Notes
Finished reading: Oathbound by Tracy Deonn 📚
Ugh so good, Tracy Deonn is so wonderful and I hate that I have to wait a long time for the next book in the Legendborn Cycle and I also know writers need time to do their work. Probably will do a full series re-read ahead of the next.
Finished reading: Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe 📚
A gorgeous picture book biography.
I think one of the reasons I loved the early web is that you could exist on it purely as words. As a person whose body has often felt like a hindrance, it felt like magic to be able to communicate in the way that most made sense to me.
📚💬 " ChatGPT has access to every poem ever written, at least in theory, but it can’t feel anything when it generates a poem from a prompt. Is this still poetry?" John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
🔖 Here’s a project IMLS supported that you won’t see in partisan social media posts about where that 0.003% of the federal budget went: Libraries’ Roles in Disaster Preparedness and Recovery by Denise Lyons (Library Journal)
📚💬 “It’s a near certainty that generative AI can have some positive effects on human writing, but for that to be true, we must hold fast to what makes writing meaningful to humans.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “What do we make of a technology that is simultaneously undeniably powerful, has access to all the information in the world, and can produce outputs at a speed unmatchable by humans, but at the same time is also untethered from reality?” John Warner, More Than Words
📚💬 “The things ChatGPT is ‘smarter’ at… are relatively limited as compared to our human capacities for experience, reflection, analysis, and creativity…” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “It’s not that ChatGPT makes stuff up. It has no capacity for discerning something true from something not true. Truth is irrelevant to its operations.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “Large language models do not ‘write.’ They generate syntax.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “Removing thinking from writing renders an act not writing.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “…ChatGPT cannot write. Generating syntax is not the same thing as writing. Writing is an embodied act of thinking and feeling. Writing is communicating with intention.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “…segregating people by those who are allowed and empowered to engage with a genuine process of writing from those who outsource it to AI is hardly democratic. It mistakes product for process.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
Finished reading: Born in Fire by Nora Roberts 📚
Technically I read this in the binding of the Irish Born trilogy that has all 3 books, but I’m giving myself credit for each individual book as I finish it. La Nora writes such a moving story.
📚💬 “‘That was it,’ Maggie said with a laugh. ‘I was bright. Brie was sweet.’” Nora Roberts, Born in Fire
Finished reading: Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome 📚
Finished reading: Thank You, Omu! (Caldecott Honor Book) by Oge Mora 📚
A lovely picture book about generosity with super cool cut paper mixed media illustrations!
Finished reading: Shadow’s Heart by Kresley Cole 📚
In How to Tell When We Will Die, Johanna Hedva writes about how they are going to be in pain no matter what, so they choose to go out and have experiences that might cause them more, because they can’t avoid pain. I thought I wasn’t like that, but lying here in pain after spending the day at the zoo with my kid, I realize that’s where I make this choice. I do stuff with my kid even if it will cause me pain, because pain will come anyway. It’s just a matter of degree.
Finished reading: What I Did For a Duke by Julie Anne Long 📚
Oh wow. I love both main characters in this one. The heroine is so tired of being seen as a reliable dog geyser person. The hero is deliberately prickly and mysterious. I love them.
Finished reading: The Secret Garden by Mariah Marsden and Hanna Luechtefeld 📚
The Secret Garden is one of my favorite books from childhood and this is an excellent graphic novel adaptation that captures its magic beautifully.
🔖🍿 Read Why Minecraft Movie Fans Are Getting Rowdy and Going Viral by Lynn Zubernis Ph.D. (Psychology Today)
Found this via Austin Kleon’s newsletter. I love this explanation of how rowdy theater behavior is developmentally appropriate.
And there’s a whole Science of Fandom Column? I am excite.
💬📚 “Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a threat that will destroy things of value, we should be viewing it as an opportunity to reconsider exactly what we value and why we value those things.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI