Walsch resigns after using material from another author

Walsch resigns after using material from another author (RNS) “Conversations with God” author Neale Donald Walsch said he was “embarrassed” and “mystified” as he apologized Tuesday (Jan. 6) for having misrepresented another writer’s work as his own. Walsch, whose 1996 book remained a bestseller for more than two years, wrote in his blog on Beliefnet.com […]

Walsch resigns after using material from another author

(RNS) “Conversations with God” author Neale Donald Walsch said he was “embarrassed” and “mystified” as he apologized Tuesday (Jan. 6) for having misrepresented another writer’s work as his own.

Walsch, whose 1996 book remained a bestseller for more than two years, wrote in his blog on Beliefnet.com that he had made “a serious error” when his first-person account of a touching moment during a Christmas concert turned out to be an anecdote lifted from the writing (and life experience) of another spirituality writer, Candy Chand.


Walsch resigned his role as a Beliefnet blogger, effective immediately.

“I have told the story verbally so many times over the years that I had it memorized … and then, somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience,” Walsch wrote. “I am aghast at how improbable this sounds, even to me, yet I can find no other explanation for how this story came out of my mouth in Candy Chand’s words.”

Neither Walsch nor Beliefnet described the incident as plagiarism, but a statement from Beliefnet said Walsch had “failed to properly credit and attribute material from another author.”

Walsch’s decision to resign from Beliefnet’s blogging roster marks “a decision we support in order to protect the mission and integrity of our site and community,” according to the Beliefnet statement.

Walsch is author of more than 20 books, including a forthcoming collection of blog posts from 2005.

-G. Jeffrey MacDonald

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