Last week I wrote for Slate and joined WBUR’s On Point to discuss the latest partisan attacks on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia editing community doesn’t always get it right, but journalists nevertheless have a responsibility to describe the site’s editorial process accurately.

Today, I’m expanding to a new reporting beat: investigating the importance of paper in an age dominated by screens.

Sam Altman wasn’t the kind of guest you’d expect on ’s podcast How I Write. The show usually spotlights bestselling authors sharing tips for overcoming writer’s block, developing a unique voice, and revising drafts. Altman, by contrast, is the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and one of the most recognizable faces of the AI boom. He’s the sort of Big Tech executive lawmakers invite before Congress to talk about AI risk, not consulted for his personal views on the craft of writing.

Once on the mic, Altman did what he often does in interviews (and what you’d expect from a man with billions riding on the outcome): he sold the promise of AI. He described ChatGPT as a “general purpose tool” he now uses daily, predicting that soon he’d rely on it “for most things I do.” The impression was of a man happily tethered to his screen, using digital tools to generate the next big idea.

That’s what makes the back half of the interview so striking. About 43 minutes in, Perell asks Altman if he takes notes during the week. Altman’s green eyes light up: “I’m a huge notetaker.” Perell presses him: “Ooh, tell me about that.”

Suddenly the AI pitchman turns into a fanboy gushing about his favorite paper and pens. “You definitely want a spiral notebook because one thing that’s important is you can rip pages out frequently. You want it to lie flat on the table, with a hard front and back. And you also want something that can fit in a pocket,” Altman says, using his own notebook to demonstrate. The spiral, he explains, is crucial so you can rip up pages and place them side by side. He’s equally opinionated about pens, declaring the Uniball micro 0.5 the “best pen overall” with Muji’s 0.38 dark pen coming in second.

Handwriting isn’t an occasional hobby for Altman but a daily practice. He fills a fresh spiral every two weeks, leaving his housekeeper to clear away the piles of crumpled pages. He says he’s always scribbling new observations, half-formed ideas, notes to self, and strategies to test.

Altman’s enthusiasm for spiral notebooks is so endearing that it almost obscures the irony. His job as the CEO of OpenAI is to promote the company’s AI tools to billions of potential customers, promising the transformative benefits of this digital technology. But when he does his own deep thinking, his style is decidedly analog.

Perhaps there’s a lesson here: even in the age of AI, the sharpest minds still reach for pen and paper to discover good ideas.

If you enjoyed this, you might like my post about the psychological reasons to prefer print.

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I’m most known in online circles as a journalist who has written lots of news stories (and even a book) inspired by Wikipedia—a website that exists in part because people decided that print encyclopedias were too bulky, too gatekept, and too slow to keep up with the pace of knowledge.

I’m also a tech lawyer by trade. My area of practice? Online platforms and IT transactions.

In short, I’m the last person you would expect to be making a case for printed works. For paper books, magazines, and newspapers. For all these old-school, analog materials.

And yet here we are.

In an age ruled by short-form video and algorithmic curation, I find myself more and more pulled toward traditional paper and ink.

Here are three psychological reasons that I’ve come to believe that print is uniquely good for us, and that we turn away from printed works at our peril:

1. Print gives the reader more control. Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a dystopian world where all books are burned, and TV dominates the culture. People spend their lives at home watching television on giant “parlor walls” that bombard them with nonstop entertainment. Everyone is obsessed with their personal screens. The main character’s wife is petrified of leaving her house for fear of missing a moment with her on-screen “family.”

   Although Bradbury wrote his book in 1953, there’s a natural parallel to today’s screen addiction. Whether it’s scrolling TikTok or Instagram Reels on your phone, or spending hours watching cable news, most video content is designed to discourage reflection and keep you watching.

   
   Sometimes in the morning, or late at night, I have found myself getting sucked into scrolling shortform videos. I only meant to watch a few minutes, but before I know it, I’ve wasted an hour staring at the tiny screen. In moments like this, it can certainly feel like the phone has godlike powers, and I’m a mere mortal subject to its cruel whims.
   
   I never feel this way when I’m reading physical books. Sure, successful authors encourage readers to keep turning pages. But we know deep down that printed works tend to be less addictive than video. Print is less likely to ensnare you. Bradbury has a character address this difference in his novel:

   “You can shut [a book]. Say, ‘Hold on a moment.’ You play God to it. But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world.”

   Isn’t that a beautifully empowering thought? You can play God to a book. By the way, the latest neuroscience supports Bradbury’s statement: Digital media is more likely to turn us into dopamine addicts. By contrast, reading a book is a less stimulating but harder task. And that ultimately leaves us feeling more fulfilled and in control.
   

2. Print helps readers concentrate, leading to higher comprehension. We all know that electronic devices are more likely to distract us from an immersive reader experience, pinging us with advertisements, email notifications, or the temptation to check on social media. The WiFi connection on a Kindle shows the other books on sale at Amazon—enticing us to do anything except for focus on the text.

   That’s why the author and famous social media minimalist Cal Newport has a strong preference for physical books. Yes, he’ll sometimes deviate and read a book on Kindle (but not the iPhone), but that’s only on the rare occasion that he doesn’t have time to wait for delivery of a physical book. And that’s a very limited exception. As he wrote on his blog, “For demanding books, I’ll almost always use physical, as I have an easier time mustering concentration when I have a physical object to manipulate.”
   
   But does enhancing concentration lead to greater understanding of the text? I was under the impression that there was still significant debate among experts about whether people learned more from physical books than e-readers. While some critics say that studies with a larger sample size still need to be conducted, the research so far suggests a verdict: Reader comprehension is significantly better with physical books than e-readers.

   It seems like physical books work better for us precisely because we are embodied beings. Holding the weight of the book in your hand, turning the pages, writing notes in the margins, and highlighting your favorite passages—these are all sensations that are experienced in the body and thus leave a more lasting impression in our brains. According to researchers, turning pages as we read creates an “index” in the brain, mapping what we read visually to a particular page.

   In other words, the indelible ink characters on a page help us to create a mental map. That’s not the case with the flickering ghost characters on a screen. On-screen text appears and disappears without a fixed location, which makes it harder for our brains to index.

3. Print may help cure smartphone addiction. I have had an intuition for a while now that one way to improve our increasingly short attention spans is by reading from a very long novel. I’ll speak for myself—since I’m feeling increasingly limited in my ability to concentrate, I’ve tried building up my endurance by reading George Eliot’s 800-page tome Middlemarch.

   Notice how I was thinking about the issue of concentration as if it’s a muscle that had weakened over time because of smartphones and therefore needed more exercise. I did not frame the smartphone problem as an addiction in need of a cure.

