There’s a pretty simple rule in creative circles: don’t steal someone else’s work. Don’t steal someone else’s ideas. Create your own. Stretch your own imagination, put in the work and the practice necessary to hone your skills, and keep creating.

No, this post is not about so-called AI. This is about people stealing from other people. This is about people who lack the drive and imagination to create their own, so they steal the work of those who do.

Yes, this post was motivated by a recent plagiarism scandal that also involved Eternal Haunted Summer. Our Winter Solstice 2023 issue sadly included a stolen short story. The haunting and gripping “Waiting for Jonah” was — in reality — written by Sharang Biswas, and was published in the November 2023 issue of Nightmare Magazine. It was not written by John Kucera (aka John Siepkes, aka Anthony Bartolla) who has since been exposed as serial plagiarist, with stolen work appearing in dozens of prose and poetry journals. Needless to say, the story was removed from EHS; an apology was issued to Sharang Biswas and Wendy Wagner, the editor of Nightmare Magazine; and word was passed through editorial networks. As a result, Kucera/Siepkes has been effectively banned from the speculative fiction community.

Fairy tales are rife with stories of greedy individuals who steal someone else’s gold. Or who attempt to do so, thinking themselves more clever or more deserving. It never ends well. The gold turns to dirt or to leaves or to literal shit. Or the gold is cursed, bringing nothing but pain to the thief and their entire family or community.

Take that lesson to heart.

Don’t steal someone else’s gold. Maybe you’ll get away with it for a little while. But eventually the truth will out and you’ll be left with nothing but a ruined name, a tattered reputation, a long line of enemies, and a handful of shit.

[Written by Rebecca Buchanan.]