The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Kaavya Viswanathan. She gets the award for plagarizing at least two authors work in her book "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life". Yesterday Ms. Viswanathan's publisher cancelled the book deal they had.

Viswanathan is going to Harvard and look dumb she is. Then Harvard has its share of fools like anyone else. Writing takes time and hard work. I write fiction on the internet, and I can speak from experience. An author will put endless hours into their work, and even after publication we'll sometimes kick ourselves for things we did or didn't write. Also we're protective of our works, their like our children. We don't appreciate strangers stealing any of it away from us.

Kaavya Viswanathan is today's Knucklehead of the day.

Open Post- Cao's Blog, Basil's Blog, Bright & Early, Jo's Cafe, TMH's Bacon Bits, Third World County, Stop the ACLU,

NEW YORK - A Harvard University sophomore's debut novel has been permanently withdrawn by the book's publisher and her two-book deal canceled after allegations of literary borrowing piled up against her.

Little, Brown and Co. will not publish a revised edition of Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" nor will it publish a second book, Michael Pietsch, Little, Brown's senior vice president and publisher, said in a statement Tuesday.

Little, Brown, which had initially said the book would be revised, declined to comment on whether Viswanathan would have to return her reported six-figure advance.

The decision caps a stunning downfall for Viswanathan, 19, a Harvard sophomore whose novel came out in March to widespread attention. Viswanathan, who was 17 when she signed the deal, did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday.

The novel had modest sales initially, but interest in used editions of the book remains strong enough that it was the No. 58 seller on Amazon.com on Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, The Record of Bergen County said that it will review the news articles Viswanathan wrote for the 180,000-circulation daily paper in northern New Jersey while an intern in 2003 and 2004.

Editor Frank Scandale said The Record, which has written several of its own articles about the plagiarism allegations, will hire a service to vet the dozen or so features she wrote while one of about 18 interns at the paper.

"To us she was a bright young kid that seemed to have the makings of a good writer. There were no alarms; nobody had ever questioned any of her stories," he said. "We have no reason to believe there's anything wrong with her copy. But in light of what's going on, we thought we should check her stuff out."

Little, Brown pulled "Opal Mehta" after extensive similarities were discovered to two works by Megan McCafferty, "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings." But until Tuesday, the publisher had not said whether the book would be canceled altogether or simply revised, as originally planned.