The Term Paper Artist' represents two models of writing, one of the little boy bouncing his ball, generating stories for the sheer pleasure of it, and the besieged adult, writing to make a living, having to contend with a very competitive, very unreliable world in which public image counts.

Some critics have since noted Leavitt's career has never recovered from the plagiarism charge and that a once-promising author is now considered a marginalized gay writer with limited scope. The publiDavid Leavittrs also agreed never to publish the manuscript that had become the subject of the charge of plagiarism. In addition Spender claimed that Leavitt had fictionalized his life especially by adding graphic fantasies attributed to the character modeled after Spender (in particular "allegedly using his relationship with 'Jimmy Younger'").

David Leavitt (born June 23 1961) is an American novelist.