somewhere else first. He may never do so -- but if you find out your neighbor is a thief with a rap sheet as long as your arm, do you really trust him to give back that snow blower he borrowed last winter? I don't think so.

A writer pointed out that there's really nothing to be done, because after all, I haven't been plagiarized yet; to some extent, this is true. However, there is always a choice.

So, friends, writers, countrymen . . . lend me your ears. I'm going to post "Fulton's Garden" immediately after this post, but David Boyer -- feel free to take it. I won't prosecute. Steal it to your hearts content. I want you to have my story. I want you to whore it out to the four corners of the earth. And each time you read it, (and I highly doubt you even read any of the things you steal), I want you to know that I know you better than anyone else in cyberspace. I know the squalor you live in. I know you're in your fifties, and you're missing some of your teeth, and if it weren't for the charity of your parents, you'd be homeless. You're staring down the twilight of your life with nothing to show for it. Dollars to donuts, you've got skip-tracers aplenty on your trail. I know the wretched world you live in, because somewhere not far from you, I've got a father in the same boat. But he's got a better excuse for his misbehavior -- he was a genius, and he was also a paranoid schizophrenic, and while he was a doctor, he saved lives.

"Fulton's Garden" is your gift, Mr. Boyer. Because I find it hard to hate a man I find so pathetic, and because I hope that if someone comes across an old, toothless schizophrenic raving about aliens, they treat him with a modicum of compassion. But I'm afraid a story is all I have to give you, Mr. Boyer. Abuse it to your heart's content. It is nothing for me to give you a fraction of my imagination. I am lucky in that it remains infinite, no matter how much I may parcel it out.

Anyone who wants to comment, feel free; I'll let everyone know ahead of time I will not censure them unless the content is offensive to potential readers (i.e., curse words, expletives, that sort of thing). I like to let it all hang out. That, and I will not respond to comments designed to draw me into argument or the like. I've stated the facts. Do with them what you will.