Friday, June 22, 2012

Ballistics

BTW, Postcards From BalloonLand is in a collection published by SALT Publishing 2009, not (IMO) all my best work, but my prize-winning work.

What wins prizes is rarely the best work but a hybrid piece that can get past the pre-readers and yet still please a jaded judge.

I also have 30+ copies of Ballistics for sale direct and can do talks and readings.

Just saying, like...

The Original "Postcards"

Here is the short version of the (now infamous?) Postcards From BalloonLand.

I've moved on (a long way) from such stories (1990, 1993) but this did well

Final 12 in Cosmo's SS of the Year 1993
£500 Second Place in Raconteur V 1995
Raw Fiction Canada 1996
The Large Print Literary Reader 1997
Buzzwords Date Unknown

and then

Joanne Benson

in Coming Up For Air (c) 1995 (still available at Amazon)

in The Ring of Elements 2008 (still available at Amazon)

in People's Friend Dec 2003

as an eBook Postcards From BalloonLand 2012


Anyway, here's the story, "young work" by me, but mine.





:
:
:
:
:

Postcards from BalloonLand

There are things we should say, things we should not.
And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.

Dear Dawn.
We’re in DisneyLand! Dad promised us that if it was the last thing he ever did we were going to go to America and go to Florida and go to Orlando and go to Disney and stop in the Contemporary Resort. It’s very hot. The grass is funny. There are hundreds of dead good things in the shops.
                  Love Rachel.

Hi Robert!
    The Frog wants to go to the Magic Kingdom tomorrow and do all the girlie rides. Dad says we have to wait until Friday to go to EPCOT. The Contemporary Resort Hotel is brilliant! There’s a monorail goes right through the building! It took nine hours to get here. We saw Concorde! Dad had a headache when we landed. Mam said it was because of the flight. Gotta go. Bet you wish you were here!
         Love Ben.

Dear Millie,
    I hope you and Dad are well. The flight was far better than I expected. There was so much for me to do that I forgot to be frightened! Peter was very tired, Rachel led him round everywhere by the hand. They bought me perfume. I told Peter off for spending but he just laughed and said, ‘What’s money?’ The kids played Scrabble most of the flight. Peter fell asleep in my lap.
                  Your loving daughter, Margaret.

He was Peter. Soft red curly hair, blue, bright eyes, thirty-three; married to Margaret, father to Benjamin, to Rachel and to three-year old Tobias. He read their postcards again. Rachel’s card was a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger in front of a blue-grey castle. The holiday was costing a fortune but he knew he had never spent money more wisely. Before they left, he told Margaret that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip and not to worry about the expense. It was all taken care of, he said. The look on the kids’ faces when he told them was sheer joy.

    Peter watched Toby pressing his face to a toy-shop window in the hotel concourse. There was a time when he might have been impatient, but not now, not any more. Nothing mattered any more. He was on holiday. He wanted to wear a silly hat and look gormless.

    Tonight, he would make up another story for the kids and sit on that huge hotel bed with their spiky arms and legs hooked into him. He would whisper little messages to Margaret and later they would make love, very, very slowly, the kids a mangled heap on the other bed.

    ‘Dad?’
    He looked down at Rachel.
    ‘Dad. Can we have balloons? Like those?’
    They were large, bright, helium filled silver balls, stretching towards the sky on soft string. They bought three. Margaret tied them, one each, to small wrists. Immediately, Toby began to pick at his.
    ‘Don’t!’ Margaret said, ‘you’ll lose it!’
    ‘Free it, don’t you mean?’ Peter said softly.
    She looked at him. He looked dreamy and lost.

    They went for drinks, found a café. They were outside and a small bird appeared on their table, picking between their drinks, pecking at crumbs. ‘It’s pretty!’ Rachel said.

Toby was the first to lose his balloon. He burst into tears. Margaret sat down and held him. Behind her, Rachel let her balloon go, looked up, then cried like her brother.

    Peter pulled his girl into him. He felt giddy, but he swept her up and wrapped her in his comfort, strutting and spinning around, her gold head pressed into his hot neck. 

    ‘Hey, Sweetheart,’ he said, the world still turning. ‘There’s a good brave girl. Fancy you knowing about BalloonLand.’
    Rachel sniffed.
    ‘I did, diddun I? Tell you?’
    She shook her head. Well, no wonder! They didn’t know about BalloonLand! ‘Didn’t I ever tell you about BalloonLand?’
    He called them together and they sat on the grass.
    ‘I told you, Ben, yes? Last year?’

    Ben shook his head.
    ‘Well, I never!’ Peter said. Then to the ground he said, ‘They don’t know about BalloonLand. Well I never!’ He leaned back, his hands clasped behind his head, sun in his face. The kids were leaning forward. ‘Well, I never!’ he said and closed his eyes.
    Toby squeaked at him, ‘Tell, tell!’
    ‘Tell us, Daddy,’ Rachel said.
    ‘Oh, Dad!’ Ben said.
    He opened one eye. ‘I think you’d better,’ Margaret said.
    He sat up.

    ‘When balloons are born, when they’re born, they are flat and sad and don’t know what to do. If people don’t fill them up, blow them up, they never get to feel big or bouncy or pretty or anything.’

    He had them.

    ‘You know when you see balloons in their packets?’
    Toby was nodding, his eyes wide.
    ‘You know how flat they are... And they don’t smell nice and they’re all dusty?
    ‘Well, they want to be blown up. That’s what balloons are for.
    ‘People were invented to let balloons be blown up.
    ‘But there’s a problem, there’s a big problem when a balloon gets bigger...
    ‘When a balloon is flat, nothing happens. They are just waiting there, waiting to be blown up. So they can do things. So they can go flying in the sky.
    ‘People know balloons are very special things.
    ‘That’s why we have them at birthday parties and at Christmas.
    ‘People want to keep their balloons. They want to keep being happy.        ‘They think that if they keep their balloon it will stay a happy time and everyone will keep on having a lovely time. But!’
    Toby nodded again.
    ‘But balloons were made to fly. They want to go back to BalloonLand.
    ‘You know at a party?’
    ‘You know at a party, how the balloons go up and stick on the ceiling?
    They were all nodding.
    ‘Well, they are trying to go home.
    ‘You see... ‘ He pulled them to him, the warmth of his family an ache in his gut. ‘You see, balloons are like very special birds. They can’t sing but they make people sing sometimes. So they come alive for birthdays, but then, after, they want to go.
    ‘You know if you keep a balloon?
    ‘If you keep a balloon, what happens? It goes all droopy and wrinkly and it gets sad. If you keep a balloon for a very long time, all its balloon-ness leaks out and it sort of goes to sleep again.’
    Toby looked faintly worried.
    ‘But if you let a balloon GO! If you let a balloon GO! It goes UP in the sky, straight off to BalloonLand. And if a balloon gets to BalloonLand it NEVER goes down and it’s happy and bouncy and can fly for EVER. BalloonLand is full right up of every single balloon that you could ever imagine. Red ones, yellow ones, blue ones, fat ones, wiggly ones...
    ‘So just think. Right now, in BalloonLand there’s - ’
    ‘My balloon!’ said Toby.
    ‘And mine!’ Rachel said.

It was later when Benjamin undid his bonds and released his balloon. They couldn’t complain and Ben looked supremely satisfied. After lunch, Margaret bought three more balloons and diligently fixed them to three wrists. Just as diligently, the cords were loosened and the balloons released. Peter groaned, his eyes rolling but the kids were already clamouring for more. Margaret thought it funny. 

    ‘Six dollars! How you gonna get out of that one, maestro?’

    He was a little tired. He sat down and called them to him again. He need to explain, explain about balloon jams. ‘Hey kids, come here!’ he said.

    ‘When balloons get to BalloonLand; if there are lots arriving at the same time, they have to wait outside. And they might go down while they are waiting. That’s why we keep them on strings for a while. So we can let them go every now and then. To stop the jams.’

    He looked to his wife, aching. Was that all right? Margaret smiled. She told them how, tomorrow, they could keep their balloons all day and then they could set them free, in the evening, after the balloon rush-hour. She was still smiling, the sun coming through her hair, so Peter continued and told the kids that the jams were because BalloonLand only had one way in. The BalloonLand bosses wanted to make another way in but balloons didn’t know how to build entrances.

    ‘So really, they could do with some grown up humans to do the building for them. But it’s very hard for humans to get back from BalloonLand so they have to wait for volunteers.’

    As they walked back towards the exits at the end of the day, a balloon sailed diagonally past and over them. Somewhere distant was a crying child but their children were jubilant.

    Margaret looked at Peter. ‘You old sod!’ she whispered. ‘I love you!’

    Peter was soundly asleep when they arrived back at the resort. Margaret woke him and he walked like a zombie into the hotel. The next morning, she had trouble waking him but he eventually stirred and followed her down to breakfast. The kids were asking about balloons so he said he would ring up and get a traffic report. He left them, used the phone and came back, nodding to Margaret, then telling the kids that Balloonway One was chokker-block with balloons. Apparently, he said, there’d been a lot of parties in Australia the night before and they were still dealing with a back-log from the Olympics. He whispered that they could probably manage a few balloons late that afternoon.

They stayed another week, used the Jacuzzi every morning, lazily swam in the hotel pool as the evenings drew in. Then their fortnight suddenly was over and Nanna and Grancha Bill were coming to Orlando to take the children back to Grancher’s farm. When they met, the two women embraced. Bill shook Peter’s hand before pulling him close and hugging him silently.

    The grand-parents and the children flew back the following night. Peter tried hard to keep the mood light as they prepared to board their 747. Earlier, they had let five balloons off to a count of one-two-three and cheered as they sailed into space. Margaret had chosen to dress them all in Mickey Mouse clothing and little Toby was complete with a black big-eared cap. When it was actually time to go, they hugged, first as a family, then Peter alone held each child in turn, smelling them, feeling the breaths, sensing their heartbeats. After holding Benjamin, he stood back and held his hand seriously, like a man. He made a face at them all as their Nanna led them away.
   
Margaret drove the car south to Miami while Peter slept. They had booked into a wonderful hotel at the head of the Keys and the following day, they walked hand-in-hand on quiet printless sand. They were caught in a sudden fat rainstorm but chose to enjoy it, laughing, their heads back, savouring its warmth.

    They drove on that afternoon, drifting towards Key West. They stopped at a little harbour where Margaret ate from an incredible seafood buffet. Peter had no appetite but they sipped wine together and talked quietly. That night, they were asleep at six, Peter cradled in her neck, her gentle hands stroking his head. The next day they did nothing but lay together on top of the sheets, a copper fan phudding above them.

    At their destination, they ate in romantic restaurants and drank in rough bars. In the evenings, they drifted along to the pier to watch the sunset. They stopped to buy books. Peter chose three, stopped, then replaced two. Every night she held him. They were closer than they’d every been.

He had made all sorts of arrangements, all sorts of plans. Once he had had so many dreams. On their last day in the Keys, for Margaret he had found a watercolour of balloons over Paris and from a staggered shop-keeper he bought a complete supply of postcards, all of balloons. While Margaret drove north, Peter wrote carefully on card after card. Each message was different, each card dated oddly. As they arrived back on the mainland, he was tired and his writing was less fluid. They stopped in Miami. Peter was asleep again so Margaret arranged the check-in.

    They flew to the clinic next day. While their plane drifted in to land, he explained again how she should use the cards. The children would receive one every birthday, one at Christmas, one on the day their father was born. He told her that Ben, Rachel and Toby should stay children as long as possible. He was going away but they would know how to contact him.

    Someone had to help build the new entrance at the other end of Balloonway One. If he volunteered, they could send him messages any time they wanted. He had arranged to be at check-in the first Friday of every month.

     They could write to him care of BalloonLand.           

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 20

Had a BRILLIANT find just now.


Yet another plagiarisation discovered.

This one threw me for a while.

In Joanne Benford's "Coming Up for Air" is a poem called St Paul's beginning:

It is the top which seems...



I couldn't find it anywhere but felt it had to be ripped off.

Then a search suggested it was in a really heavy medical paper.

Yer what?



Principles of Medical Statistics by Alvin R Feinstein MD



Well how on earth is a poem about St Paul's going to be in a medical tract full of mathematics?



Answer, surely it has to be a web-glitch?

So I managed togfind a PDF, and downloaded it and then searched
for "unteared" (a word in her suspect poem) and BINGO!



Near the end was an image shaped like a bell, but the image was
made up of words, themselves a poem about a bell



It is the
top which
seems to an
eye untorn by tears a
kind of base not from but
on which the whole sounding
body depends Up high the most
frequent the most ordinary will
bunch together there where mean
and mode unite At such a height a
tired watcher of bells might hope
for far more sound for rounder or
rarer tones 0 even there at the top
for bright clear fundamentals where
most normal noises are not of chiming
but of clonk and thunk But no for the
sound of ringing is only found in the
massed metal below down there where all
frequencies of bong bing and happenings
are lower There where the bronzed embrace
surrounds the heart of air the body sounder
and the deep pounding partials far more tidal
there at the widening there there the true bell
sings all ringed about with bell-shaped roundness
Whatever the pinched arch top may assert these wide
so generous depths affirm nothing and thereby never lie
Here at bell-level nearly at the lip of truth even a sigh
will resound and trembling will be a proclamation The sound
of an hour passing is that of another coming Unskewed by will
or cracked by what in fact the case may be in the surrounding
air and
all it is
ringing 0
hear it
now

By John Hollander


John Hollander’s poetic portrait of “Bell curve: normal curve of distribution.” Text on the left contains further description of this type of “emblematic meditation.” [Figure and text derived from Chapter Reference 11.]



Dr Joanne Benford's "poem" (ie her plagiarisation)
gets rid of the bell shape and is presented standard-format



For those not familiar

John Hollander (born October 28, 1929 in New York City) is a Jewish-American poet and literary critic.[1] As of 2007, he is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University. Previously he taught at Connecticut College, Hunter College, and the Graduate Center, CUNY.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-hollander



John Hollander

John Hollander was born in New York City on October 28, 1929.


He attended Columbia and Indiana Universities and was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows of Harvard University.

He is the author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, including Picture Window (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), Figurehead: And Other Poems (1999), Tesserae (1993), Selected Poetry (1993), Harp Lake (1988), Powers of Thirteen (1983), Spectral Emanations (1978), Types of Shape (1969), and A Crackling of Thorns (1958), which was chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets.

His seven books of criticism include: The Work of Poetry (1997), Melodious Guile (1988), The Figure of Echo (1981), Rhyme's Reason (1981), Vision and Resonance (1975), Images of Voice (1970), and The Untuning of the Sky (1961)

He has edited numerous books, among them Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize (The Academy of American Poets and Books & Co./Turtle Point Press, 1996); The Gazer's Spirit (1995); Poems Bewitched and Haunted (2005); Animal Poems (1994); The Library of America's two-volume anthology Nineteenth Century American Poetry (1993); The Essential Rossetti (1990); Poems of Our Moment (1968); Selected Poems of Ben Jonson (1961); and The Wind and the Rain: An Anthology of Poems for Young People (with Harold Bloom, 1961). He was co-editor of The Oxford Anthology of English Literature (1973) and Jiggery-Pokery: A Compendium of Double Dactyls (with Anthony Hecht, 1967).

He has also written books for children and has collaborated on operatic and lyric works with such composers as Milton Babbitt, George Perle, and Hugo Weisgall.

About his early work, the critic Harold Bloom said, "Hollander's expressive range and direct emotional power attain triumphant expression. I am moved to claim for these poems a vital place in that new Expressionistic mode that begins to sound like the poetry of the Seventies that matters, and that will survive us."

Hollander's many honors include the Bollingen Prize, the Levinson Prize, and the MLA Shaughnessy Medal, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the current poet laureate of Connecticut, he has taught at Connecticut College, Hunter College, the CUNY Graduate Center, and Yale, where is currently the Sterling Professor emeritus of English.




================

It's hard work as Benford is sneaky, but each time I search
I find another story or poem turns out not to be hers

Monday, June 18, 2012

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 19

You will see below, just for one chapter, enough plagiarism to disqualify the whole PhD thesis

In another email I have pointed out that Chapter 1 is at least 10% cut-and-paste plagiarism

And I also, randomly searching, found a sentence delivered as if Benford's words (unattributed and not in bibliography)

Begin forwarded message:

From: vade
Subject: Re: Benford PhD
Date: 17 June 2012 20:17:44 GMT+01:00
To: Alex Keegan




I examined the chapter I mentioned in my previous email, Chapter Eight - Dream Bodies in Cyberspace. I found that out of the 6000 (approx) words in that chapter, about half is a copy and paste job, and I'm certain that a significant part of the remainder will be too. It's largely stitched together from the following (in order of appearance):

Theall, D F  'Beyond The Orality/Literacy Dichotomy: James Joyce and the Pre-history of Cyberspace', Postmodern Culture, Volume 2, Number 3, May 1992

Chislenko, S.  1995.  'Legacy Systems and Functional Cyborgization of Humans'                http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/articles/Cyborgs.html.

Sirius, R U  'The Machine-Baby Interface', Wired, August 1998 http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1998/08/14584

Gyrus  'Psychoplasmics'
http://www.philhine.org.uk/writings/ess_psychp.html

Romanyshyn, R 'The Dream Body in Cyberspace', Psychological Perspectives, No. 29, 1994

Bukatman, S  Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction, Durham: Duke University Press, 1993

McKenna, T (1989) New Maps of Hyperspace (Originally published in Magical Blend, where the Romanyshyn article was also published)

Chambers, I  Popular Culture: the Metropolitan Experience, Routledge, 1986

Olalquiaga C  Megalopolis: Contemporary Cultural Sensibilities  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.


