Last May, TW founder Martha Nichols spoke with Laura Hartenberger, author of the definitive 2023 essay “What AI Teaches Us About Good Writing” in Noema. Laura, who’s a lecturer in the Writing Programs at University of California at Los Angeles, is an essayist and fiction writer herself. When she spoke with Martha, they were both finishing up a turbulent spring semester that included protests for and against Israel at UCLA and Harvard. Here they confront big ethical questions surrounding AI and writing instruction. Are bots helpful tools for students or just another way of cheating? How and when should such tools be part of writing assignments? What qualities of voice and meaningful exposition are missing from chatbot writing? Can AI-generated work emotionally move readers?

TW’s Neva Talladen talks to writer Naomi Cohn about her book The Braille Encyclopedia: Brief Essays on Altered Sight and the reclamation of self it explores for her as a legally blind person. A 2023 McKnight Artist Fellow in Writing, her previous publications include a chapbook, Between Nectar & Eternity (Red Dragon-fly Press, 2013), and pieces in Baltimore Review, Fourth River, Hippocampus, Terrain, and Poetry, among others. Naomi has also appeared on NPR and been honored by a Best of the Net Finalist and two Pushcart nominations.

TW’s Neva Talladen talks to author Jianna Heuer about blown-up whale parts, opening a bookstore during the 2020 pandemic, and writing a revenge novel as catharsis. Her creative nonfiction and personal essays have been published in The Inquisitive Eater, Midsummer Dream House, Across The Margin, and other literary journals. Her flash non-fiction has appeared in two books, Fast Funny Women and Fast Fierce Women.

TW Creative Director John Vogel interviews writer Maris Kreizman, creator of the Tumblr blog and book Slaughterhouse 90210 and the podcast turned Substack newsletter, The Maris Review. Maris's work mixes together humor and serious poignancy to talk about a wide range of topics, from the publisher industry to politics and social justice to prime time soap operas. It's all on the table. Her forthcoming book, I Want to Burn This Place Down, is a series of essays that takes on the myths of the American system from the personal standpoint of a disillusioned adult. I

TW's Creative Director John Vogel interviews Philadelphia punk trio Northern Liberties. The band consists of brothers Justin and Marc Duerr on vocals and drums and Kevin Riley on bass and occasional vocals. The band’s most recent album, Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe, was recorded in March 2022 with the legendary engineer and producer Steve Albini, who passed away in May of this year. The album provides the soundtrack to this episode. In this interview they dive into their background growing up in a small town and then squatting in Philadelphia, the role that art plays in their lives, and deep experiences with music and art.

TW Managing Editor Neva Talladen interviews Dr. Tamara Mitchell-Davis, award-winning author of #GoalGetter: Strategies for Overcoming Life’s Challenges (self-published, 2017) and chief executive officer of TM Davis Enterprises, LLC, a coaching practice that empowers aspiring authors to bring their books and business visions to life through storytelling. In this week’s episode, Tamara joins us from Jamaica to discuss the process of self-publishing her first book.

TW Creative Director John Vogel interviews drummer and composer Jay Mumford from New York City. He is half of the funk duo the Du-Rites and author of the out-of-print autobiography Root for the Villain, which pokes fun at the classic musician’s story of rising to fame and fortune. The book offers a different and more realistic perspective of a creative career.

In this week’s episode, TW publisher and founder Martha Nichols interviews author Sean Michaels. Sean is an internationally bestselling novelist and critic from Montreal. He is the author of the new novel Do You Remember Being Born?, a book about family, poetry, work, and artificial intelligence (AI). During their conversation, Martha inquires about his thoughts on the intersection of AI and writing.