This week! Books!

I’m back! For real this time! And what a dizzying few weeks it’s been while I globetrotted.

As a writer, blogger, newsletter-er, and editor/consultant helping other writers, it feels like the ground’s shifting under my feet very, very fast. Artificial Intelligence is unleashing massive changes, and it’s daunting to make sense of it all.

To wit:

Was a Story That Just Won a Literary Prize A.I.-Generated? – Valeriya Safronova, New York Times – LLMs Are Revealing How Low the Bar Is (And Lowering It Even Further) – Lincoln Michel, Counter Craft / This Literary AI Scandal Changes Everything – Vauhini Vara, The Atlantic – In an inevitable harbinger of the future, we have our first major literary prize A.I. scandal. A story written by a self-professed A.I. enthusiast with all the hallmarks of A.I. writing won a prestigious prize from Granta. This is naturally spawning a great deal of hand-wringing across the writing world.

In the absence of reliable A.I.-detection tools and proof of guilt, I personally think we have more to fear from A.I. vigilante witch hunts and false accusations (which will disproportionately affect idiosyncratic and already-marginalized writers) than we do from writers incorporating A.I. into their writing or even using it whole cloth. I’m more inclined to agree with Lincoln Michel in the post above, who critiques the story itself. The writing is really bad in the story in question, so why did it win in the first place?

My hunch, for better or worse, is that this is going to eventually shake out in a place where we’re going to stop caring whether A.I. was used to write a story any more than we care whether it was written on a laptop or a typewriter. We’ll instead get back to assessing whether a story is actually any good. I think it’s a shame writers are taking these shortcuts and not simply using their own brains and exploring their own humanity, but I don’t see the wisdom in chasing ghosts in a vain attempt to enforce the unenforceable.

Curious to hear your thoughts here!

Google’s AI search overhaul is great for Google and bad for everyone who makes the web worth searching – Alina Maria Stan, The Next Web / Is the web being summarized to death? – Casey Newton, Platformer – Meanwhile, Google is overhauling its search engine to lean even more into A.I. explainers, which is tremendously unsettling for people like yours truly, who have long relied upon Google search to find new readers, community members, and clients. How is anyone going to find this blog if Google’s A.I. simply serves up my advice without attributing/linking it to me and the other publishing experts like me?

Tech writer Casey Newton peers into the future and worries that even our inboxes will be ruthlessly and arbitrarily summarized by A.I. to the point that people won’t even read individual newsletters, and writers will struggle even more to build direct relationships with their readers. It feels like my whole community and business model is about to be ripped to shreds by A.I. summaries, which is just a tad unsettling! Where’s a functioning government when you need one.

Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I. – Benjamin Mullin, New York Times – You can’t make it up. A book on truth in our A.I. world contains A.I. hallucinated quotes.

The AI Revolution Hollywood Feared Is Already Happening — in India – Justin Rao, Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter – And for a look into where we could be headed with A.I. content creation, India’s film industry is hurtling headfirst into the A.I. future, with all the attendant possibilities and headaches.

Watch Out For This Scam Impersonating Editors at Major Publishing Houses – Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware – Meanwhile, publishing scams are proliferating like never before, and I want to re-up this post from Writer Beware about a bait and switch that tons of writers are falling for. There are also currently scammers impersonating me, referring writers to a fake literary agent. Please reach out to me directly through my site if you’re ever confused about whether you’re really corresponding with me.

In happier news, congrats to the Pulitzer Prize winners for books:

• Fiction – Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
• History – We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore
• Biography – Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill
• Memoir or Autobiography – Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
• Poetry – Ars Poeticas by Juliana Spahr
• General Nonfiction – There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone

Anthropic Settlement: Did Your Publisher Fail to Register Your Copyright? – Authors Guild – Many publishers (including mine) neglected to register the copyright for some or all of their books, often in violation of their contracts, which meant they were ineligible for money from the Anthropic settlement. The Authors Guild is soliciting information from authors to try to scope the extent of the problem.

Appeals Court Denies Petition to Rehear Book Ban Case – Nathalie op de Beeck, Publishers Weekly – In devastating news on book banning, an appeals court declined to rehear a case on an Iowa law that led to the removal of hundreds of books from schools and libraries.

