The New York Times bestselling author has responded to the younger writer's allegations made on social media.
Nora Roberts belittles Nigerian author, Tomi Adeyemi over plagiarism claim.
On November 28, 2018, the 'Children of Blood and Bone' author accused the veteran author of stealing her book title.
Sharing pictures of the Nigerian writer's New York Times Bestseller and Roberts' upcoming sequel 'Of Blood and Bone', Adeyemi tweeted: "It would be nice if an artist could create something special without another artist trying to shamelessly profit off it."
Hours later, the 25-year-old author retracted her statement.
Her tweet read: "update: Nora was kind enough to reach out & explain that today was the first she'd heard of my book. After talking to her, I believe our titles were created in isolation. I'm grateful she explained & I've apologized, but I wanted to address it here as I know others were upset too."
'Shame on you' - Roberts to Adeyemi
This did not stop the older writer from penning a lengthy, strongly-worded piece in a blog post.
Responding to the allegations, Roberts called the Nigerian-American author reckless, foolish, unprofessional and emotional, saying, "shame on you."
Acknowledging Adeyemi's retraction, the veteran writer noted that the young author has not done much to put out the fire she started.
"While this writer issued a kind of retraction after I reached out to her, it didn't stop some of her readers from calling me a liar, and worse. We reached out again, asking her to put out the fire. We've had no response, not from her, not from her agent. Shame on them," she wrote.
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Below is an excerpt of her blog post:
"I don't believe and have never believed in taking personal issues onto public forums. I don't believe, and have never believed–will never believe–in a writer attacking another writing on a public forum. It's unprofessional, it's tacky and the results are, always, just always, ugly.
Recently another writer used her social media forums to baselessly, recklessly accuse me of stealing the title of her book–which is bullshit right off–to attempt to profit from this theft. She had no facts, just her emotions, and threw this out there for her followers.
First, let's address the particular title which happens to be similar. I titled this particular book, wrote this book, turned this book into my publisher nearly a year before her book–a first novel–was published. So unless I conquered the time/space continuum, my book was actually titled before hers. Regardless, you can't copyright a title. And titles, like broad ideas, just float around in the creative clouds. It's what's inside that counts. It's just a title."
By accusing me, in public, of attempting to 'shamelessly profit' off of her creativity, she incited her readers into attacking me–on her feed, then on my pages, then on the internet in general. She did nothing to stop this. I have been accused of theft, of trying to use this first time writer–whose book has been well received–for my own profit. To ride her coattails as I have no originality. This after more than thirty years in the business, more than two hundred books.
I was accused of plagiarism–for a title–of stealing her ideas–though I had never heard of her book before this firestorm, have never read her book. And trust me, I never will now."
Nigerians drag Adeyemi for accusing the veteran
Both authors are currently trending on Twitter, Nora Roberts with 10.9K tweets and Tomi Adeyemi with 7,079 tweets. Most of them are calling out the young writer for daring to accuse the veteran. Some have even gone as far to encourage Robert to sue the Nigerian author.
Here are some of the best reactions: