Dear Wigleaf:

Full disclosure: the piece you accepted is not my work. It's plagiarized, but plagiarized for a reason. Truthfully, I did write it, but that may be cheating because I'm saying I didn't to start the next big fiction movement. I'm calling it Feigned Fiction. The point is not whether the writing is good, but how much of a sensation the writer can cause. All I have to do is say that Barbara Cartland wrote it, and we'll be good to go.

Magazine editors will soon flood my mailbox with solicitations because of the association between Cartland's name and my own and the number of hits my name will generate. Reporters will cleave themselves to editors' doorknobs demanding more of my work so they'll have a scandal to follow. Unscheduled window washers will appear outside your co-op, suction cupped, dangling from the roof, wearing subliminal messages attesting to my literary prowess. No one will know whether I write the stories or not. By taking my fiction, you've become the recipient of my first foray into this new school. The article explaining my unparalleled genius will be written up in Wikipedia with our likenesses grinning alongside. 

No need to thank me.

xxb






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Read BZ's "Graveyard."

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