   That’s why this latest study caught my attention: According to research from Catholic University of Indonesia, printed media is more effective than social media in reducing the smartphone addiction levels of participants. Could old-fashioned print help cure the smartphone zombie epidemic?
   
   I took a look at the research paper itself to see what I could glean beyond the headline. The study placed 54 subjects into two test groups that were each given a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) course that covered topics such as “negative impacts of excessive use of smartphones” and “steps to reduce smartphone usage.” Like most CBT programs, the lessons focused on paying greater attention throughout the day and adopting healthier beliefs about the technology.
   
   The only difference between the two test groups was in the type of media used to deliver the lessons to recipients. One group got the training via social media and the other through printed media—specifically leaflets.
   
   And the leaflets won the day! While both cohorts saw a statistically significant decrease in smartphone addiction rates, the group receiving leaflets (printed media) saw greater improvement than those who got the training digitally.

   The study’s authors caution that more research is needed in this area, but I suspect their preliminary research is already pointing to an important theme: We experience a lot of our current social ills because of the ethereal world, the world of websites and apps. But just because that’s where the disease originates doesn’t mean that’s where we’ll find the cure. We’re more likely to draw our medicine from the material world. The world of leaflets, the world of print.
   

   ---

   
   If there’s interest, I’d like to continue this series and meditate on the social and cultural virtues of printed works. Please let me know what you think!
   

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   On a different note, I’ve had the chance to talk about Wikipedia and information ecosystems in a few recent places:

   • Today, Explained (Vox’s news explainer podcast) - “What did Wikipedia do?” (May 9, 2025)

   • Connecticut Public Radio (The Colin McEnroe Show) - “What Wikipedia can teach us” (May 14, 2025)

   • The Washington Post - “Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney” (April 25, 2025)

     ---

Wishing you and yours a happy Memorial Day weekend.

The last time that I attended South by Southwest (SXSW)—Austin’s sprawling festival for tech, film, music, and more—it was 2013, and I was in my mid-twenties. Back then, startups were throwing parties left and right, and you had free admission if you showed that you’d downloaded their new app on your phone. The highlight of the trip was randomly running into Snoop Dogg and convincing him to take a picture with us.

Flash forward to this Saturday, March 8—I’m heading back, but this time as a speaker and the author of The Editors. Our panel is on the surprising ways that fiction can help strengthen truth—one of my favorite paradoxes.

I’m a bit intimidated, to be honest, because the panel includes esteemed novelist Laila Lalami, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Dream Hotel (a chilling new release where even dreams are under surveillance), alongside Rebecca MacKinnon, with Sewell Chan of the Columbia Journalism Review moderating. In other words: I’m the least qualified person in the room—but honored to be there.

Thinking Out Loud Before SXSW

It seems to me—at least on an intuitive level—that there’s a truth in fiction that isn’t captured by straight nonfiction reporting. William Faulkner once said, “The best fiction is far more true than any journalism.” I tend to agree.

On the panel, I might speak a bit from my practical experience as a journalist covering Wikipedia for several years. Many times, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data available on the platform: the number of articles, the thousands of edits on very contentious pages, the hundreds of volunteer editors involved. When I was writing my journalistic articles, I found I was more successful reporting the facts if I forced myself to focus on a specific event. For example, This company tried—and failed—to manipulate Wikipedia last week, or This prolific Wikipedia editor has been banned: Here’s why.

Then again, I always worried that by limiting my scope to that week’s newsworthy event, I wasn’t appropriately communicating the fullness—or you might say, the truth—of Wikipedia.

When it came time to write a book on the subject, I gravitated toward writing it as a novel, and specifically, a suspense novel. It wasn’t an entirely conscious decision, but in retrospect I see two key benefits to writing it as fiction.

(1) Distillation - The real-life English Wikipedia has something like 1,500 power users, and a true, holistic nonfiction account would document each of their contributions. Not only would that lengthy account be impossible for me to write (as a human), but it would also be unreadable (as a human). So for the novel, I focused on four main perspectives: young editor, seasoned editor, journalist, and rulebreaker. In other words, I distilled.

Distillation is a tricky business because you don’t want the characters to be reductive or cliché. A lot of the work as a novelist comes in ensuring the characters are authentic with their own motives and not mere stereotypes or pawns of the plot. And distillation ≠ summary. It must preserve essence; not diminish it. The aim is lightning in a bottle that’s still lightning.

You may have heard the maxim: “In a world of endless information, curation is the key.” There’s a practical, can-do spirit to curating your feeds and collecting reliable sources. I like this principle, but I’ve started to think distillation is the better word. In a world drowning in data, distillation is the key—especially through fiction.

(2) Perspective - Fiction’s second power may be even greater than the first. Fiction can explore viewpoint and the inner lives of characters in a way that isn’t captured by pure data journalism, much less AI reports.

For instance, I can now ask an AI tool to summarize the back-and-forth debate on the talk page of a contentious Wikipedia article. It can give me a bulleted list of the key arguments raised on each side. However, the AI tool cannot tell me about the inner world of the person who is advocating for a certain change. It can’t communicate their thoughts and feelings in the moment. This is the domain of fiction, which provides a simulation of consciousness. As a reader, you can step into the skin of the character and experience their perspective.

Here’s a question: Which version of events is truer—the AI summary of a real Wikipedia debate, or a novel that simulates the human experience of Wikipedia editing? The answer isn’t obvious.

AI can summarize the facts pretty well, particularly by drawing on a dataset like Wikipedia. Fiction, however, can communicate something deeper by immersing us in the characters’ lived experiences. I think that’s what Faulkner was getting at.

***

As you can probably tell, I’m still kicking around these ideas in my head. What else do you think I should say?

And please let me know if you’ll be in Austin for SXSW on March 8. I would love to meet some of my readers in person.

Other things worth sharing

• The Balsillie School of International Affairs has launched Balsillie Case Studies, a “repository of evidence-based true stories of technology-related governance dilemmas across various sectors globally.” My case study for the series is titled “Wikipedia’s Governance Challenge: Policies and Guardrails for New Generative AI Technologies.” I’m excited to see how students grapple with this real-world scenario and what recommendations for Wikipedia come from the classroom.

• Last month, my book club read Fahrenheit 451. This March, we’re reading The Stranger by Albert Camus. Drop me a note to join.

Happy New Year! Even if you’re as curmudgeonly as Larry David, I still think we’ve got a few more days where saying “HNY!” is socially acceptable. Whether or not that statute of limitations has expired, I’m offering this: my post to set the tone for 2025.

