Thanks for this. Lots of reading reccomendations I might make time for (there's just so much to read and do and there's also the reasonable desire to rest occasionally...).
Any mention of spring makes me think of Tom Waits:
You can never hold back spring
You can be sure that I will never
Stop believing
The blushing rose will climb
Spring ahead or fall behind
Winter dreams the same dream
Every time
It gets me through many a dark time - literal and figurative - and I find I need it more than ever of late!
Thank you for these points about AI and creative writing...and of course, Spring (I feel like we're well into Summer here in California).
1. AI is so freaky. As an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to "write a story in the style of Christine Hyung-Oak Lee" because welp, AI had already stolen my work, so I was curious. What emerged was eerie. I may write about it on my Substack, if only to curb myself from EVER reusing any portion of what it spat out.
2. AI is currently HEAVILY subsidized by venture capital. I am waiting for the day that venture capital for AI ends, at which point AI will become VERY obviously expensive, possibly exorbitantly so. Right now, they're pushing people to adopt AI usage, just as all VC-funded startups do (market cap, market cap, market cap)...and it will end. It won't be free anymore. And then what? HA.
Thank you for shouting out Andrew Holter's essay on novelists writing nonfiction about war! (Just a heads up that your link there goes to a different piece, at the Sewanee Review.)
What a gift this was to read. An escape from endlessly scouring the news hoping to see that he died. That all of them died, in a freak accident.
The intimacy you are famous for, the bringing us into the little space you are holding so carefully. Your time with your hubbie and the generosity of what you’ve read and the new stories from those you know.
Thanks for pointing your readers toward that wonderful Harper's Bazaar feature, which is full of amazing things. I was unaware of their Substack and have now subscribed.
I’m also reading Brawler and looking forward to John of John, and Whistler. Finished KIN last week and want a sequel. Have a productive spring semester, and I’m glad your mom is better.
I’ll keep track this week and let you know. I have the advantage that it is my job to read and write and to “keep up,” and so I have a budget for the buying of books and subscriptions. Much of what I do is library building for myself and it is partly because I do think we are living in a time of amazing new books, like Night Night Fawn, for example. And I know we are seeing a tremendous assault on publishing and publishers, the whole literary ecosystem, so I am doing more than normal in response. Reading fiction also helps keep your blood pressure down, something I’m working on. And also I am a speed reader. Not a skimmer. I also listen to books when driving anywhere. Anyway, I I am probably a maniac, but that’s a gesture at why this all looks like this.
Thanks for this. Lots of reading reccomendations I might make time for (there's just so much to read and do and there's also the reasonable desire to rest occasionally...).
Any mention of spring makes me think of Tom Waits:
You can never hold back spring
You can be sure that I will never
Stop believing
The blushing rose will climb
Spring ahead or fall behind
Winter dreams the same dream
Every time
It gets me through many a dark time - literal and figurative - and I find I need it more than ever of late!
I like it. Thanks for that.
Thanks for linking to my poem. Hope you're as well as one can be under the circumstances.
I loved it! Poems like this one help.
Thanks! Wish Penguin felt the same. They just told me my last book didn’t sell enough, so they aren’t publishing my new one. (First world problem.)
I’m sorry to hear it. It’s a problem for whatever world I think. Here’s hoping you get a better editor.
Thank you for these points about AI and creative writing...and of course, Spring (I feel like we're well into Summer here in California).
1. AI is so freaky. As an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to "write a story in the style of Christine Hyung-Oak Lee" because welp, AI had already stolen my work, so I was curious. What emerged was eerie. I may write about it on my Substack, if only to curb myself from EVER reusing any portion of what it spat out.
2. AI is currently HEAVILY subsidized by venture capital. I am waiting for the day that venture capital for AI ends, at which point AI will become VERY obviously expensive, possibly exorbitantly so. Right now, they're pushing people to adopt AI usage, just as all VC-funded startups do (market cap, market cap, market cap)...and it will end. It won't be free anymore. And then what? HA.
Please be careful. So many of the AI delusion cases begin with people ‘experimenting' with a narrator they invented.
Yep. Which is why I want to copy paste the AI slop publicly. So it goes on the record as AI. and I NEVER touch it ever again.
Thank you for shouting out Andrew Holter's essay on novelists writing nonfiction about war! (Just a heads up that your link there goes to a different piece, at the Sewanee Review.)
Oh no, will fix it. I’m sorry for the error. And thanks again for publishing him as well as the round table on how not to respond to authoritarianism.
Thank you so much! And no apologies necessary, of course. We really enjoyed seeing this post!
Link is fixed now, and it was my pleasure.
What a gift this was to read. An escape from endlessly scouring the news hoping to see that he died. That all of them died, in a freak accident.
The intimacy you are famous for, the bringing us into the little space you are holding so carefully. Your time with your hubbie and the generosity of what you’ve read and the new stories from those you know.
Thank you. For a little while I felt sane.
I’m really glad. Thank you. I hope the feeling increases for all of us.
Your capacity and your generosity awe me, always. Thanks for all of this.
Thank you--thanks for reading!
Thanks for pointing your readers toward that wonderful Harper's Bazaar feature, which is full of amazing things. I was unaware of their Substack and have now subscribed.
it’s really tremendous. My pleasure!
I’m also reading Brawler and looking forward to John of John, and Whistler. Finished KIN last week and want a sequel. Have a productive spring semester, and I’m glad your mom is better.
And thanks Tisa, it’s been quite the road.
I have to get a copy of Kin, thanks for the reminder!
I love Saleem Haddad. Looking forward to reading "Floodlines".
He’s a wonderful writer and person.
Incredible list. Thank you as always. Sincere question: how do you make time to do all this reading? What does your daily average schedule look like?
I’ll keep track this week and let you know. I have the advantage that it is my job to read and write and to “keep up,” and so I have a budget for the buying of books and subscriptions. Much of what I do is library building for myself and it is partly because I do think we are living in a time of amazing new books, like Night Night Fawn, for example. And I know we are seeing a tremendous assault on publishing and publishers, the whole literary ecosystem, so I am doing more than normal in response. Reading fiction also helps keep your blood pressure down, something I’m working on. And also I am a speed reader. Not a skimmer. I also listen to books when driving anywhere. Anyway, I I am probably a maniac, but that’s a gesture at why this all looks like this.
Also: thank you, Sharline!
Adding this to my anti-AI list. https://www.thedp.com/article/2026/03/penn-ai-dominance-education
Loved this about not using AI to write poetry: https://www.instagram.com/p/DWRUvgQjlbD/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==