It's an unsophisticated copy and paste job. She just strings whole sentences and paragraphs together from different sources, occasionally joining them with some words of her own. One device she's used in her plagiarism of the Theall essay is to substitute his mentions of Joyce with Noon, a subject of her dissertation.

Lots more can be said about its content and how it reads, but that's for another day. It reminds me of the Sokal Affair and the book he co-wrote called 'Intellectual Impostures'.











M

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 18

In another post one chapter of her thesis was said to be 50% cut and paste

here is another researcher's latest finding






Begin forwarded message:

From: vade

Subject: Quick update
Date: 18 June 2012 10:40:04 GMT+01:00
To: Alex Keegan



I delved into Chapter One and found that at least a tenth of that to be plagiarised - it's a chapter of about 10,000 words. Again, I'm certain that with access to academic journals and books that fraction would increase significantly.

I've emailed Sunderland University (Academic Services) requesting an investigation.

Matthew

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 17



Begin forwarded message:

From: Stuart
Subject: Re: A reply from the OU re Joanne Benford
Date: 16 June 2012 15:55:53 GMT+01:00
To: Alex Keegan

Thanks Alex

Just had an email response from Gillian Swanson (currently Associate Professor Research (Cultural History), Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education, University of the West of England) whose work was plagiarised by Benford in 'Feminist Film Theory And Female Spectatorship'.

She in now going to investigate this herself.

I've passed on your email to her so she may be in touch.

Stuart


:::


On 15 Jun 2012, at 19:42, Alex Keegan wrote:

Thought this might amuse you (by Joanne Benson)

I first used Sarup's guide in my early days at university and, at the time, thought this a concise, lucid and accessible introductory text. Later, after coming to grips with the seminal works of the thinkers in Sarup's guide, I realised just how much was taken and used from their texts without any direct references or acknowledgement!

I also feel however that sometimes Sarup's prejudices showed, in that certain thinkers and "thought" were given less attention than others according to his own discretion of who was siginificant and important in the academic hierarchy! His reading of Derrida is suspect, here it would be better to get your hands on "Deconstruction" by Christopher Norris as a primer to this essential thinker. Another gripe is the section on Michel Foucault! This is just not good enough. The ramifications of Foucault's work (especially with regard to feminisms, such as the works of Judith Butler and Susan Bordo, and David Halperin's text on Foucault and queer theory,"Saint Foucault"), are still being felt, as his genealogical and archaelogical investigations of power and knowledge, subvert and undermine hegemonies and discourses as we know them. This said, and all-in-all, Sarup offers a fairly comprehensive guide, albeit "very" introductory, of most of the thinkers and thought synonomous with postmodernism and post-structuralism.



On 15 Jun 2012, at 10:58, vade. wrote:

Just got a reply from the Director of Teaching English at the OU, who also Chairs a course in advanced creative writing there. He tells me they are investigating the matter.

Benford's publications are still on Amazon which I take to indicate she intends to stick this one out for the time being and that Lulu and Smashwords may have removed the Benford content due to complaints.

I'm going to email http://lit-tees.com/. It's a site specifically for local writers to advertise their services to the Tees area and contains the profiles of 'professional' writers there, including Benford's.

The site is a project of New Writing North (http://www.newwritingnorth.com/) which is a much bigger concern, being a registered charity that gets regular funding from the Arts Council.

Congrats on your becoming a grandfather and hope the exam went well.

Matthew


The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 16

Please note, on Facebook there is a Group

Joanne Benford Appreciation Society

which was formed to collect evidence on Benford's plagiarism

That site has now found 19 cases of non-academic plagiarising by Benford
3 cases of Academic plagiarisation, 3 cases of art plagiarisation

These do not include the "countless" cut and pastes in her academic thesis


You may not have Facebook membership.

Please sign up and visit this group as the evidence there is staggering

I should also tell you that A215 students in their droves are signing into this group






PUBLICATIONS
Dr Joanne Benford

a selection from the Open University site



I also regularly write features and articles for magazines such as Woman’s Own, People’s Friend and Best.

Right!

People's Friend Annual 2003. Postcards From BalloonLand by Alex Keegan
Café Ultima ‘A romp through the lives of various members of cafe society... violent moments, but strangely poetic in tone.’ amazon.co.uk
Published 2000 Moog Enterprises New edition, reprinted July 2008.

Was 100% ripped off. I have the name of the (male) author and his editor

The Music of the Spheres That star upon the serpent’s head Is called the soul of man…’ A collection of poetry with original illustrations inspired by the planets and the mythology and magic connected with them. Published 1996 by Moog Enterprises
New edition, reprinted July 2008. ISBN 1 900701 09X / 978 1 900701 099

Unfortunately the poetry within is by Aleister Crowley

The Ring of Elements Special edition artist’s book, comprising the full set of four elements. Created in a limited edition, each will be unique, featuring hand finished detail. New edition, reprinted July 2008. ISBN 1 900701 189 / 978 1 900701 181

Contains a short-story actually written by Alex Keegan, a work by William F Strine and also by W D Beresford and Cicely Barker, and John Burnisde!

Down By The Water
This is the first in a series of four books, together comprising the ‘Ring of Elements’ set, and is composed of lyrical stories, poems and artwork, linked by the sea, the river and those that inhabit them. ‘A fantastic read, crammed full of beautiful language, similar to Dylan Thomas, perhaps, or GM Hopkins. Also beautiful illustrations by the author herself.’ amazon.co.uk

‘An avant-garde novel, comprising story chapters interspersed with some poems. These poems form the inner monologues of the main characters, including the heroine, drowned by her lover, and haunting his descendants.’ amazon.co.uk (her own review, I believe)

New edition, reprinted July 2008. ISBN 1 900701 111 / 978 1 900701 112

Contains work by Barker, and John Burnside




Scorched Earth ‘I want to hear this soft damp night breathing.’‘We only know the sudden shadow-cold… black with coal, and the long tunnels of the afternoons pelting into the future like stones lobbed by bullies at our faces.’ ‘Wow… making a huge mythology if you immerse yourself in them all. Thanks for the dreaming!’ amazon.co.uk
New edition, reprinted July 2008. ISBN 1 900701 146 / 978 1 900701 143

Contains work (A Farmer of the Night) by James A Collins
Sing of the City Electric
New edition, reprinted July 2008. ISBN 1 900701 162 / 978 1 900701 167

An academic work. I haven't read but another academic wrote to me saying it contains huge chunks of Peter Wollen's "Delirious Projections."

Living Doll: The Seduction of the Cyborg
Published by Moog Enterprises 2008 ISBN 978-1-9007-0121-1

Another academic tells me: Whole sections are from Of Aids, Cyborgs, and Other Indiscretions: Resurfacing The Body in the Postmodern by Allison Fraiberg (Postmodern Culture v.1.n3 (May 1991) where Joanne Benford appears to have edited out all the parts relating to AIDS.

Feminist Film Theory and Female Spectatorship

is copied from 'Building the feminine: feminist film theory and female spectatorship' by Gillian Swanson"

See the post


Learn more about tagging on Facebook.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team
See post

This message was sent to alex.keegan@btclick.com. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please click: unsubscribe.
Facebook, Inc. Attention: Department 415 P.O Box 10005 Palo Alto CA 94303

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 15

Benson has been frantically trying to cover her tracks
but we have many downloads, screen-dumps, some hard copy and this
a listing at The British Library
Begin forwarded message:

From: vade.
Subject: Hoist by her own petard
Date: 17 June 2012 01:29:06 GMT+01:00
To: Alex Keegan

This could be your back-up in case JB does manage to wipe the existence of her books from the internet, and you need something in the way of harder proof. In her attempt to gain credibility as a writer by having books published in her name without doing any of the writing, she forgot one thing...

Most of JB's books, save the recent stand alone versions of the shorts Postcards, Holiday Memory and Second Hand Santas, have ISBNs. 


To my knowledge, every book published in the UK that has an ISBN is held by the British Library, and hers definitely are. If a book bears an ISBN, then it's mandatory to send a copy to the British Library.


Publishers are not obligated to send in ebooks, though, but may do so if they wish. I guess there's a chance JB may have, too, but I don't know if ebooks are currently being cataloged or not. (NB There may be a difference in content between the ebook and paper versions of JB's books.)

http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&vl(174399379UI0)=any&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BLCONTENT%29&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1339887581706&srt=rank&ct=search&mode=Basic&dum=true&tb=t&indx=1&vl(freeText0)=Joanne+Benford&vid=BLVU1&fn=search

Best wishes

Matthew

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 14

This is now being investigated by The London TIMES, Writers News, The Open University and is being reported to the UK police.