This year, instead of bold resolutions, I’m grouping a few ideas that have been rattling around my brain. These aren’t goals so much as principles I want to carry with me, and I’ll share them here in case they spark something for you:

1. Handwriting

Toward the end of 2024, I noticed a flood of posts extolling the benefits of handwriting. One study especially stood out: “Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity.” The authors explained that handwriting activates more elaborate brain connectivity patterns than typing does—particularly in regions tied to memory formation and learning. Their conclusion was compelling:

“We urge that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting activities in school to establish the neuronal connectivity patterns that provide the brain with optimal conditions for learning.”

Handwriting requires complex motor movements, while typing involves far simpler, repetitive actions. It makes sense that the former would have a stronger impact on our brains.

Yet, as a society, we’ve largely replaced handwriting with digital devices. Well-meaning school administrators likely believed that teaching typing skills would better prepare students for a tech-based workforce. What they didn’t anticipate was that handwriting wasn’t just a nostalgic pastime—it’s a far more effective tool for learning and encoding information.

I think back to my favorite math teachers who worked out problems step by step on the chalkboard. Watching them physically write out their process helped to make the concepts click.

Inspired by this research—and a desire to try things differently this time—I’m writing the first draft of my next novel by hand. Writing out the chapters on yellow legal pads is a much slower process than typing, but it feels easier to pick up the story where I left off each day. Perhaps the act of handwriting does indeed build more connections across the brain.

2. Metamodernism

Wikipedia defines metamodernism as:

“a cultural discourse and paradigm that has emerged after postmodernism. It refers to new forms of contemporary art and theory that respond to modernism and postmodernism and integrate aspects of both together. Metamodernism reflects an oscillation between, or synthesis of, different ‘cultural logics’ such as modern idealism and postmodern skepticism, modern sincerity and postmodern irony, and other seemingly opposed concepts.”

If you’re curious about metamodernism, you might find a well-made YouTube explainer, like this overview from Living Philosophy, to be the best starting point.

That said, let me break it down with a superhero analogy:

• Modern idealism is like the original Captain America (1941): a clear-cut symbol of nationalism and duty, fighting for freedom and democracy with moral clarity.

• Postmodernism, by contrast, deconstructs these ideals. Think Watchmen (1986), where the heroes are deeply flawed, truth is murky, and defining the “good guy” depends on your perspective. Or Deadpool, with its self-aware humor, irony, and cynical take on heroism.

Now, enter metamodernism: a “vibe shift” that moves beyond modern idealism and postmodern skepticism. Instead of choosing one mode, it oscillates between the two. Some say it pushes through postmodern irony to arrive at something more earnest. This “new sincerity” blends hope with self-awareness.

Take Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), a film many critics consider metamodern. The narrative revels in absurdity but lands with a moment of heartfelt sincerity. Or look at the resurgence of the band Creed. Once dismissed as cringe (a classic postmodern insult), they’re now being reclaimed as post-cringe.

Even superheroes are evolving. On YouTube, Deep Talks pastor Paul Anleitner predicts the forthcoming Superman movie will introduce the first explicitly metamodern Superman. He won’t be defined by naïve idealism or ironic detachment. Instead, he’ll embody a hopeful yet self-aware sincerity—a hero for the modern age.

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s metamodernism soaring into the zeitgeist!

3. Longform

I’ll admit that I often forget what I hear on podcasts—my attention tends to drift. But every now and then, something sticks. A while back, I heard Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens, share advice that felt spontaneous yet profound. He was speaking about the value of longform content over shortform:

“Throughout the day, have an information diet […] Be very aware of what enters your mind.
So for instance, I read long books. I do many interviews. I prefer three hour interviews to five minute interviews. The long format, it’s not always feasible, but you can go much, much deeper. […] Give preference to big chunks. […] Books over Twitter, definitely.”

Longform—whether it’s a book, an in-depth article, or a sprawling podcast—offers depth, nuance, and the chance to engage with ideas on a more meaningful level. In contrast, shortform content, like TikTok videos, provides a quick dopamine hit but rarely leaves you any wiser. I’ve fallen into the scrolling trap more times than I’d like to admit, only to realize how little value I’ve gotten from that time.

As 2025 unfolds, I suspect the pull of shortform will only grow stronger. Better to stick with more “nutritious” options: books, thoughtful essays, and longform podcast discussions—literature or content (more on that word later) that’s more likely to be transformative.

4. Down-versus-up

’s Substack, The Honest Broker, has become one of my go-to reads. Last year, he wrote about what he sees as an emerging dimension of cultural conflict.

“Analysis of cultural conflict is still obsessed with left-versus-right strategizing, but the actual battle lines are increasingly down-versus-up.”

The targets in this conflict are the elites—those perceived as sitting at the top of the social hierarchy. Gioia lists wealthy CEOs, DC politicians, celebrity TV newscasters, law enforcement authorities, experts of all stripes, Ivy League academics, movie stars, and other figures of authority or expertise. “All of the cultural energy right now is on the bottom. And that energy has been intensifying,” he observed.

After publishing The Editors last year—a novel centered on a crowdsourced internet encyclopedia—I’ve been paying attention to how this “down-versus-up” dynamic is playing out in discussions about Wikipedia. A recent example came on Christmas Eve, when Elon Musk attacked Wikipedia, accusing it of being controlled by a woke “editing authority.”

From one angle, you could interpret Wikipedia as an elite institution—it’s the official, authoritative internet encyclopedia. But isn’t this a bizarre twist in the “down-versus-up” narrative? Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, is positioning himself as a populist punching up at Wikipedia. Meanwhile, Wikipedia itself is, in many ways, deeply egalitarian: anyone can edit it, regardless of their academic or professional credentials. (Granted, there’s no guarantee your edits will stick.)

What does this down-versus-up dynamic mean for Wikipedia—or for other battlefronts—in 2025? I don’t have the answers yet, but I suspect we’ll see more strange and paradoxical manifestations of this tension in the year ahead.

5. Definition of content

I’ve always been reluctant to call writing “content” because I worry that the term cheapens the craft. As Jon Christian put it in Slate back in 2016:

“I find the find the idea of someone aspiring to create content, in as many words, to be almost indescribably sad. It seems like an act of pre-emptive surrender, of giving up hope that you’ll ever create something with a higher calling than attracting clicks for some monolithic publisher.”

And yet, here we are—living in the age of content. Platforms thrive on user-generated content, politicians use content to dominate conversations, and authors are encouraged to release content to build their audiences.

But what exactly is content? And how does it differ from art?

On this point, I found an illustration from ’s particularly insightful. Stein highlighted the New York Times’s article, “100 Best Books of the 21st Century,” as a prime example of content. (When the list was published, I noted how it was surprising that so few of these books engaged with the internet, despite focusing on books published since 2001).

As Stein correctly observed, the Times’s list wasn’t journalism or literary criticism. It was content—a post designed to encourage reader participation and spark more user-generated content, like the torrent of passionate videos covering the books the Times had snubbed.

The books themselves? That’s literature. The list? That’s content.

This distinction has helped me rethink content not as a diminished form of writing but as a participatory game—an invitation for audiences to engage, react, and toss their own content back into the mix.

One More Thing

I’m launching a monthly virtual book club for 2025! Who says the literary man is going extinct?

For January, we’ll kick things off with Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. The novel takes us through the literary circles of Paris, the bullfights of Pamplona, and the decadence of the so-called Lost Generation after World War I. Although the book is nearing its 100th birthday, I have a feeling its themes will resonate. Lost Generation vibes are strong these days.

If you’d like to join, drop me a comment or an email! For now, we’ll keep the book discussion here on Substack, but I’m open to organizing a live session if there’s interest. Bonus points if you also pick up Everybody Behaves Badly, an account of the real-life events that inspired Hemingway’s breakout novel.

HNY (again),
Stephen

🎧 The audiobook for my debut suspense novel, The Editors, is officially out today on Audible.

I’m happy to share that it’s narrated by two award-winning voice actors: Mia Hutchinson-Shaw (a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and Tim Lounibos (known for narrating James Patterson’s books). Hearing them translate my story into this new medium felt so exciting and surreal. Tim masterfully builds suspense right from the prologue, and Mia is pitch-perfect as Morgan, the protagonist.

Tim told me, “I LOVED The Editors and hope I did it justice.” (I’d say he nailed it.) Mia added, “I absolutely thought about the internet and internet information differently after narrating this book.”

If you’re a fan of audiobooks, I’d love for you to check it out. You can grab The Editors with an Audible token here: https://amzn.to/4fShp8d

Source Notes

• The science journal Nature published a disturbing report suggesting that readers are unable to reliably differentiate AI-generated poetry from human-written poems. But it gets worse: People rated AI-generated poems more highly than human-authored poems on qualities like rhythm and beauty. So far, I think has the best explanation: AI-generated art is “almost unavoidably kitsch–comforting, straightforward, accessible, flattering. And people love kitsch!”
  

• Issues in Science and Technology, a policy journal published by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine together with Arizona State University, just republished a short story of mine. “Little Assistance” is a tale about Eugene, the first judge on the moon, set in the near future. You can read both the original story and the reaction essay over at Issues.org.
  

• Wikipedia is under fire in India. The Delhi High Court has ordered the Wikimedia Foundation to remove an article about a court case and reveal information about the editors involved–a direct challenge to Wikipedia’s core principles (freedom of information, respecting user anonymity). newsletter has a good breakdown of what’s at stake, including the risk of a potential ban in India.
  

• A recent survey shows Gen Z thinks they need a significantly higher salary to feel financially successful. Are older generations simply remembering an outdated number, or is Gen Z being brainwashed by affluent social media influencers? My guess is both.

Let me know if you check out the audiobook, or if you’d like me to cover these stories in detail in a future post.

Cheers,
Stephen

After hearing Dopamine Nation referenced in approximately a billion podcast episodes, I finally decided I was going to download the audiobook and give it a listen. The popular nonfiction book is definitely worth the Audible credit.

Psychiatrist and author Dr. Anna Lembke explores one of the central challenges of our times: Never before in human history have we been flooded with so much high-dopamine stimuli. YouTube videos, texting, tweeting, TikTok . . . It’s never been so easy to access all these microbursts of pleasure and distraction. As Lembke puts it, “The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.”

While the entire book is full of insights, there are two key ideas from Dopamine Nation that have stuck with me a few weeks after listening.

Self-binding

When I wake up I try not to even look at my phone until I have finished my reading and creative writing ritual. I know that if I so much as look at my phone, I’m liable to start watching Instagram reels with a cute Golden Retriever or the latest outrageous news, and inevitably lose a lot of time to scrolling. For me, it’s better to have a simple rule: No looking at the phone until I’ve done some writing.

Until I read Dopamine Nation, I hadn’t thought of this policy as a self-binding strategy. Lembke defines self-binding as “the way we intentionally and willingly create barriers between ourselves and our drug of choice in order to mitigate compulsive overconsumption.”

The book argues that self-binding has become a modern necessity. We can’t expect outside forces to limit our own intake for consumption. Even if Congress eventually passes a law against social media use by minors (or restricts other high-dopamine goods), adults will still have to devise our own barriers and policies. The rules must come from within.

One comforting insight is that the concept of self-binding has been around for centuries. Lembke observes that we even have whole myths about it. Remember how Odysseus was able to pass unharmed around the deadly Sirens? He ordered his crew to put beeswax in their ears and tie him to the mast of the sailing ship. Instead of trying to resist the Sirens’ song, Odysseus saved the day by binding himself, removing the temptation.

“What fires together wires together”

I do not have a neuroscience background, so I was unfamiliar with the old mantra from psychologist Donald Hebb that Lembke laces throughout her book: “What fires together wires together.” The idea is that if the brain has a dedicated neural process, then practicing that process strengthens those neural circuits.

We see the dark side of this every day. It’s so easy to (unconsciously) train your brain to crave something addictive and antisocial, like passively scrolling social media or watching TV. “Any behavior that leads to an increase in dopamine has the potential to be exploited,” Lembke writes.

But it’s important to remember that we can also strengthen positive neural pathways. Lembke points to research showing that practicing radical honesty can reinforce the habit and make it easier for our brains to handle the next time.

We know that scrolling is addictive. Turns out truth-telling is, too.

Audible is releasing the audiobook for my novel The Editors on November 26. If you don’t have an Audible subscription, you can grab a free 30-day trial.

Today I’m sharing an essay I wrote for CrimeReads. Scroll down for an update on the first week of publication for The Editors.

When I ask crime fiction fans about their favorite books, they usually mention stories focused on traditional crimes, that is, the crimes recurring in the genre. Most often that’s murder mysteries, but occasionally I hear recommendations for books involving theft, kidnapping, or government corruption. One category of criminal activity, though, is rarely mentioned: cybercrime. So far, nobody has told me that their favorite book involves a bad actor wreaking havoc with a computer.

Of course this anecdotal evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that hacking, malware, online stalking, cyberterrorism, and other nefarious online activities never make an appearance. On occasion, these themes crop up in crime fiction, typically in the hybrid technothriller genre. But by and large, mysteries seem more comfortable handling cleavers than keyboards. Scanning through the list of recent bestsellers in crime fiction, cybercrime scarcely shows up. (There are, however, multiple titles featuring serial killers, Satanic blood rituals, and the theft of rare books.)

The internet is now ubiquitous in our lives, so why does it appear so rarely in popular literature?

