Gawker: fake writers

Augusten Burroughs to Join Fake Writer Club

Doree Shafrir — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:30:10 EST

"Sure, A Million Little Pieces author James Frey is a fraud, but Augusten Burroughs is an even bigger phony." Ouch! What could have possibly spawned such a cutting remark about that scamp Burroughs? Why, a little Fake Writerness, of course!

Ladies and gentlemen, the Fake Writer Club's latest inductee is Augusten Burroughs—at least according to a reportedly scathing article by Buzz Bissinger in this month's Vanity Fair (on sale next week). Seems that Burroughs got a little creative in Running With Scissors in his descriptions of the family that took him in as a teenager, as Bissinger told the Boston Globe:

"I don't know how [Burroughs] lives with himself," Bissinger told us yesterday. " ' Running With Scissors' contains little strands of fact that were wildly embellished, and if you take those away, you don't have much of a book."

The family is suing Burroughs for defamation. Oprah special inevitably TK.

Scissors Author Accused as a Fraud [Boston Globe]

Remainders: Fake News Day?

Doree Shafrir — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:25:01 EST

A side-by-side comparison of the plagiaristic transgressions of Ian McEwan and Kaavya Viswanathan. [ReadySteadyGo]
The Catholic League goes all Bill O'Reilly on our holiday asses in an ad on the NYT op-ed page. [Catholic League]
GQ names Pam and Kid Rock newlyweds of the year. Oops. [GQ]
The real original fake writer tries fashion designing on for size. [Daily Intelligencer]

Six Degrees of O.J. Simpson's Ghostwriter

Doree Shafrir — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 13:05:40 EST

In a Talk of the Town piece in next week's New Yorker (online now), Jeffrey Toobin talks to the man behind the O.J. Simpson not-confession If I Did It, Pablo Fenjves, who got to know Judith Regan when they were colleagues at the National Enquirer in the 1970s. (He wrote "human-interest" stories for the paper.)

Of course, the question on everyone's mind is what qualified Fenjves to be the ghostwriter on the O.J. book in the first place. Could it be his wonderfully written prose? (He also writes screenplays, including one called "Devil's Child.") His ability to really get to know his subjects? (He also ghost-wrote the Bernie Mac autobiography.) Or perhaps it's something else altogether:

Last year, Regan published Fenjves's parody of James Frey's work, called "A Million Little Lies," which he wrote under the name James Pinocchio.

We just knew our favorite Fake Writer was involved somehow.

The Ghostwriter [New Yorker]

Nick Sylvester Finds Food, Shelter at 'Pitchfork'

Jessica — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:30:27 EDT

Our overly hip siblings at Idolator have it on good authority that our old friend Nick Sylvester — the former Voice scribe who admitted to fabricating quotes for a front-page article — has returned to his old, old gig at the temple of indie superiority, Pitchfork. Apparently Sylvester slipped back in a few weeks ago and has been editing some reviews, though you won't see his name on the masthead:

Look, we're not saying Sylvester should never be employed again; we're just saying that maybe he shouldn't be part of the journalism game, where people "report" "facts," and don't just write about their friends. The real guilty party here is the 'Fork, who severed ties with Sylvester in March, and who have made a conscious decision to keep his role a secret; apparently, they don't think their readers deserve to know they have a kinda-admitted fabulist working for them.

Anyone know what specific articles he's edited? If you can figure out which ones bear the mark of this beast, perhaps we can help him with some friendly line-edits.

Pitchfork's Latest Hire Gets a 4.5 [Idolator]
Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of Nick Sylvester