Please explain why, despite absolute PROOF, you are still selling plagiarised work


My telephone is 044 07492 070280



Alex Keegan





Begin forwarded message:

From: Alex Keegan
Subject: Serious Plagiarism by Amazon Author
Date: 15 June 2012 13:58:09 GMT+01:00
To: ac-general@amazon.co.uk

You have been investigating JOANNE BENFORD and DR JOANNE BENFORD

for multiple incidences of plagiarism


SOME have been removed (She has been kicked off LULU and Apple iBooks and Smashwords


However I am extremely disappointed by Amazon to date for the following reasons



Ring of Elements


http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ring-Of-Elements-ebook/dp/B007K70HOK/ref=sr_1_11?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339764542&sr=1-11


Contains my story "Postcards From BalloonLand" and a dozen other copyright infringements


This is mine: ‘There are things we should say, things we should not. And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.’



It still has not been removed


Cafe Ultima

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caf%C3%A9-Ultima-ebook/dp/B005HDIFQQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339764857&sr=1-2

is a total rip off of another author

It still has not been removed





The Music of the Spheres

rips off Aleister Crowley

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Music-Spheres-ebook/dp/B005I3H8MM/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339764857&sr=1-8


But what concerns me is that you have so far removed 15/26 items so over 50% has been proved to be theft

Why is she still represented by Amazon?

Telephone me 044-1635-34317

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 13

Begin forwarded message:

From: Amazon Discussions
Subject: New post in the discussion "How much of Joanne Benford's work is plagiarised?" in the Joanne Benford forum
Date: 14 June 2012 15:00:20 GMT+01:00
To: "alex.keegan@btinternet.com"
Reply-To: Amazon Discussions

               
Your Amazon.co.uk    Shop All Departments
   

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk Customer Discussions,
Because you requested to be notified when people posted in the "How much of Joanne Benford's work is plagiarised?" discussion in the Joanne Benford, we are sending you this e-mail.



14 Jun 2012 15:00:12 BDTsmshop says:
Feminist Film Theory And Female Spectatorship
FEMINIST FILM THEORY AND FEMALE SPECTATORSHIP is lifted from 'Building the feminine: feminist film theory and female spectatorship' by Gillian Swanson
which can be seen here:http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/4.2/Swanson.html






A Little Book OF Focus

has been cribbed from here: http://www.themassagesite.co.uk/free/FocusPLR.pdf


› Reply to this post | See this post
Tracked discussion:
3 messages
Joanne Benford
How much of Joanne Benford's work is plagiarised?

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This message was sent to the following e-mail address: alex.keegan@btinternet.com

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 12



Begin forwarded message:

From: Alex Keegan
Subject: Fwd: My list - Re Joanne Benford
Date: 14 June 2012 14:54:35 GMT+01:00
To: jack.

More stuff, Jack, just received




Begin forwarded message:

From: vade.
Subject: My list - Re Joanne Benford
Date: 14 June 2012 14:45:42 GMT+01:00
To: Snowball

Alex,

Thanks for that. Here's the list of my findings to which I've added the Prine poem. I count twelve instances of wholesale copy and pasting. Not the odd sentence, but complete poems, short stories, and academic articles or sections thereof.

Regarding Holiday Memory: it was originally broadcast on BBC Wales as a story on 25 October 1946, and then published in The Listener on 7 November 1946. It's a short story and was never originally published as a whole book. What Joanne Benford has done, and what many legitimate authors are now doing, is sell selected short stories or chapters as a short, standalone ebook to entice readers to buy more of their work. Of course she chose at least two very good stories to do this with, yours and Thomas's. However, The Lord of the Rushie River (see below) was originally published as a whole book with illustrations

She is, no doubt, a serial plagiarist and over many years has taken stories, poems, pictures and articles from various sources  - academic journals, books, ebooks, and online amateur archives and websites. The status of her PhD is also to be questioned - I wonder how much of that was plagiarised. Did Sunderland University have Turnitin back when she graduated?

I'm convinced that I would find many more examples if time, and my Google-fu, allowed

Personally, I think she will continue to steal until challenged by people she has in her social and professional(!) circle, unless she chooses to socially isolate herself and does as much as possible to prevent discovery, like not turn up to professional meetings where other people might start to take an interest in her work. (I think this is one reason she is a home tutor.) On this score, I plan to contact OU and Dylan Thomas's estate later today. As someone who has worked in academia and respects the idea of what writing is about, I find people like Joanne Benford extremely galling.

Best wishes

Matthew

PS Just received your email before sending you this email. I'll cross reference to see if there are any missing, but here's my list so far.


In 'Down By the Water'

The poem Carp is 'Koi' by the well known poet John Burnside from 'The Light Trap' (2002) http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Light-Trap-Cape-Poetry/dp/0224061771. Here's an academic article examining the very poem (see part III http://www.erudit.org/revue/ravon/2008/v/n51/019263ar.html

The Lord of the Rushie River is by Cicely Mary Barker http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rushie-River-Simon-Swan/dp/0723239800/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

Holiday Memory (which was also available as a stand alone e-book which now appears to have been removed) is by Dylan Thomas.

*****************************
In 'Coming Up for Air'

Postcards From BalloonLand is by Alex Keegan http://alexkeegan.blogspot.co.uk/ (This was also a standalone ebook, but appears to have been removed in the last couple of days, along with the Holiday Memory.)

Death's Naked Beauty is by William Prine https://groups.google.com/group/alt.prose/tree/browse_frm/month/1990-08?_done=%2Fgroup%2Falt.prose%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fmonth%2F1990-08%3F&

Powers of the Air is by J D Beresford
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pPXGHebQG4AC&pg=PA117&dq=Powers+of+the+air+beresford&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8hzZT_zCMo6R0QWX6ZWYBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

****************************
In 'Scorched Earth'

Farmer of the Night is by James A Collins http://moon.ouhsc.edu/jcollins/Saturn/farmer.html

****************************
Cafe Ultima is a copy of 'Cafe Ultimate' from the publication AKCT http://www.autotranscend.co.uk/akct_ind.htm. The publisher John Eden, who writes at http://www.uncarved.org/blog/, has informed me that Joanne Benford was not the author.

******************************

The Music of the Spheres is copied from The Rite of Jupiter by Aleister Crowley http://hermetic.com/waddell/jupiter.html


******************************
Sing of the City Electric has a large chunk taken from Peter Wollen, “Delirious projections”, Sight and Sound, Vol 2 No 4 (August 1992).

*******************************
Feminist Film Theory and Female Spectatorship is copied from 'Building the feminine: feminist film theory and female spectatorship' by Gillian Swanson http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/4.2/Swanson.html

*******************************
Living Doll: The Seduction of the Cyborg copies whole sections from Of Aids, Cyborgs, and Other Indiscretions: Resurfacing The Body in the Postmodern by Allison Fraiberg (Postmodern Culture v.1.n3 (May 1991) where Joanne Benford appears to have edited out all the parts relating to AIDS. http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.591/fraiberg.591



The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 11



Begin forwarded message:

From: Alex Keegan >
Subject: Fwd: More on J Benford UPDATE 13:22 Thursday 14 June
Date: 14 June 2012 13:55:55 GMT+01:00
To: Jonathan Telfer



Begin forwarded message:

From: Alex Keegan
Subject: Re: More on J Benford UPDATE 13:22 Thursday 14 June
Date: 14 June 2012 13:22:58 GMT+01:00
To: vade.

So far, this is what I know


(A) Alex Keegan's Postcards From Balloonland

1. Amazon Kindle Single (Same Title) (Now removed)




2. in "Coming Up For Air" (Amazon Kindle)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-For-Ring-Elements-ebook/dp/B005I4O3SI/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339673846&sr=1-2


3. in The Ring of Elements (Amazon Kindle)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ring-Of-Elements-ebook/dp/B007K70HOK/ref=sr_1_22?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339673787&sr=1-22

4. in The Ring of Elements (Hardback)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Elements-Joanne-Benford/dp/1900701189/ref=sr_1_25_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339674031&sr=1-25

5 also in People's Friend Annual 2003 (Hardback)


(B) Cafe Ultima (NOT by Her http://www.autotranscend.co.uk/iss01%20pdf.pdf)

6. Paperback at Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Elements-Joanne-Benford/dp/1900701189/ref=sr_1_25_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339674031&sr=1-2


7. Amazon Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caf%C3%A9-Ultima-ebook/dp/B005HDIFQQ/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1339674128&sr=1-5

(C) Death's Naked Beauty (William F Strine)

8 in "Coming Up For Air" (Amazon Kindle)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-For-Ring-Elements-ebook/dp/B005I4O3SI/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339673846&sr=1-2

9 in The Ring of Elements (Amazon Kindle)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ring-Of-Elements-ebook/dp/B007K70HOK/ref=sr_1_22?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339673787&sr=1-22

10 in The Ring of Elements (Hardback)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Elements-Joanne-Benford/dp/1900701189/ref=sr_1_25_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339674031&sr=1-25


(D) Second-Hand Santas (previously appeared here: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/1999/12/Christmas-In-A-Thrift-Shop.aspx )


11 Kindle Edition

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-Hand-Santas-ebook/dp/B007BM1AJK/ref=sr_1_9?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339674624&sr=1-9



