Dear fellow writer,
Recently I saw a comment on Substack from a jaded author who promised to un-follow anyone who so much as mentioned the words “Generative AI” in a post.
I understand the impulse! But GenAI — which I pronounce “Genie” — is well and truly out of the bottle now, and we ignore at our peril its uncanny power to hold insecure writers in its thrall. Even while apparently granting our every wish, GenAI can be a fickle acolyte, an unreliable colleague, and, if we’re not careful, our secret master rather than our faithful servant.
Disembodied, invisible, but increasingly ubiquitous, GenAI has sent its smoky tendrils into virtually every aspect of our writing lives, from our classrooms to our email programs to our professional publications. And along the way, some of us — gasp! — have found our initial resistance softening into a grudging fascination, and perhaps even something more: a desire to dance with GenAI in a cave of wonders rather than to bury our heads in the sand.
If you, like me, are trying to find your footing in GenAI’s strange new world of swirling wordwinds and distorted mirrors, I hope you’ll join me for my new 6-week Swordcraft series, “I Dream of GenAI: A Playful Perfectionist’s Guide to Writing, Editing, and Thinking with Generative AI.” Starting next week, each short (10-15 min) episode will explore the nuances, affordances, and creative possibilities of GenAI from a different subject position: the Cynic, the Learner, the Writer, the Editor, the Creative, and (just for fun!) the Mystic.
Rather than masquerading as a know-it-all expert on GenAI’s mercurial personality and magical traits, I’ll offer real-life examples from my own AI experiments and prompt you to try (and share) your own. And in Week 3 (July 22-24), you’re warmly invited to join me for “GenAI on the Mountain,” a Zoom discussion and Q&A beamed live from my Mountain Rise writing retreat in the Swiss Alps. (Registration link coming soon).
To watch the Swordcraft series and attend the live event, you’ll need to be a paid subscriber to Helen’s Word or a member of my international WriteSPACE community. I’d love to see you there!
Writing in Color in France in 2026
Or maybe you’re thoroughly sick of GenAI and all the surrounding tech-bro hype? If so, have I got the perfect antidote for you!
Together with my fabulous friend and fellow Substacker, best-selling novelist Sophie Nicholls, I’ll be holding a creative, color-drenched writing retreat for a handful of people on a spectacular private estate in the Dordogne region of southwest France, from 30 May to 6 June 2026. This will be my very first collaborative writing retreat, and also the first to focus on a topic dear to my heart: Writing in Color!
Come join us for a week of unpressured writing, creative play, delicious food, and animated conversation — with no GenAI in sight!
If you appreciate hearing about resources like these — or just want to make my day — please take a moment to drop me a heart, leave a comment, and/or click Restack at the bottom of this message. Your enthusiasm and support mean so much to me.🩷
Kia pai tō koutou rā (have a great day) — and keep on writing!
Write more, right now! For exclusive access to live workshops, craft-focused coaching, and premium writing and editing tools, join me and writers from 30+ countries in the WriteSPACE, a vibrant international writing community and resource treasury. To try free for 30 days, click below and enter the discount code SNEAKPEEK at checkout.
Hi Helen--I count myself a cynic where AI is concerned (tech bros working hard to keep making money off of us...) but I also teach college students and will dip into your new series as I'm thinking through how to discuss this new tech with them come the fall semester. I'm revamping the pitch I've been making to them for the past two years to build their own voices and skills through doing their own reading and writing rather than leaving it to the technology...
Everyone has to make and live with their own choices.
Please understand that choosing to avoid Gen AI and do our own thinking, reading, writing, and creating is not about putting our heads in the sand. It is focused resistance to the authoritarians who are willing to stiff writers and artists so they gain even more control over our lives. In the US we have a front row seat for this show of power and greed.
Case in point:
Sam Altman Heaps Praise on Donald Trump
"President Trump has been very good."
https://futurism.com/sam-altman-heaps-praise-donald-trump
Sam, Jeff, Mark, Elon - all stand by Trump. Have you heard a single peep out of any of them while Trump dismantles research, attacks education, cuts funds to libraries, public media, and museums? Fires the head of the US Copyright office? Not to mention literally taking food and doctor visits from kids in order to give billionaires a chance to buy another yacht, or snatching people off the streets and deporting them to foreign gulags. Apparently from the tech titan view it is all "very good." Do you seriously think they have our best interests at heart when they push AI into every software product? When they tell us we should "rewrite with AI" because what we had to say would somehow be better if it they mashed it with words stolen from other writers?
Then there is the human cost on workers in Africa and elsewhere, whose invisible servitude allows AI users to "save time." Oh, and then there is the environmental costs.
And what do you get for setting your integrity aside because everyone is doing it? AI slop.
We can still say no. It is a choice based on a belief in the power of human intelligence and creativity.