At first glance, one might attribute the lack of cybercrime in novels to mere timing. After all, crafting a novel is a laborious process that can take years, and it’s plausible that many authors have yet to devise ways to seamlessly incorporate the digital world into their narratives. However, this argument falls short upon closer examination. The World Wide Web was made available to the general public back in 1991. Authors have had three decades to grapple with the technological shift. Groundbreaking writers like William Gibson were already portraying technology-related crimes in their works—not only hacking but also malevolent A.I.—as early as 1984 with his iconic book Neuromancer. The truth is, authors and readers have had more than sufficient time to adapt to the changing landscape of technology in literature.

The lack of computer crime in modern fiction could also be explained as an issue of anticipated market demand. Take the example of The Thursday Murder Club, a charming (and bestselling) mystery series about old people who live together in a retirement village solving crimes. Would a novel about a group of seniors thwarting cyber attacks sell just as many copies? Not likely. But why?

Readers may perceive cybercrimes as less intense or lacking dramatic appeal. A detective uncovering a computer virus does not have the same visceral impact as stumbling upon a gruesome murder. But the 2023 internet crime report reflects the harsh reality—countless people have lost their life savings due to cyber fraud, crypto scams, and hacking. And while the FBI is known in crime fiction for tracking serial killers, they are now sounding the alarm on foreign countries such as Iran and China, whose attacks threaten to bring down the entire power grid. The threat of cybercrime is real and must not be underestimated.

Finally, authors may balk at including computer crime because of its technical complexity. Then again, one of the great advantages of writing fiction is the ability to control the amount of detail revealed to readers. Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress does not explain the intricacies of the NSA’s code-breaking technology; instead, it simply establishes its existence and uses it to create a gripping narrative. And remember that some readers actually enjoy a level of technical complexity in their fiction when it helps to draw them into the narrative. Take the success of Andy Weir’s The Martian, which gained a devoted following due to its detailed scientific explanations and realistic problem solving. Perhaps crime fiction authors should turn their magnifying glasses on their speculative fiction colleagues.

At the end of the day, I suspect the main reason computer crime is largely absent from popular fiction is actually somewhat sad: Readers spend so much of their lives interacting with emails and screens, and they read books in part because they’d like to escape from the stress of the digital world.

But it’s important to remember that we read stories not purely for escapism but to explore issues of right and wrong. As famed crime writer James Ellroy once said, “The crime novel is the great moral literature of our time.” In today’s world, where so many moral challenges are intertwined with technology, ignoring computer crime in literature would be a grave mistake. Not only that, incorporating the internet is a more honest portrayal of modern life, reflecting how often technology mediates the human experience, including its darker elements. After all, today’s stalkers use Instagram, and TikTok fame has led to deadly consequences. By integrating technology, crime authors can elevate the moral significance of their work while also adding a gritty dose of realism.

The Editors update: First Week of Publication

It’s been a wild week since the book released on Tuesday. Here are a few highlights:

• Appeared on NPR’s show 1A to discuss “Why all roads of inquiry lead to Wikipedia.” Link to episode.

• Chatted with “Good Morning Texas” about whether you can trust Wikipedia and how to find the encyclopedia’s talk pages.

• Next Thursday at 12 pm, I’ll be speaking in Washington, D.C. at an event sponsored by New America. The first 20 registrants will receive a free copy of the book upon arriving at the event. RSVP here.

One more thing: I’m hearing that there’s a chance that The Editors may sell out of its initial print run. Grab your copy of the first edition before it’s too late!

And thank you for your support of this surprise hit, Wikipedia-inspired thriller.

Share Source Notes

When I first started covering the world of Wikipedia and internet knowledge back in 2018, I had no idea where the journey would take me.

There was honestly no plan. I followed my curiosity and tried pitching interesting stories about the well-known internet encyclopedia.

The rising concern over online misinformation opened some doors. And I got lucky, especially when I was given a chance to write a column on the subject for Slate.

I loved writing these news articles, but I also knew I wanted to write something longer. Writing a nonfiction book seemed like the most logical choice.

But there was a problem. A persistent voice in the back of my mind kept saying, “No, no, no! It’s a suspense novel.”

I heeded that voice in 2020 when I began writing my thriller inspired by Wikipedia and its contributors.

After years of writing and reporting, I’m so happy to finally share this story with you. I have worked harder on this than any other creative project in my life. And I’m very proud of how The Editors turned out.

Early readers have said The Editors is “strikingly relevant,” “thoroughly enjoyable,” and “highly recommended.”

Today, The Editors is available wherever books are sold. I hope you’re ready for an adventure.

Order "The Editors" on Amazon

Order "The Editors" on Barnes & Noble

Order "The Editors" on Bookshop.org

By the way, the coolest thing about releasing a book is getting to finally share it with people.

Media appearances:

I will be a guest on the NPR show 1A today, August 13, at 10 am ET.

On Friday, August 16, I’ll be on the show “Good Morning Texas” sometime between 9 and 10 am CT.

I’ve recorded a few TV spots and will keep posting clips as they release.

Post a video or pic on social media:

The cover of The Editors is truly striking, thanks to the talented Jason Gurley. If you post a photo of yourself with the paperback, please tag me! My Instagram handle is @stephenbharrison, my TikTok is the same, and my new Facebook page is @stephenharrisonwrites. You can also use the hashtag #TheEditors.

Early reviews:

Early reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are so helpful! Please consider giving the book a quick review or rating on those sites.

Book tour schedule:

Here’s where I’ll be stopping on my book tour over the next two weeks.

• St. Louis, MO: August 14, 7 PM, The Novel Neighbor

• Dallas, TX: August 16, 6 PM, Interabang Books

• Washington, D.C., August 22, 12 PM, Arizona State DC Center

• London, UK: August 29, 6:30 PM, Newspeak House

For more details, visit my book events page.

And if I haven’t yet scheduled a stop in your city, I would love to plan a visit in the fall. I’m also joining several book clubs, both in-person and virtually. So send me your suggestions!

It’s hard to believe the book is finally here. Thank you, thank you for your support throughout the nearly five years of working on this project.

Now grab your copy and dive in—I know this story is going to stick with you.

All the best,
Stephen

Order "The Editors"

Taylor Dibbert is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes a series for Medium where he covers books and writing. He was kind enough to interview me earlier this week and let me share it with my newsletter audience.

What does everybody need to know about your forthcoming book?

The logline of my novel “The Editors” is “a thriller inspired by Wikipedia.” I recognize that premise might sound . . . peculiar to some readers. Volunteering for an online encyclopedia might not initially strike everyone as thrilling. But to me, the world of Wikipedia (or Infopendium as it’s referred to in my book) has always been the perfect setting for a suspense novel.

The free internet encyclopedia is an invaluable public resource, distributing its knowledge with every Google search. Information from the site fuels the “minds” of new AI applications like ChatGPT.