(E) Holiday Memory DYLAN THOMAS

12 Was at Amazon Kindle until June 13th. Now removed


(F) Powers of the Air by J D Beresford

13  in "Coming Up For Air" (Amazon Kindle)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-For-Ring-Elements-ebook/dp/B005I4O3SI/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339673846&sr=1-2

14
 in The Ring of Elements (Amazon Kindle)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ring-Of-Elements-ebook/dp/B007K70HOK/ref=sr_1_22?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339673787&sr=1-22

15
 in The Ring of Elements (Hardback)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Elements-Joanne-Benford/dp/1900701189/ref=sr_1_25_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339674031&sr=1-25


(G) The Rite of Jupiter by Aleister Crowley
 Smashwords
is also plagiarised (at least Jupiter and Uranus)  Appears in Music of the Spheres

16 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Spheres-Joanne-Benford/dp/190070109X/ref=sr_1_19_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339675280&sr=1-19

17 and as Kindle http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Music-Spheres-ebook/dp/B005I3H8MM/ref=sr_1_18?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339675830&sr=1-18



18 Coming Up for Air is also on sale from the Apple iTunes Store as an iBook

19 Holiday Memory is still on sale at Lulu.com

20 Coming up for Air is still on sale at Lulu.com

21 Cafe Ultima is still on sale at Lulu.com

22 The Music of the Spheres is still on sale at Lulu.com

23 The Ring of Elements is still on sale at Lulu.com

24 Joanne Benford's Open University Official List of Publications includes my plagiarised work.

On 14 Jun 2012, at 08:59, vade.mecum.69@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Alex,

I'd be grateful if you could tell me the whole book and original author that Joanne Benford has plagiarised.  Also which piece did William Prine write?

I've been doing a bit more digging and will send you an updated list of work she's stolen later today.

Best wishes

Matthew



Sent from my HTC



The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 10


Prine himself writing on Amazon

He is plagiarised in Coming up for Air and The Rings"

and those books are hardback, paperback and eBook and were on sale in about a dozen places



Begin forwarded message:

From: Amazon Discussions
Subject: New comment on your review of Coming Up for Air
Date: 14 June 2012 00:27:04 GMT+01:00
To: "alex.keegan@btinternet.com"
Reply-To: Amazon Discussions

               
Your Amazon.co.uk    Shop All Departments
   

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk Customer Discussions,


Because you requested to be notified when people commented on your review of "Coming Up for Air", we are sending you this e-mail.

14 Jun 2012 00:27:01 BDTWilliam F. Prine says:


I'm glad you like "Death's Naked Beauty" because if it begins as follows,

William Frederick Prine wrote that in 1990, not Joanne Benford:


Death's Naked Beauty awoke, blind and dying.
The time, the place; her religion, her race doesn't matter.
Circumstances are nothing more than excuses for acts committed
wherever hatred, ignorance, and madness reign. The point is she
could have been, might have been, your friend.
A discussion of any crime must start with its aftermath.
Doing otherwise elevates the criminal and diminishes the victim.
Beauty was forced to play her part. It is our choice to witness
and care and learn and share. By witnessing, we give tragedy
meaning. In caring, we see our self in strangers. By learning,
we know the stranger within. In sharing, we find peace.
Death's Naked...







Begin forwarded message:

From: Alex Keegan
Subject: Re: Your Warning Regarding Plagiarism
Date: 14 June 2012 06:34:54 GMT+01:00
To: "William Prine"

Benford is an academic with The Open University and has been for almost 9 years.



Alex

On 14 Jun 2012, at 01:03, William Prine wrote:

I’d say you’re right. I googled (with quotes) “Death’s Naked Beauty”

Google Books has an excerpt of “Death’s Naked Beauty” in “Coming Up For Air” here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=5uCTsfWjdM4C&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=%22Death%27s+Naked+Beauty%22&source=bl&ots=WIi9DCFgEE&sig=OzphFekExz9hDQo-Em91MGKIRlg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wB7ZT4qrJIO-8ASW3OjLAw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Death%27s%20Naked%20Beauty%22&f=false

Google’s Alt.Prose has something my brother, Ron, uploaded somewhere before I had chopped the story’s intro to simply cut to the matter:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.prose/msg/5064c15798a6647f?

A listings of stories in Compuserve:
http://community.compuserve.com/n/docs/docDownload.aspx?webtag=ws-books&guid=f3fc613c-1a2f-4289-8c30-7e6ea36db32c



Regards,

Bill Prine

From: Alex Keegan
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 17:09
To: wprine
Subject: Re: Your Warning Regarding Plagiarism

I have just noticed that Amazon have removed my story


Death's Naked Beauty is in Coming Up For Air, a book in her series

The Ring of Elements


http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ring-Of-Elements-ebook/dp/B007K70HOK/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1




That also has my story in it!!!



The Ring of Elements (4 books) is also available as a single book, so your work is in TWO of her publications.



Alex





On 13 Jun 2012, at 18:03, Will Prine wrote:


Yes

From: Alex Keegan [mailto:alex.keegan@btinternet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 09:22
To: wprine
Subject: Re: Your Warning Regarding Plagiarism

I may not have the right William F Prine, of course, but did you write this?


DEATH'S NAKED BEAUTY
                               by
                        William F. Prine
                   Copyright 1990, W.F. Prine

     Death's Naked Beauty awoke, blind and dying.  Cold and
getting colder, her body's violent shivering hurt her back.  Half
conscious, she coughed and moaned.  A voiceless gasp bubbled out
of her burning throat.  The pain woke her.
     Eyes opened, seeing nothing.  Was the cold and dark the
night?  Beauty listened and heard birds sing day songs.  Another
voiceless cry escaped, her anguish heedless of the pain.
     Her head rocked back and forth, denying this waking
nightmare.  The movement made her head throb.  She clamped her
mouth shut against a sudden wave of nausea and tried to swallow.
Something was wrong with her throat.  It was too stiff and dry to
work.  It hurt trying and trying made something warm flow in thin
cooling streams down her neck and shoulder.  She was goin




etc



Alex






On 13 Jun 2012, at 15:01, Will Prine wrote:



Hi Alex,

I understand that we are possibly being plagiarized. What are the details?

Cordially,

William F. Prine




The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 09

Two more plagiarisms by Joanne Benford



We can provide email addresses of the editor of Cafe Ultima
and the writer of "Santas"





Begin forwarded message:

From: Stuart
Subject: Plagiarism
Date: 13 June 2012 12:54:33 GMT+01:00
To: Snowball

Hi Alex

Been following your sorry tale (Re: Joanne Benford) via Twitter. My sympathies.

You're obviously keenly on her case and I hope you bring her to heel. Be great to read a blog post on the whole episode once you've resolved it. It will serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

I've also done a little digging out of curiosity (and a sense of "there but for the grace of god…") and have found out the following:

1. The book 'Cafe Ultima'

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Café-Ultima-ebook/dp/B005HDIFQQ/ref=sr_1_13?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339587721&sr=1-13

appears to have been lifted from Issue 1 of the A.K.C.T. fanzine. Unfortunately, there's no authors listed for the fanzine (so it could be her, I guess), but I've emailed them to try and find out.








2. The story "Second Hand Santas"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-Hand-Santas-ebook/dp/B007BM1AJK/ref=sr_1_16?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339586473&sr=1-16

looks like it has been lifted from here:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/1999/12/Christmas-In-A-Thrift-Shop.aspx


best wishes

Stuart

====================


Begin forwarded message:

From: "vade"
Subject: Fwd: Cafe Ultimate - AKCT
Date: 13 June 2012 14:08:13 GMT+01:00
To: snowball

Hi Alex,

Here's the reply from John Eden.  It wasn't him who wrote the story, but he confirms it wasn't Joanne Benford either.

Matthew

Sent from my HTC

----- Forwarded message -----
From: eden@uncarved.org
To: "uncarved.org blog"
Subject: Cafe Ultimate - AKCT
Date: Wed, Jun 13, 2012 13:53


Hi VM

The author wishes to remain anonymous.

I assume this relates to the work being sold on Amazon, so here is a

response I wrote just now to a similar query:

"I've contacted the author. He has confirmed that he is not Joanne Benford.

The AKCT stories were originally self-published in the mid 90s. I

republished them online in 1997."

I hope this helps!

John Eden

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 08

Below is a poem by Joanne Benford

Posted at writing.com


It is in fact, by the singer songwriter Leonard Cohen



Begin forwarded message:

From: R V Jones
Subject: Benford has ripped off Leonard Cohen. This is still live
Date: 15 June 2012 13:40:44 GMT+01:00
To: Jack M

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1232478-Memoriam





MEMORIAM

There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their names to time.
Grave markers are not high enough
or green,
and sons go far away
to lose the fist
their father's hand will always seem.
I had a friend
who lived and died in mighty silence
and with dignity,
left no book, son or lover to mourn.
Nor is this a mourning song,
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk,
fragrant, dark, and softly white
under the pale of mist.
I name this mountain after him.