The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’ (gift link) – David Epstein, The Atlantic – Good things come from uninterrupted concentration.

People Are Paying $1,000 to Read Among Strangers (gift link) – Alice Robb, Bloomberg – Curated reading excursions are becoming big business.

The Kind of Short Stories People Really Want to Read – Isaac Kolding, Amateur Criticism – Reddit’s wildly popular “Am I the Asshole” posts are arguably the most popular short story format in the world and offer a window into what the people want, for better or worse.

The Children’s Middle-Grade Slump: How Bad Is It? – Jane Friedman – How bad is the situation for middle grade fiction, i.e. novels for 8-12 year olds? Super bad unless you’re a literary estate, because the classics are soaking up the sales.

Consider The Sister – Lindsey Adler, Defector – David Foster Wallace’s sister Amy has a complicated and wrenching role maintaining his memory.

Granta Says They Weren’t Involved in Selecting That Short Story / Why Is Book Threads So Unhinged? – Jasmine Vojdani, Book Gossip – More on the Granta scandal, but also a look into the raging world of Book Threads, which seems uniquely organized around surfacing the most unhinged posts imaginable.

The Award-Winning Novelist Who’s Under Fire for Simply Depicting an Israeli – Laura Miller, Slate – Speaking of, author R.F. Kuang has been under fire in certain sectors of social media merely for including an Israeli character in her unreleased new novel, which few people have even read yet. Perhaps in a sign of industry maturation, rather than Kuang or her publisher panicking like others have in the past, they seem to just be laying low until things die down.

Why the Best Writing Advice Is Often the Weirdest – David O’Neill, The New Yorker – A lovely survey of the complicated world of writing advice and what writers (and advice givers) need and want.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
5. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Suicidal Empathy by Gad Saad
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. Take Me To Your Leader by Neil deGrasse Tyson
4. The Case for America by Brett Baier
5. Famesick by Lena Dunham

Young adult hardcover:

1. The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
2. Release Me by Tahereh Mafi
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. Change of Plans by Sarah Dessen
5. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Operation Trick Shot by Dude Perfect with Allan Woodrow
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. KPop Demon Hunters by Jessica Yoon
5. Unsettling Salad! by Aaron Reynolds

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• N/A

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally:

Signed, Sealed, Delivered – Lauren Collins, The New Yorker – A very fun ode to messages in a bottle and the people who are obsessed with them.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: Torino, Italy. Follow me on Instagram!

This week! Books!

I’m between trips at the moment and popping up with a few links that caught my eye while I was away. Please keep reaching out if you need editing, and my blog will properly return at the end of this month!

For the first time ever, Amazon is cutting old Kindles off from the Kindle Store – Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica

The rise of the ‘Adderall novel’: How our attention spans are changing the way authors write – Maddie Connors, Los Angeles Times

The Brave New World of Penguin Random House – Kenneth Whyte, SHuSH

The Publishing Mystery That No One Wants to Talk About – Daniel Engber, The Atlantic

Bookshop.org’s Sales Grew 55% in 2025, Sparked by Romance and E-books – Ed Nawotka, Publishers Weekly

Little, Brown BFYR Raises the Curtain on Alvina Ling Imprint – Shannon Maughan, Publishers Weekly

What Do Stephen King and Shakespeare Have in Common? – Kevin Lincoln, Bloomberg

What Was Lost: A Queer Accounting of the NY Times Book Review, 2013-2022 – Sandy Ernest Allen, Lit Hub

TikTok releases first monthly BookTok bestseller list – Maia Snow, The Bookseller

What Literature Did Agents Build? – Laura B. McGrath, Public Books

Does Publishing Have to Be This Hard? – Kate McKean, Agents + Books

Let Your Characters Teach Us About their World – Charlie Jane Anders, Happy Dancing

How Some Crime Writers Are Finding a New Path to Publishing – Keith Roysdon, CrimeReads

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
3. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
4. Purple State by Dana Perino
5. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Strangers by Belle Burden
2. When We See You Again by Rachel Goldberg-Polin
3. Famesick by Lena Dunham
4. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

1. Release Me by Tahereh Mafi
2. The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
3. The Thorn Queen by Sasha Peyton Smith
4. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
5. The Way Things Work: Newly Revised Edition by David MacCaulay

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. KPop Demon Hunters by Jessica Yoon
3. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
4. Forbidden Mountain by Brandon Mull
5. Unsettling Salad! by Aaron Reynolds

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• N/A

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally:

Exclusive: The Jay-Z Interview – Frazier Tharpe, GQ

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Follow me on Instagram!

