I like the concept of In My Mailbox. I really do. The idea of giving an acknowledgement to the books that have come in, whether I’ve bought them or gotten them free or borrowed them or been sent them for review, is a neat way of acknowledging the authors and titles, even for stuff I might not be able to review.

I can understand why Kristi Diehm at The Story Siren thought it was a neat idea when Alea of Pop Culture Junkie originally inspired it. It’s been a very popular and successful meme at The Story Siren.

448 Blogs linked to In My Mailbox on April 22, including this one.

In the future, I will not be among them. I will miss the connections that come from linking to In My Mailbox, but I can’t in good conscience be a part of it any longer. Because I can’t condone the behavior of the blogger.

Plagiarism is wrong. It is not an accident. It is a mistake, and a deliberate one (Someone said there is no such thing as sleep copy and pasting).

Swift acknowledgement of that mistake can bring forgiveness, but that’s not what happened here. Instead there was a denial, then a cover-up and a plea for everything to be handled “quietly”.

This continuing saga has been covered, in detail, on multiple blogs, including at Smart Bitches, Trash Books, Smexy Books, Parajunkee’s View and Book Savvy Babe. This story is as compelling as any book you might review. All the more so because it took place in our own backyard.

As bloggers, our identities are made up of the words we write. If someone steals our words, they’ve stolen something precious.