© Copyright 2007 Joanne Benford (UN: joannebenford at Writing.Com).

All rights reserved.

Joanne Benford has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and
syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.    

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 07



The next email to the Open University is a screen-dump but doesn;t want to post here

It shows the Joanne Benford book Holiday Memories which is shown with thhe text, the text written by Dylan Thomas.



I will figure out how to post the picture of the screen dump and update

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 06



Begin forwarded message:

From: Alex Keegan
Subject: At least 11 Years Plagiarism of Fiction by Current Open University Tutor
Date: 13 June 2012 12:04:14 GMT+01:00
T

My name is Alex Keegan.

I am the author of five published novels, a collection of short stories
and approximately 400 total publications. I have won 13 First prizes
for short fiction and two First Prizes for poetry.

I have taught Creative Writing for 20 years and my students have had at least 142 First Prizes
(141 while with me) and many more after leaving. "Boot Campers" have published more than 40 books.

Monica Ali was in BC for 9 months, Vanessa Gebbie, Alexandra Fox etc



Yesterday a student contacted me to say one of my stories

Postcards From BalloonLand was being plagiarised (an exact cut-and-past copy, same title, everything) and was being sold at Amazon.

Further investigation has revealed that my work is in THREE separate publications
and is being sold at Amazon, the Apple iBooks Store, Lulu.com and via Facebook and possibly SONY.



It now turns out that this "author" has ripped off myself, J. D. Beresford, William F. Prime,
Aleister Crowley, and Dylan Thomas.

No doubt there will be more instances. This has been unearthed in 12 hours.

These are not "snippets" but mostly complete rip-offs, word-for-word. In the case of Dylan Thomas,
this "author" has simply put her own cover, title and author name on a full BOOK by DT!






Normally I would simply put a stop to this theft and forget it but the author turns out to be Dr Joanne Benford, based in Hartlepool, and who was until recently teaching Creative Writing at The da Vinci Centre, Tunstall College and is currently an Open University Tutor in the North-East and has been in the post for 8.5 years.

The Tutor's "Official Blurb" includes part of my work!


The OU takes a very serious view against plagiarism by students.

I have provenance for my own story (1991, 1995) (she claims copyright 1995) and I can provide numerous links to the evidence if you would care to look into this further


My Telephone is


Best Wishes


Alex Keegan

Newbury Berkshire

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 05


Benford merely put a new cover on the Thomas work
and a photo of her inside.


We have downloaded copies as proof






Begin forwarded message:

From: "vade"
Subject: Re: Plagiarism - Joanne Benford *
Date: 13 June 2012 09:57:17 GMT+01:00


And, of course, Holiday Memory is by Dylan Thomas, whose estate would be very interested in this as all his work is still under copyright.

Thanks for the reply and best wishes.

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "Alex Keegan"
Subject: Plagiarism - Joanne Benford *
Date: Wed, Jun 13, 2012 09:38


Thank-you


Yes, bit by bit, various people are spotting her plagiarism. I think that's 5 of six pieces at least.


Normally, if this was some idiot from an obscure country, I'd have it stopped and forget it
but someone in the UK who is BA, MA, PhD and holds two important posts, that feels very different.

I will keep you informed.





Alex



On 12 Jun 2012, at 23:38, Matthew B wrote:


Hi Alex,

Sorry to see that you've been the victim of a plagiarist. I caught a re-tweet about it and did some investigating and, as you have tweeted, it appears there seem to be at least three stories Joanne Benford has stolen. The ones I've found are yours, Powers of the Air by J D Beresford and Cafe Ultimate by, I think John Eden, who I've emailed to check as the story I found was unattributed, although I'm pretty sure he wrote it. Perhaps you've found others.

The poetry from Music of the Spheres is also plagiarised (at least Jupiter and Uranus) from The Rite of Jupiter by Aleister Crowley, no less.

I also question a lot of the art work that she has copyrighted. And, as for the academic stuff, the least said the better, which is probably why she is not teaching 'culture studies'.

How are you going to proceed? She seems to be a lecturer/tutor with the OU. I really don't think she should be. Students who plagiarise so blatantly are chucked off their courses. Lecturers/tutors should follow higher standards than students. In another profile, she boasts to be the manager of the Da Vinci Centre, a learning centre for adults in Hartlepool. If she still occupies that position, then her employers should be told.

Best wishes

(If I hear anything from John Eden, I'll let you know.)

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 04

I can provide the email address of William F Prine who confirms the work is his





 William Prine's link (circa 1991): http://groups.google.com/group/alt.prose/browse_thread/thread/d631c26401cfb2a6/c8741ccfb3cf3dc7?lnk=gst&q=prine#c8741ccfb3cf3dc7
I'm sure he would be interested to learn of this as well. I think he is a Technical Writer based out of Chicago.

J.D. Beresford is actually relatively famous (or was in his day) and his story can be found here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pPXGHebQG4AC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=%22i+foresaw+the+danger+that+threatened+him%22&source=bl&ots=bOUKbpjJvl&sig=QkPtJiSJr3oUfH_JV9gd7c2e2wU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2yrXT667LYWohAf8zZXtAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22i%20foresaw%20the%20danger%20that%20threatened%20him%22&f=false

The thing I can't understand is why anyone would do this. It is bound to get spotted and is professional suicide for someone in academia. I don't know, however, whether her qualifications and job are as bogus as her bibliography.

Let me know how this turns out.

Regards,

Martin

The Benford Plagiarism Dossier 03


No real need to read this now, but proof that Postcards from BalloonLandis mine.







Done some checking on MY provenance (Alex Keegan)

Postcards From BalloonLand



My story owes its genesis to a series of incidents on a family holiday to Disney Land, Florida, which took place in 1980.



My children Toby and Clare were very small and they had both wanted balloons, silver ones, the types filled with helium. We duly bought them one each but soon after Clare let hers go and was inconsolable. I stopped her crying by explaining about Balloonland and how her balloon was now very happy!



We bought a replacement balloon and tied them to their wrists this time, but the kids undid the string and (to their delight) sent their balloons to Balloonland. So my story had to be quickly extended to prevent balloons 4 & 5 following.



Years later I was split from Toby & Clare's mother and had been a survivor of the Clapham rail Crash (December 1988.) I had been trying to write on and off since aged 19 (born 1947) and had made a short list aged 39 with a short novel, but like many wannabees I was not particularly disciplined or sure of the way forward.



The Clapham Crash (I was lucky not to be killed) focussed my mind and I started writing more regularly, and some time in 1989 or 1990 I wrote the first draft of "Postcards" which was FAR too long, and left nothing out. (I was still learning!)



At about this time I also joined Compuserve and became internet-friendly with many writers including the now New York Top 10 writer Diana Gabaldon.



In 1991 I collected my stories together and published them using the pseudonym Vincent Pinke  in a leather-bound collection. (I still have this.) Not "self-publishing" as such, just for me and posterity. Included in that collection is, wait for it, Postcards From Balloonland (monstrously over-long, about 6,000 words, but hey!) I had been submitting my hopeless stories and getting nowhere fast. However, I edited Postcards down to 4,800 words and entered it in The Ian St James Awards 1991 or 1992.





In October 1992, 45, now a house-husband with a new baby on the way, I decided to "get serious" and gave myself 5 years to make it. I was still writing short-stories and trying to start novels (one was a typical me-me horrid autobiographical thing.)



In April 1992 I had attended The Southampton Writers Conference, and I did the same in 1993, where I spoke to Caroline Oakley then of Headline Books. Subsequent to that I submitted 25,000 words of a "Caz Flood" crime novel. I was encouraged to complete the work and sold a three-book deal in October 1993, the first book "Cuckoo" coming out in 1994.





As I worked harder and learned NOT to put everything in, I had edited down my monster to 4,800, then in 1983, Cosmopolitan Magazine launched a short-story competition "based on a postcards or letter."



I decided to enter this so edited "Postcards" to death, mercilessly hacking it down to 1,999 words (limit 2K) and duly entered.



In January 1993 (or 1994) I received a letter from Cosmo telling me I had made the final 12 and had won some Basildon Bond Writing stuff (woopdeedoo!)



The winner was a Scottish lady called Armstrong and Rachel Cusk was 4th.



So I have a print version dated 1991, a shorter version in a 1991/92 competition and an even shorter version read by the Cosmo judges.



My first book (Cuckoo) came out in Summer 1994 but my first print publication was an article in ACCLAIM (forerunner to The New Writer) February 1994. In that article it clearly discusses my entries into the ISJ so these were 1989-1993 (actually they were 89-90-91.



Just before my first book was due out I attended my third Southampton Writers Conference where I ran a tutorial and gave readings. I publicly read the short version of Postcards at this conference and one woman broke down in tears!