This will be the last post for about a month, as I’m getting married to my lovely partner next week and taking a bit of time off.

But! I am still available for editing, and am currently booking full manuscript edits starting in mid-May. I typically book slots two to three months out, so I’d recommend reaching out as soon as you’re confident in your delivery date. Don’t hesitate to reach out!

Things have been a tad hectic, but here are some of the links that caught my eye this week.

Macmillan Children’s Dissolves Roaring Brook, Forms New Imprint – Emma Kantor, Publishers Weekly – Another longtime children’s imprint is dissolving, this time Roaring Brook, though Macmillan is also forming a new imprint under Connie Hsu for nonfiction and illustrated books.

What Memoir Scandals Tell Us about Two LLM Writing Scandals – Lincoln Michel, Counter Craft – Nothing is surer in life than death, taxes, and memoir scandals in publishing, but Lincoln Michel has some astute observations to make about the bleeding edges of authenticity and what it means for readers’ relationship with A.I.-generated writing.

What Bookstores Want From Traditional Publishers—and How the Bookstore Market Has Changed – Jane Friedman – What life on the ground for bookstores means for the direction of the publishing industry and what authors should take into account.

What Are the Routines of So-Called Super-Readers? – Kelsey Rexroat, Lit Hub – Who are the super readers plowing through hundreds of books a year, and how do they do it?

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
2. The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez
3. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
4. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
5. Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Strangers by Belle Burden
2. Stripped Down by Bunnie XO
3. Stand by Cory Booker
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
5. A World Appears by Michael Pollan

Young adult hardcover:

1. The Sun and Starmaker by Rachel Griffin
2. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
3. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
4. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
5. A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
3. Refugee by Alan Gratz
4. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate
5. The Court of the Dead by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• N/A

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally:

Transference in the Afternoon – Jesse Barron, Granta – I’m normally in the “we should all know less about each other” camp of caring about salacious stories, but this was a genuinely fascinating deep dive into an affair between therapist and patient that raises some profound questions about the nature of therapy, personal responsibility, and trauma.

Have a great weekend! See you next month!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA

This week! Books!

Let’s start with some “A.I. getting chopped down to size” news.

OpenAI Is Shutting Down Sora, Its A.I. Video Generator – Cade Metz, New York Times / Disney Exits OpenAI Deal After AI Giant Shutters Sora – Alex Werpin, The Hollywood Reporters – OpenAI’s foray into an A.I.-generated, copyright-nightmarish social media network has flamed out spectacularly, costing OpenAI a $1 billion partnership with Disney.

Wikipedia bans AI-generated content in its online encyclopedia – Oliver Milman, The Guardian – Wikipedia is banning A.I. content, apart from translations and spellcheck.

As AI Discourse Rages, Publishing Has More Questions Than Answers – Sam Spratford, Publishers Weekly – The publishing industry is still reckoning with the fallout from Hachette’s cancellation of Mia Ballard’s Shy Girl, with agents worrying about a collapse of trust, and others worrying that Hachette (a company that publicly admits to using A.I. in its operations) threw the author under the bus.

While I’m fully aboard holding A.I. companies to account, I have to admit I’m a bit nervous about some of the vigilantism around accusing authors of A.I.-generated content. Not because I’m using A.I. to churn anything out myself (this is all me), but because I worry innocent authors could be falsely accused with scant proof.

To wit:

The People Falsely Accused of Using AI – Emma Alpern, The Intelligencer / AI detection and authors’ fear of witch hunts – Jane Friedman – Humans are already being accused of being robots, particularly neurodivergent writers, and tools to reliably prove A.I.-usage are scant and faulty.

Careful what you wish for here, and I suspect it’s going to be a mess for a while. My hunch is that over time, people will stop caring whether something was generated with A.I. and instead focus on the simple fact of whether it’s good or not.

Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste – Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker – Meanwhile, in a world where tech bros think A.I. can or will be able to do anything, taste is all the rage as something tech bros think they’ll still bring to the table. People always want what they can’t have.

Rising Wartime Costs Rattle Publishing’s Global Supply Chain – Ed Nawotka, Publishers Weekly – Thanks to the idiotic war in Iran, we’re talking about supply chains again like it’s 2020.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson
4. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
5. Love Song by Elle Kennedy

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Stripped Down by Bunnie XO
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
5. Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli

Young adult hardcover:

1. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
2. The Sun and Starmaker by Rachel Griffin
3. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
4. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
5. The Ruins Beneath Us by Sasha E. Sloan

Middle grade hardcover:

1. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
4. The Court of the Dead by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
5. Growing Home by Beth Ferry

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• N/A

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums – on hiatus!

And finally:

What Happens When a Whale Is Born? – Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker – Scientists got a rare look at a sperm whale birth, and found incredible signs of community.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA

This week! Books!

First, a quick programming note, prompted by a personal note. I’m getting married in April, and, as you can imagine, things are a bit hectic! Posting may be a bit sporadic for the rest of March, and then I’m planning to take an extended break from April through mid-May.

But! I’m still very much open for business. Please continue contacting me for your editing and consultation needs.

Now then, on to the links!

A.I. Is Writing Fiction. Publishers Are Unprepared. – Alexandra Alter, New York Times – Well, here we go. Hachette has canceled publication of an originally self-published horror novel that has been accused of largely being A.I.-generated. In an industry that largely relies on author attestation alone when it comes to plagiarism and fact checking, needless to say publishers are on their heels.

Tracy Wolff Did Not Plagiarize ‘Crave’ Series, Court Finds – Katy Hershberger, Publishers Lunch – In a closely watched trial involving dueling romantasy manuscripts and overlapping personnel, a judge ruled that Tracy Wolff did not plagiarize author Lynn Freeman and the overlap involved common tropes and phrasing. To arrive at the ruling, the judge heroically read six drafts of Wolff’s manuscript and the four Crave novels, which should come with hazard pay no matter how good the books are.

Layoffs, Moves at Penguin Young Readers as Dial Imprint Shuttered – Emma Kantor, Publishers Weekly – In sad news generally and disorienting for me personally, Dial Books for Young Readers at Penguin, which published my Jacob Wonderbar series, is shuttering. Some editors are being laid off, others reassigned to new imprints. Not exactly comforting news for the state of the children’s book world.

HarperCollins Union Wins New Contract – Sam Spratford, Publishers Weekly – Big win for the brave unionizers at HarperCollins, who have won a new contract with industry-leading base pay.

‘It Ends With Us,’ but It Starts With Her – Alexis Soloski, New York Times – Colleen Hoover’s novels are all the rage in Hollywood.

There’s No Substitute For Reading: A Roundtable With Four Literary Magazine Editors – Alia Hanna Habib, Delivery and Acceptance – Agent Alia Hanna Habib sits down with lit magazine editors to discuss how they approach their jobs and think about what they acquire.

Typos Have Plagued Us for Centuries. Just Ask the Publishers Who Printed the Seventh Commandment as ‘Thou Shalt Commit Adultery’ in 1631 – Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian – Inject it itno my viens!

Experiment: Claude as My Lead Gen Boyfriend – Lauren Hamlin, Move 37 – How good is A.I. model Claude at generating leads for a literary agent? So good it convinced a self-professed luddite of its utility.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
4. The Wings That Bind by Briar Boleyn
5. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli
2. Getting Naked by Valerie Bertinelli
3. Stripped Down by Bunnie XO
4. Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre
5. You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate

Young adult hardcover:

1. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
2. The Sun and Starmaker by Rachel Griffin
3. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5. The Ruins Beneath Us by Sasha E. Sloan

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
3. The Court of the Dead by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
4. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate
5. Growing Home by Beth Ferry

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• N/A

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums – on hiatus!

And finally:

Benjamin Franklin Was One of Many Early Americans Who Spread Genocidal Propaganda About Indigenous Nations – Paul C. Rosier, Lit Hub – The more things change…

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram!