THE OTHER SLANT: Q.R. Markham on His New Yorker Profile

In 2012, the Slant reached out to the infamous plagiarist for his response to the iconic magazine's take on him and "his" work.

Quentin Rowan, the fallen literary star, scandalized the publishing industry when it was discovered that “his” novel, Assassins of Secrets, was composed of other authors’ works. Rowan tells The Slant what he thinks of the media storm around him–and reaffirms our faith in the mighty New Yorker magazine:

"My own experience has certainly been that most media coverage is one-dimensional. This seems to come from needing to create a narrative that is compelling but brief. Details that might be important to the subject but don’t fit the journalist’s story arc tend to fall by the wayside. At the same time, I am pretty exhausted with having anything written about me or being the focus of anyone’s attention. I spoke to The New Yorker (for Lizzie Widdicombe’s “The Plagiarist’s Tale”) in an attempt to lay the whole thing to rest, assuming that the intellectual weight of that publication would provide a kind of finality to the issue."

Considering that The New Yorker is famous for its rigorous fact-checking standards and elite team of researchers, we asked Rowan if they got anything wrong.

His response:

While I do like the idea of talking to The Slant and saying, ‘Oh, they got this, this, and this wrong.’ It was close enough to the truth that I’d rather just leave it at that for now.

He also confirms that he’s got his first (plagiarism-free) memoir in the works–and, to our surprise, a publisher: Yeti Publishing.

What compelled editorial director Mike McGonigal of Yeti to give the word-thief another shot at literary success?

“It’s a damn good book!”

Never Say Goodbye, which drops this September, follows Rowan’s fall from promising young poet to acrobatic plagiarist. This time, in his own words.