Wikipedia’s impact on society is undeniable, yet most people rarely consider the human beings who work on the project. Hidden behind their usernames and shrouded in anonymity, they are the unsung heroes of this virtual world. The book explores how this process really works, and what can go wrong. One of the characters is a “hired gun” who tries to manipulate the information for his clients, while governments like China attempt to control the online narrative.

So in my humble opinion, it’s the ideal set-up for a suspense novel because there are clear stakes and intrinsically interesting ingredients — an influential yet contested resource, concealed identities, and international intrigue.

How worried are you about the spread of mis-and disinformation in the U.S. and beyond? Would you highlight one or two trends that a general reader may not be aware of?

From a macro perspective, I am concerned about the dissemination of accurate knowledge. We have historically relied on professional expertise and strong institutions to ensure checks and balances on what information is distributed. For better or worse, those gatekeeping mechanisms are no longer in place.

Today’s online platforms allow anyone to spread their message without prior vetting. However, Wikipedia is an exception since it’s not a free-for-all. The editors try to ensure that only information that is supported by reliable sources appears on the site. Editors are also empowered to delete content that doesn’t abide by the site’s policies.

On that point, here are two trends the general reader might not know about:

Trend 1: Wikipedia is far more widely respected by academics than it once was, partly because there are now so many eyes on the project. In recent years, even medical doctors are giving Wikipedia the thumbs up.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Wikipedia can be trusted blindly — it’s still better to go to the underlying sources linked in the article than to rely solely on the encyclopedic summary. But the paradigm has definitely shifted. I had high school teachers tell me I should avoid Wikipedia like the plague. These days, elite university professors are singing the site’s praises. As Cambridge University professor John Naughton put it, “In a hysterical world, Wikipedia is a ray of light — and that’s the truth.”

Trend 2: There are far, far fewer Wikipedia editors than you would suspect for such an important website. Technically, anybody can register a username and start editing articles, but only a small percentage takes the initiative. By some estimates, there are only about 1,500 active contributors to English Wikipedia. (For context, TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users.) So even though Wikipedia is extremely important, very few people choose to “do the work” and start curating public knowledge.

How long did it take to complete your manuscript?

Before I started working on my novel manuscript, I covered Wikipedia as a freelance journalist for Slate, The Washington Post, and other newspapers. I began this journalism in 2018 and for the next two years, the seeds of the novel started to take root in my mind.

It wasn’t until February 2020 that I officially began drafting it. At first I struggled with identifying the central conflict and how it would impact these characters scattered across the globe. Then the pandemic hit, the world came to a standstill, and suddenly I had real-life inspiration for the scary but unifying event for all these characters. (The book takes place from December 2019 through May 2020 during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.)

From there, I devoted much of my time during lockdown to getting words on the page and completed the first draft in October 2020. But it wasn’t quite ready for publication yet. I worked with my developmental editor, Noah Broyles at Inkshares, over the course of several more drafts and years before we felt it had reached its highest potential. In December 2023, we finally set a publication date for August 2024.

So all in all, it took about four years to complete the manuscript, with varying levels of intensity along the way.

Do you have a writing routine?

I do indeed. I prefer to write in the early morning hours because that’s when my mind feels freshest and most receptive to creative work. I don’t always succeed, but I try to avoid checking my phone first thing in the morning since emails and social media can quickly direct my energy in the wrong direction. My personal mantra is “pay yourself first,” and for me that means dedicating the first part of my day to my creative pursuits.

To begin my writing routine, I like to spend 15 minutes reading either a short story or a novel. This serves as a tune-up session for my mind, and I keep an eye out for any synchronistic connection between what I’m reading and what I plan to work on next. Sometimes it clicks, sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s always a pleasant warm-up while I drink a cup of coffee.

Once the timer goes off, I start writing. In the early stages of drafting, I prefer to handwrite with Muji pens (specifically their 0.5 mm black gel ink ballpoint pens). They write so smoothly and effortlessly, and the fact that they are transparent allows me to easily see when they are running out of ink. I promise I’m not a secret Muji influencer, but having good quality pens has made a difference to my writing process.

Sometimes after writing just a paragraph or two by hand, my thoughts get too far ahead and I switch to typing on my computer. Other times, I enjoy the rhythmic flow of handwriting and continue until the end of the scene. Anything written out by hand then gets revised as I type it out, and I make further revisions over the course of several drafts.

Ideally, I aim for 1–2 hours of writing per day before my day job begins, although this is not always possible. I tend to measure progress not by the daily word count but by the time I dedicate to my writing, which might be an echo from my past experience working at a law firm. When my second timer goes off, I leave my computer, jump in the shower, and begin preparing for my job as a commercial lawyer at an ecommerce company.

How did you go about getting the book published?

Back in 2020 when I was still writing my first draft, I stumbled upon a notice for a contest hosted by Inkshares. The premise was intriguing–authors could post a few chapters online and then their work would be judged by a combination of community engagement and the Inkshares story board for a potential publication deal.

During the contest, readers showed interest in the early pages of my novel, then titled “Infodemic,” and it was ultimately chosen as one of the winning submissions. As an aspiring author, I was pleased by Inkshares’ track record of publishing critically-acclaimed books that have been adapted into film and TV projects.

But securing the book deal was only the beginning. Over the course of three years, I worked closely with the team at Inkshares to further develop my characters, fine-tune the pacing, and ultimately make “The Editors” the very best it could be.

Are you a regular reader of novels?

Absolutely. I love novels because they engage both hemispheres of my brain. It’s not simply a matter of ingesting information but simulating the lived experience of the character.

While writing my own novel, I revisited Dave Eggers’s “The Circle” to study how he effectively depicted relatable technology struggles, such as being bombarded with chat messages. This past year, I read Alduous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” a highly relevant classic that I somehow missed during my high school years. Most recently, I read Lily Meyer’s “Short War,” a brilliant historical novel set in the leadup to Chile’s military dictatorship.

Any big projects in the works?

On the nonfiction side, I am continuing to write for my personal newsletter Source Notes, which focuses on books, tech, AI, and Wikipedia.

And I recently began working on my next novel! It’s still in its early stages and I don’t want to give too much away at this point. But what I can reveal is that the main character is an economist and I have been immersing myself in the world of banking for research purposes.

As William Faulkner once said, “The best fiction is far more true than any journalism.” While I agree with that sentiment, I also enjoy crafting stories that engage with contemporary issues. In fact, “The Editors” even includes the line “[t]his is a reported work of fiction” on the epigraph page. Ultimately, I hope to be known for producing smart and well-researched stories throughout my career.

Hey there! If you think you might enjoy THE EDITORS, please consider pre-ordering a copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or my favorite indie bookstore. Pre-orders are crucial for a book’s success since they help retailers decide whether to stock the book in stores. The book comes out August 13.

Last week I had the chance to read Kyle Chayka’s book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. A staff writer for the New Yorker, Chayka describes how algorithmic recommendations control the majority of what we see and hear online. But what have we lost when Netflix recommends our next movie, Spotify makes the playlist, or Amazon decides the “best” books?

Here are some of my notes from Filterworld.

Tyranny of Sameness. I suspect that many of us have scrolled through videos on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok and found the experience deeply unsatisfying—even though those videos have millions of views. Chayka observes that the culture that thrives in Filterworld is accessible, replicable, participatory, and ambient. Since raw data is the only metric that AI understands, the feed rewards content that is similar and simple. Creators know that fighting the algorithm can prevent them from finding an audience for their work, so they are incentivized to provide dumbed-down content that nonetheless satisfies the feed. This restricts the conditions for making good art, which is rarely the product of “playing it safe.”

No Accounting for (Human) Taste. Chayka argues that AI filters are unable to distinguish quality, since quality is inherently subjective. For Chayka, taste is not purely quantitative—like rating a book out of five stars on Goodreads—but relational, and something only humans can develop. “If something suits our taste, we feel close to it and identify with it, as well as form relationships with other people based on it,” Chayka writes.

Digital Cleanse. In my favorite chapter of the book, Chayka cuts himself off from all digital apps that use filters and embarks on a total “algorithm cleanse.” At first he experiences some minor side effects from the dopamine withdrawal. But soon, he finds himself experiencing great benefits, becoming more intentional about the articles he reads and the music he listens to.

We Need to Collect (Not Passively Consume) Culture. For centuries, people literally collected pieces of culture—adding physical books to their personal library, bringing home souvenirs from their travels. But collecting is increasingly rare in today’s digital world, where content is automatically delivered but rarely retained. Since reading Filterworld, I’ve been trying to practice being more intentional in selecting what I read and watch, while also thinking of ways to physically collect culture in the form of books and handwritten notes.

Why Human Curation is a Better Model. Which would you prefer? Having your friend recommend your next book to read (or TV show to watch, or album to listen to . . .) OR having an algorithm automatically recommend a piece of content to you. I’ve always had the intuitive sense that a friend’s recommendation was better, though I’m not sure that I could quickly explain why before reading Filterworld. Chayka describes such person-to-person recommendations as “social and moral acts.” Recommending art to one’s fellow humans is something that brings us all together. We can’t afford to lose that sense of community, which is yet another reason we can’t outsource curation to the machines.

Read more about Filterworld on Chayka’s site.

N.B. My novel The Editors is being published August 6, and is now available for preorder at Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. My publisher also has a limited number of advance reader copies (ARCs) that will be shipped out in May. Drop me a note if you’ve preordered the book and would be interested in potentially reviewing it a few weeks early!

Best,
Stephen

I’m excited to share this sneak peak at the cover for my book, The Editors, coming this August from Inkshares.

Millions trust the online encyclopedia. But who are the people behind the facts?

It’s been a long journey to publication but the release date is finally set for August 13, 2024. Pre-order: Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Amazon.

And now, a book I enjoyed that you might like too:

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of reading cultural and literary critic Mia Levitin’s The Future of Seduction, a short book that considers the future of dating and romantic relationships.

Levitin gives a first-person account of plunging into the world of dating apps like Tinder and Bumble in her mid-thirties. “The tools we use to meet, mate, and relate have evolved more in the past ten years than in the previous ten thousand, yet we arrive at them with a biology unchanged since the Stone Age,” she writes.

Here are some takeaways I had from the book—

·         The Psychology of Texting. Levitin describes how texting induces a psychological disinhibition effect. Without immediate feedback, people on dating apps tend to be more open—showing impaired judgment, oversharing personal information, and being openly rude.

·         Decision Paralysis. Dating apps like Tinder present hundreds or thousands of potential matches, leaving users overwhelmed by choices. Rather than engage in “infinite swiping,” Levitin points to research suggesting that users should stop at nine matches.

·         Struggles with Distraction. One proposed explanation for the decline in romantic relationships is the rise of distractedness and increased entertainment options (i.e. “Netflix and chill”). Even the mere presence of one’s phone during a social engagement breaks the spell. “Smartphones serve as portals to elsewhere: subconscious reminders of all the other things we could be doing and people we could be with,” Levitin writes.

·         The Future is Dyadic? Levitin presents research suggesting that the future of dating lies in dyadic data—that is, data collected from observing the individuals during an interaction. Rather than asking an individual to consciously evaluate how a date went, it’s likely that future dating apps will consider unconscious signals such as pupil dilation, sentence structure, and mutual laughter.

·         Vulnerability Revisited. Romantic relationships require a degree of vulnerability. That’s difficult in the modern era because of uncertainty about the world and concerns about safety. Unfortunately, dating apps give us the false impression that relationships should be convenient. But as Ovid observed more than two millennia ago, “Love is no assignment for cowards.”

Would you like more of these book notes? And what do you think of the cover for The Editors? Let me know in the comments below or reply to this email.

I spent a ton of time this year working on my novel, which is now officially scheduled to be published in Fall 2024. Here’s a quick description.

Anonymity is Fundamental. We Need Better Sources. Keep Developing. Aim for Neutrality.

These are the core principles of Infopendium. Millions trust the online encyclopedia. But who are the people behind the facts?

Morgan Wentworth is an unemployed journalist skirting the edge of eviction in New York City and considering leaving the profession. While researching a freelance article about Infopendium, she meets Alex, a teenage super user hoping to become one of the encyclopedia's powerful administrators.

Across the world in Beijing, Nevin is a Chinese-American editor-for-hire who offers “consulting services” to change the content of certain articles at the request of wealthy clients—including the Chinese Communist Party. But Nevin’s rule breaking has raised the ire of Ed, an old-timer in Kansas who is determined to protect his beloved website at whatever cost.

When Infopendium is attacked and a pandemic disrupts the world, governments, companies, and isolated individuals will struggle for the soul, and the very existence, of humanity's most valuable and vulnerable information source.

As many of you know, I’ve been working on this story since February 2020, and I’m so excited to see it come to fruition. Thanks to everyone for the patience while I’ve been trying to make the story the best that it can be! More info about the book plus an opportunity to preorder it over at Inkshares.

Reading

Although I didn’t read as many books this year as I would have liked (who does?), I wanted to share two of my favorites.

Lincoln in the Bardo. Abraham Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son, Willie, dies and encounters the ghosts who haunt the graveyard near his tomb. Will he move on to the great beyond or get stuck in this transitional state? George Saunders is an author who is mostly known for his short stories, including my personal favorite “The Falls.” Bardo is his first novel. Recommended for any fans of President Lincoln, ghost stories, or Ken Burns documentaries.