Subsequently (still at the conference) I met John Jenkins, then editor of Raconteur and he asked me to send him a couple of stories. One was "Postcards" and he published that in Raconteur 5 (1995) and another "A Pint of Bitter" in Raconteur 7.



The story was also published in Raw Fiction (Canada) Vol1 issue 2 in early 1966.



In 1996 it was also published on line at "212-New York" and it was in my collection "Ballistics" published by SALT Publishing,  December 2008





Postcards has been extensively referenced on the internet



http://www.internetwritingjournal.com/aug06/keegan40.htm



Sometimes, the sensitization is trivial, arguably crude, but still can work. A very early story of mine was called "Postcards From Balloonland." In it a man, who knows he has not long to live, takes his wife and two young children to Disneyland. The opening was three postcards and the story said resolutely unsold. It was a poignant story but the postcards, seen alone looked like, well, boring holiday postcards!

The problem was solved by pre-emption, by as British footballers says, "Getting your retaliation in first". In front of the postcards, bold, italic, centred, highlighted I put:

There are things we should say, things we should not; And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.

This looks to my cynical, more experienced eye, a little twee now, a little forced, but by 'eck did it work! That unplaceable story immediately made print and was reprinted half-a-dozen times. The salter, the pre-sensitizer got the editors to read the "light" postcards with a different eye, a different ear, a different sensibility. The reader was made to absorb in a different way, slowly, building, knowing that this is doing something.





and



http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec98/keegan14.htm



One of my very early stories, "Postcards from Balloonland" was about a man who knew he was going to die, taking his kids to Disney. It opened with three postcards, one from each of his two older children, one from his wife. After we get the text of his cards, we get him, a context and he posts the cards back to England. Since the story revolves around balloons and postcards this opening was important to me but the story (also too long, needing an edit) kept being rejecting and failing in competitions. Until one day I chose to put two lines of bold italic centered text before the postcards, the content of which, like Lois Peterson's hair-cutting dialogue, is "tame".

The two liner was:

There are things we should say, things we should not. And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.

The story immediately made a final and a small prize, then won $800 runner up prize in another competition and thereafter reprinted in Canada and the US. And just two lines transformed it!

Why? I think because the two-liner says, "What comes next might look quiet but it will be profound, it will matter. Trust me." In a sense, this is like those stories you think have ordinary openings but the author's name is famous. For those with big names, they can promise profundity and meaning simply by reputation. They get more attention. We who still seek that elevated status have to apply tricks of creating import, mood, ways of seeing.



and



http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/feb99/keegan16.htm



An early success of mine, "Postcards from BalloonLand," began as a 5,500 word monster, was cut to 1,999 words and made a final, then was smoothed out at 2,150 to earn a thousand dollars in various printings. You can always cut. Never believe you cannot.





http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jan99/keegan15.htm

http://www.mensch.net/212/keegan/index.htm

http://www.worldcat.org/title/short-stories-7/oclc/734094773

http://mossjake.blogspot.co.uk/2010_01_01_archive.html





Further the total editorial processes were extensively discussed on Compuserve under the watchful eye of Diana Gabaldon, now a New York Times Top ten author, and the author John Ravenscroft was given a breakdown of the process totalling 12,500 words.



The idea that I could invent a LONGER story and then show my editing processes reducing it to this plagiarist's 2,150 words beggars belief.





On 12 Jun 2012, at 07:41, Nigel Allinson wrote:

Alex

I've also ordered JB's paperback 2nd edition of Coming Up for Air which contains Postcards From Balloonland.  The first (hardback) edition was published on 31st July 2005.  The 2nd edition (paperback) was published in July 2008 with some revisions.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Up-Air-Joanne-Benford/dp/1900701065/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1339475213&sr=1-1-catcorr

Ballistics was published in December 2008 so if you want me to be a credible witness I need to be able to verify that the story was published by you before her 1st edition.

Any attempt at claiming plagiarism on her part may provoke a counter-claim given the publication dates of what is in the public domain at the moment.  I have looked (aka googled) for references to the earlier instances of the story.

I have found your reference to it in some blog posts from Dec 1998 & Jan, Feb 1999:

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec98/keegan14.htm

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jan99/keegan15.htm

These web pages would be date stamped so you may want to get the website to verify the dates of your original postings as evidence if you're planning a court action or an accusation.

I have not yet found any copies of the story itself on the web (using WebCrawler etc).

I hope this is useful.

Regards,
Nigel
From: snowball136@googlemail.com
Subject: Re: My story plagiarised and on sale at Amazon
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:34:09 +0100
To: nigel_allinson@hotmail.com

No idea, Nigel.


I thought Ballistics had sold out!



The story is identical (unless there were tiny edits for the collection (can't remember) including the formatting!!

Here off my PC (word)


I wrote it in 1989-1990 (the original, longer version) and this version was a finalist in Cosmopolitan SS of the year 1993
then out in Raconteur, then Raw Fiction (Canada) and The Large Print Literary Reader. Was on the web too



Postcards from BalloonLand

There are things we should say, things we should not.
And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.

Dear Dawn.
We’re in DisneyLand! Dad promised us that if it was the last thing he ever did we were going to go to America and go to Florida and go to Orlando and go to Disney and stop in the Contemporary Resort. It’s very hot. The grass is funny. There are hundreds of dead good things in the shops.
                  Love Rachel.

Hi Robert!
    The Frog wants to go to the Magic Kingdom tomorrow and do all the girlie rides. Dad says we have to wait until Friday to go to EPCOT. The Contemporary Resort Hotel is brilliant! There’s a monorail goes right through the building! It took nine hours to get here. We saw Concorde! Dad had a headache when we landed. Mam said it was because of the flight. Gotta go. Bet you wish you were here!
         Love Ben.

Dear Millie,
    I hope you and Dad are well. The flight was far better than I expected. There was so much for me to do that I forgot to be frightened! Peter was very tired, Rachel led him round everywhere by the hand. They bought me perfume. I told Peter off for spending but he just laughed and said, ‘What’s money?’ The kids played Scrabble most of the flight. Peter fell asleep in my lap.
                  Your loving daughter, Margaret.

He was Peter. Soft red curly hair, blue, bright eyes, thirty-three; married to Margaret, father to Benjamin, to Rachel and to three-year old Tobias. He read their postcards again. Rachel’s card was a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger in front of a blue-grey castle. The holiday was costing a fortune but he knew he had never spent money more wisely. Before they left, he told Margaret that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip and not to worry about the expense. It was all taken care of, he said. The look on the kids’ faces when he told them was sheer joy.
    Peter watched Toby pressing his face to a toy-shop window in the hotel concourse. There was a time when he might have been impatient, but not now, not any more. Nothing mattered any more. He was on holiday. He wanted to wear a silly hat and look gormless.
    Tonight, he would make up another story for the kids and sit on that huge hotel bed with their spiky arms and legs hooked into him. He would whisper little messages to Margaret and later they would make love, very, very slowly, the kids a mangled heap on the other bed.
    ‘Dad?’
    He looked down at Rachel.
    ‘Dad. Can we have balloons? Like those?’
    They were large, bright, helium filled silver balls, stretching towards the sky on soft string. They bought three. Margaret tied them, one each, to small wrists. Immediately, Toby began to pick at his.
    ‘Don’t!’ Margaret said, ‘you’ll lose it!’
    ‘Free it, don’t you mean?’ Peter said softly.
    She looked at him. He looked dreamy and lost.

    They went for drinks, found a café. They were outside and a small bird appeared on their table, picking between their drinks, pecking at crumbs. ‘It’s pretty!’ Rachel said.

Toby was the first to lose his balloon. He burst into tears. Margaret sat down and held him. Behind her, Rachel let her balloon go, looked up, then cried like her brother.
    Peter pulled his girl into him. He felt giddy, but he swept her up and wrapped her in his comfort, strutting and spinning around, her gold head pressed into his hot neck.
    ‘Hey, Sweetheart,’ he said, the world still turning. ‘There’s a good brave girl. Fancy you knowing about BalloonLand.’
    Rachel sniffed.
    ‘I did, diddun I? Tell you?’
    She shook her head. Well, no wonder! They didn’t know about BalloonLand! ‘Didn’t I ever tell you about BalloonLand?’
    He called them together and they sat on the grass.
    ‘I told you, Ben, yes? Last year?’
    Ben shook his head.
    ‘Well, I never!’ Peter said. Then to the ground he said, ‘They don’t know about BalloonLand. Well I never!’ He leaned back, his hands clasped behind his head, sun in his face. The kids were leaning forward. ‘Well, I never!’ he said and closed his eyes.
    Toby squeaked at him, ‘Tell, tell!’
    ‘Tell us, Daddy,’ Rachel said.
    ‘Oh, Dad!’ Ben said.
    He opened one eye. ‘I think you’d better,’ Margaret said.
    He sat up.
    ‘When balloons are born, when they’re born, they are flat and sad and don’t know what to do. If people don’t fill them up, blow them up, they never get to feel big or bouncy or pretty or anything.’
    He had them.
    ‘You know when you see balloons in their packets?’
    Toby was nodding, his eyes wide.
    ‘You know how flat they are... And they don’t smell nice and they’re all dusty?
    ‘Well, they want to be blown up. That’s what balloons are for.
    ‘People were invented to let balloons be blown up.
    ‘But there’s a problem, there’s a big problem when a balloon gets bigger...
    ‘When a balloon is flat, nothing happens. They are just waiting there, waiting to be blown up. So they can do things. So they can go flying in the sky.
    ‘People know balloons are very special things.
    ‘That’s why we have them at birthday parties and at Christmas.
    ‘People want to keep their balloons. They want to keep being happy.        ‘They think that if they keep their balloon it will stay a happy time and everyone will keep on having a lovely time. But!’
    Toby nodded again.
    ‘But balloons were made to fly. They want to go back to BalloonLand.
    ‘You know at a party?’
    ‘You know at a party, how the balloons go up and stick on the ceiling?
    They were all nodding.
    ‘Well, they are trying to go home.
    ‘You see... ‘ He pulled them to him, the warmth of his family an ache in his gut. ‘You see, balloons are like very special birds. They can’t sing but they make people sing sometimes. So they come alive for birthdays, but then, after, they want to go.
    ‘You know if you keep a balloon?
    ‘If you keep a balloon, what happens? It goes all droopy and wrinkly and it gets sad. If you keep a balloon for a very long time, all its balloon-ness leaks out and it sort of goes to sleep again.’
    Toby looked faintly worried.
    ‘But if you let a balloon GO! If you let a balloon GO! It goes UP in the sky, straight off to BalloonLand. And if a balloon gets to BalloonLand it NEVER goes down and it’s happy and bouncy and can fly for EVER. BalloonLand is full right up of every single balloon that you could ever imagine. Red ones, yellow ones, blue ones, fat ones, wiggly ones...
    ‘So just think. Right now, in BalloonLand there’s - ’
    ‘My balloon!’ said Toby.
    ‘And mine!’ Rachel said.

It was later when Benjamin undid his bonds and released his balloon. They couldn’t complain and Ben looked supremely satisfied. After lunch, Margaret bought three more balloons and diligently fixed them to three wrists. Just as diligently, the cords were loosened and the balloons released. Peter groaned, his eyes rolling but the kids were already clamouring for more. Margaret thought it funny.
    ‘Six dollars! How you gonna get out of that one, maestro?’
    He was a little tired. He sat down and called them to him again. He need to explain, explain about balloon jams. ‘Hey kids, come here!’ he said.
    ‘When balloons get to BalloonLand; if there are lots arriving at the same time, they have to wait outside. And they might go down while they are waiting. That’s why we keep them on strings for a while. So we can let them go every now and then. To stop the jams.’
    He looked to his wife, aching. Was that all right? Margaret smiled. She told them how, tomorrow, they could keep their balloons all day and then they could set them free, in the evening, after the balloon rush-hour. She was still smiling, the sun coming through her hair, so Peter continued and told the kids that the jams were because BalloonLand only had one way in. The BalloonLand bosses wanted to make another way in but balloons didn’t know how to build entrances.
    ‘So really, they could do with some grown up humans to do the building for them. But it’s very hard for humans to get back from BalloonLand so they have to wait for volunteers.’
    As they walked back towards the exits at the end of the day, a balloon sailed diagonally past and over them. Somewhere distant was a crying child but their children were jubilant.
    Margaret looked at Peter. ‘You old sod!’ she whispered. ‘I love you!’
    Peter was soundly asleep when they arrived back at the resort. Margaret woke him and he walked like a zombie into the hotel. The next morning, she had trouble waking him but he eventually stirred and followed her down to breakfast. The kids were asking about balloons so he said he would ring up and get a traffic report. He left them, used the phone and came back, nodding to Margaret, then telling the kids that Balloonway One was chokker-block with balloons. Apparently, he said, there’d been a lot of parties in Australia the night before and they were still dealing with a back-log from the Olympics. He whispered that they could probably manage a few balloons late that afternoon.
They stayed another week, used the Jacuzzi every morning, lazily swam in the hotel pool as the evenings drew in. Then their fortnight suddenly was over and Nanna and Grancha Bill were coming to Orlando to take the children back to Grancher’s farm. When they met, the two women embraced. Bill shook Peter’s hand before pulling him close and hugging him silently.
    The grand-parents and the children flew back the following night. Peter tried hard to keep the mood light as they prepared to board their 747. Earlier, they had let five balloons off to a count of one-two-three and cheered as they sailed into space. Margaret had chosen to dress them all in Mickey Mouse clothing and little Toby was complete with a black big-eared cap. When it was actually time to go, they hugged, first as a family, then Peter alone held each child in turn, smelling them, feeling the breaths, sensing their heartbeats. After holding Benjamin, he stood back and held his hand seriously, like a man. He made a face at them all as their Nanna led them away.
  
Margaret drove the car south to Miami while Peter slept. They had booked into a wonderful hotel at the head of the Keys and the following day, they walked hand-in-hand on quiet printless sand. They were caught in a sudden fat rainstorm but chose to enjoy it, laughing, their heads back, savouring its warmth.
    They drove on that afternoon, drifting towards Key West. They stopped at a little harbour where Margaret ate from an incredible seafood buffet. Peter had no appetite but they sipped wine together and talked quietly. That night, they were asleep at six, Peter cradled in her neck, her gentle hands stroking his head. The next day they did nothing but lay together on top of the sheets, a copper fan phudding above them.
    At their destination, they ate in romantic restaurants and drank in rough bars. In the evenings, they drifted along to the pier to watch the sunset. They stopped to buy books. Peter chose three, stopped, then replaced two. Every night she held him. They were closer than they’d every been.

He had made all sorts of arrangements, all sorts of plans. Once he had had so many dreams. On their last day in the Keys, for Margaret he had found a watercolour of balloons over Paris and from a staggered shop-keeper he bought a complete supply of postcards, all of balloons. While Margaret drove north, Peter wrote carefully on card after card. Each message was different, each card dated oddly. As they arrived back on the mainland, he was tired and his writing was less fluid. They stopped in Miami. Peter was asleep again so Margaret arranged the check-in.
    They flew to the clinic next day. While their plane drifted in to land, he explained again how she should use the cards. The children would receive one every birthday, one at Christmas, one on the day their father was born. He told her that Ben, Rachel and Toby should stay children as long as possible. He was going away but they would know how to contact him.
    Someone had to help build the new entrance at the other end of Balloonway One. If he volunteered, they could send him messages any time they wanted. He had arranged to be at check-in the first Friday of every month.
     They could write to him care of BalloonLand.           






On 11 Jun 2012, at 23:12, Nigel Allinson wrote:

  Nigel Allinson (nigel_allinson@hotmail.com) is not on your Guest List | Approve sender | Approve domain
Alex

I work in the software industry so I have a particularly strong attitude on theft and piracy.  Plagiarism is just a jumped up term typical of the literary profession (in my non-literary view).  More industrialised callings call it what it is, and would say, simply, that these people need to be crushed like beetles.  Which is what they are.

I bought Ballistics tonight on Amazon.  I will also buy the e-book single.

I will note any possible similarities and will take your steer on how best to flag these to the retailer and any other party you wish me to.  I will ask friends to do likewise.

As I am purchasing both stories from the same retailer do you know what liability they may have in this matter?

Best regards,
Nigel Allinson

From: snowball136@googlemail.com
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 19:45:03 +0100
Subject: My story plagiarised and on sale at Amazon
To: nikferrero@yahoo.co.uk

An ancient story of mine

POSTCARDS FROM BALLOONLAND

Published in Print in Raconteur, in Raw Alibi, in The Large Print Literary reader, in my collection Ballistics
(and various other places, and on line)

has been ripped off and is being published by Amazon both as an e-book "single"
and as part of a volume in this rip-off author's "Ring" series.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Postcards-From-BalloonLand-ebook/sim/B00765U9I0/2

<51nlciMvjRL._SL500_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-big,TopRight,35,-73_OU02_SL160_.jpg>
Postcards From BalloonLand
Joanne Benford (Author, Illustrator)

Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
Available for download now
£0.77
Product Description
A heart warming and moving story of an ordinary man’s love for his family, and the true meaning of balloons.‘There are things we should say, things we should not. And there are things we want to say but have never learned how.’A beautiful short story, taken from the second of... Read More



If this was some dozy little twerp I might not mind (too much)
but this woman has a BA in Lit Fic, an MA in Lit Fic
and a PhD in LitFic and has God knows how many
published books out there.

Please DO NOT (yet) spread the word about this plagiarism
or contact the author, but could you please use your network
to get as many people as possible to eyeball the story on line
at Amazon US or Amazon UK (as soon as possible) so that

I have as many witnesses as possible

and if any of you feel like investing 77p or so, please download the single?

 She is an Open University TUTOR!!


Alex