Post-Truth. This nonfiction book by philosophy professor Lee McIntyre is part of MIT’s essential knowledge series. McIntyre pushes back on the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth, and provides helpful examples to illustrate the problem.

Writing

Here are some fun things I wrote this year in case you missed them:

“Little Assistance” (September 2023)

The other homesteaders, mostly engineers and technicians, seemed to enjoy outings in the lunar rover. “Joyrides,” they called them. But for Eugene, this was a grinding chore that frayed his nerves. As he trundled across the powdery surface, he recounted a litany of risks: razor-sharp regolith puncturing the tires, a power failure in his EVA suit, a freak meteor hurtling through the chassis . . .

My first published short story was about a future judge on the Moon, who is considering a case that highlights how public-private collaboration and commercialization are testing existing national and international space laws.

“Why Wikipedia’s Highway Editors Took the Exit Ramp” (December 2023)

Wikipedia, road infrastructure, and drama—one of these things doesn’t sound like the other. But when Ben, also known as bmacs001, posted a TikTok video promising to “spill the tea” on how the site treats road and highway articles, the Wikipedia contributor suspected that people would find the topic intriguing: “Forty of Wikipedia’s most prolific editors have seceded and made their own wiki, and I’m among them.”

“Why Wikipedia is So Tough on Bigfoot” (February 2023)

Sometimes Bigfoot believers go “squatching” in the forest to hunt for tracks left behind from the purported apelike creature. Other times, they seem to take a more sedentary approach, sitting behind their computers, complaining about what they see as disrespect for their beliefs on Wikipedia.

Bonus: Here is the full list of the 56 articles I’ve written so far for Slate magazine.

That’s all from me for now. Hope you’ve enjoyed celebrating the holidays, and can’t wait to keep in touch with you throughout 2024.

Best,
Stephen

I’m very excited to announce that my new science fiction short story “Little Assistance” was published today as part of Slate’s Future Tense Fiction series.

Judge Eugene Steeples has made history as the first U.S. Special District Judge to preside on the Moon. The story follows him as he considers a difficult case that he attempts to resolve with A.I. renditions of past judges (including some familiar names). But does this new technology actually advance the cause of justice?

Before writing the story, I consulted with Timiebi “Timi” Aganaba, a space law expert and professor at Arizona State University. Aganaba helped convince me to set the story on the Moon rather than Mars, which is likely to have a far different legal system.

Special thanks to my beta readers and editors including Hannah Alvarez, Alex Cornillie, Robin Dickerhoof, Joey Eschrich, and Mia Armstrong-López.

Together with the story, Slate published a response essay from Saskia Vermeylen, a British space law expert. Vermeylen noted how “Little Assistance” continues the science fiction tradition of grappling with thorny jurisdictional issues posed by space.

As many of you know, I’m always looking for ways to write fiction that intersects with my legal career and journalism interests. That’s why I’m particularly glad to share this “case study” with you.

Read my sci-fi short story “Little Assistance”

Other things worth sharing:

• Prof. Vermeylen, the response essayist, gave an interesting TED Talk about space law and its relationship with science fiction literature where she asks whether the U.S. planting its flag on the moon entails ownership.

• I wrote a short article for Slate about Wikiracing, a game where players try to reach the same target Wikipedia article in the fewest possible links. From the piece—“People took Wikimania 2023’s Wikiracing very seriously, and the level of competition was incredibly high,” said Zack McCune, director of brand at the Wikimedia Foundation. “We had F1 Grand Prix energy in the room.” The Art of Wikiracing via Slate.

• I’m looking forward to sci-fi author Eliot Peper’s Foundry, a suspense novel about how semiconductors are refactoring 21st century geopolitics. The book comes out Oct 11.

• ChatGPT was marketed as a consumer product, but Alex Kantrowitz argues that the enterprise applications are more likely to have an impact in the short term.

• Monika Sengul-Jones, author of The Gift, commented on the situation of circular referencing, AI being trained on AI, and the eyebrow raising scenarios that generates. “In that case, the metaphor I thought of is something like the hairless dog Dante, from the Disney/Pixar film, Coco, chasing its own tail, unaware what it is.”

• Still thinking about Vauhini Vara’s WIRED essay Confessions of a Viral AI Writer. “Despite my success with AI-generated stories, I'm not sure they are good for writers—or writing itself," Vara writes. I’m not sure either!

Best,
Stephen

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I have a short story being published next month in Slate’s Future Tense Fiction, a monthly series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives.

It’s fair to say that I’m excited about it! Not only is it a nice fiction writing byline before my novel is released, but I love the fun, “out there” subject matter: the story of the first judge on the Moon.

The ruthless efficiency of short stories is both the challenge and the reward. With so many forces vying for our attention these days, perhaps short stories will emerge as the ideal literary form.

If you haven’t read a short story in a while, here are five that I recommend with accompanying links.

1. “The Big Four v. ORWELL” by Jeff Hewitt

Clearly I have a soft spot for science fiction with legal themes, but I really enjoyed this short story about a lawsuit against a prolific A.I. author. The A.I. in question has written several bestselling novels, but plaintiff’s counsel alleges that the A.I. has infringed on copyrighted materials of human authors. Can the lawyer successfully make the case that the A.I.’s products are fundamentally different than human creative works? As with other entries in Future Tense Fiction, this short story comes with a response essay. Novelist Ken Liu reflected on Hewitt’s short story and included a hopeful prediction: new A.I. systems will learn to imitate reader’s tastes and not just mimic the style of human authors.

2. “Master and Man” by Leo Tolstoy

I came across this one in George Saunders’s craft book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, in which he teaches the art of the short story by reviewing the work of the Russian heavyweights: Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol. This story by Tolstoy introduces a wealthy and self-centered landowner, Vasili, who is determined to finalize a business deal despite blizzard conditions. By the end, Tolstoy shows how even a jerk can experience a realistic inner transformation. Recommended for those of us who still haven’t gotten around to reading War and Peace.

3. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

This story has been a favorite of mine since college. It centers on a self-righteous grandmother who convinces her son and his family to take a detour during a family road trip. When I was rereading it recently, I noticed how O’Connor foreshadows trouble with “the Misfit” as early as the first paragraph, helping the author signal the dark themes.

4. “If the Martians Have Magic” by P. Djèlí Clark

Clark’s story featured in last year’s Best American Science Fiction anthology, and I was struck by its original premise. It takes place in a very different timeline where H.G. Wells’s Martians have invaded several times. Humans have developed magical systems to help combat the Martians, with the main character coming from the Caribbean magical tradition.

Until next time . . .

I have been partnering with the new start-up Lace to share audio versions of some of my previous journalism. Check out one of my “greatest hits” in audio form: "Who Updates Celebrity Deaths on Wikipedia?”

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