Its All Write

It's All Write to Ghost(write)

• It's All Write • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Jesse Aylen shares his hot takes on "CONENT," ghostwriter matchmaking, book club etiquette, and the future of AI. 

Jesse Aylen is an editorial, communications, and (the dreaded word!) content consultant based in New York. He has worked across the publishing and media industries, including a global trade publishing house, a data-driven startup publisher, and on a consulting basis with ghostwriting companies, content marketing companies, and a non-partisan think tank. Recently, he interviewed debut author Zach Williams about his short story collection, Beautiful Days, for BOMB Magazine.

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Books & authors mentioned on this episode:

Health & Safety by Emily Witt (memoir)

Hold Still by Sally Mann (memoir with photographs)

Fran Leibowitz

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Folllow the show on instagram @itsallwritepod.

Email us at itsallwritepod@gmail.com





Jesse:

In a world where culture gets lazy and good enough is good enough. What does that do to high art?. We need those critical voices mm-hmm.

Meryl:

Who are not afraid to offend.

Jesse:

Yeah. Yeah. And who aren't afraid to speak truth to power, and be willing to call things out, where I think a lot of people are a little more. Trepidatious now.

Ariana:

Hi, I'm Ariana McLean.

Meryl:

I'm Meryl Branch McTiernan.

Ariana:

You're listening to It's All Right.

Jesse:

The podcast

Meryl:

about

Ariana:

the writing life and those who live it.

Meryl:

Today we're joined by my friend Jesse Alan, who's an editorial communications and the dreaded word content consultant based in New York. He has worked across the publishing and media industries, including a global trade publishing house, A data-driven startup publisher, and on a consulting basis with ghostwriting companies, content marketing companies, and a nonpartisan think tank. Hi, Jesse. Thanks for being here. Hello.

Jesse:

Hello. Thank you both for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Meryl:

we wanted to talk about the dreaded word

Jesse:

Content. Content. Content.

Ariana:

What do you think about that?

Jesse:

So here's the thing I know from listening to your previous episodes, that you both have feelings about content. Yes. And I they are entirely valid, believe me. I'm partially in agreement with you on that. I will say I think that in terms of content. I think of it in a broad umbrella kind of term where content can be so many different things. It can be different types of written content. It can be, different types of media content. So I think really that the key is to think about the accessibility of it and the way that like different people can view content in ways to make them part of the publishing or media ecosystem. Agree with you, Meryl, that writing is an art and art should be the goal ultimately, but I think of art and content as being, to your earlier point, very separate things.

Ariana:

So when you're working let's say with an artist, a writer, are you then consulting them on how to create content for their platforms?

Jesse:

I would say really it's less about their platforms, it's more about for individual clients I've worked to get their voice out. And, really figure out what they should sound like on the page. For example, for the think tank that I've worked for, it's about taking very high level writing from, policy wonks, economic experts, people who are so steeped in this field, but then you're writing for the C-suite. So it has to be a very digestible, very, message forward kind of approach. And for what I do, it's, in, in that case, I mean that style of content is taking this very kind of high level economic, wonky language and then boiling it down to a point where it's accessible, to like a C-suite person can take that and find a course of action or kind of familiarize themselves with the challenges of that particular landscape. So it's about, in that way being a bit of a translator, a bit of a conduit between the economic side and then the sort of action minded okay, what do I do with this info C-Suite side.

Meryl:

How did the thinkers that have written the initial content or piece, how do they react to your trying to get it?

Jesse:

I love that question. At first, my, my first assignment, I was so nervous, I thought, oh no, I might editing too much. Am I editing too little? And i, It was actually on a trial basis where, the person I was working with said, okay, for the first one or two of these, we're gonna go through you and I, and then I will transmit things to the, teams, and then they'll give me their feedback. We did that about twice, and then I heard back from them. We love this feedback. It is so actionable. It's so clear. There's no ego in it. And really, I realized like I approached it,'cause I come from a book editing background as well and I approach that work in the same way as I've approached any kind of editorial project, which is you take someone and you realize when they're giving you their book, their report, their content. it's a bit of the of a precious baby. And you have to respect the messaging of that and to go, okay, I'm not going to rip this thing shreds. I'm going to say here are gentle ways of improvement. Here are, compliment sandwiches. This is working so well, maybe improve this. This is such a great way to end it. That kind of thing. And really, I found out that, and to my surprise, I could work with people where, I'm not an economics expert, but I began to understand where they were coming from and then to treat that with, the levity and respected deserved, while also refining the work to make sure it was clear and not, too wonky.

Ariana:

Yeah, that's a, I can imagine that's like a very delicate balance.

Jesse:

It really can be. Absolutely.

Ariana:

and also really needed.'Cause right now we're seeing people just flocking to things that sound good, that are untrue. We really wanna do on the podcast because you have this multifaceted experience and viewpoint on writing the writing industry and all the sort of tangential industries. Can you tell us maybe a brief journey through your trajectory?

Jesse:

I would say I, my, my first entry was really, it wasn't actually at a publisher. I began at a talent agency. I moved to New York and I was desperate for, any job. I worked at a law firm at the time, so that was a bit of, got my early editorial chops, like reading people's affidavits about why they were coming to this country. And I did that for a couple years and then I realized, okay, this is, fine, but not ultimately where my heart and soul is leading me. And I met an agent at the time who said, oh, she was working at a large agency and she said, there is an opening here, so if you want to think about this. You have some legal background, you have, you're familiar with contracts, that kind of thing. Come in and interview for it. So I came in and I met the head books lawyer at the agency, and within about half an hour, one of the first questions he said, okay, so you've been, a front of office, you've dealt with clients, you've dealt with attorneys, you've dealt with judges, you've dealt with every under of the sun. You can take pressure. And I said. Yeah. I, 24, 20 5-year-old me is going Uhhuh. Yeah, sure I can. Yeah. I got this. And he said, good,'cause this, this is a great place, but there are a lot of strong personalities here and you have to be able to stand up for yourself and, we have to get these deals done. I said, okay. Yeah. So I got there and I got the job and it really, it was such an interesting way to come into the industry first, because it's all about kind of sales, but it's about art. Where you really you have agents building lists that matter to them. They wanna say something to the world, and they want to have the appropriate list to do that. The right

Meryl:

authors, the right mix. That is nice to hear that they do actually

Jesse:

care about art. Oh yeah. Oh they care, they care about commerce too, but they care about art. And I would say particularly, book people are some of my favorite people. They're really, literary agents were fantastic. They're thoughtful, they're, nuanced. They read with care. So I did that job for a few years. I think I was there for five years actually, and I read for agents on the side, and I realized, oh, like this industry piques me. I wanna know more. I wanna learn more. So I ended up going to a publishing course in Denver for a summer and I took a month off. It was a mini sabbatical. I said, I'm gonna do this and people said, oh, there's the NYU one. I said I want nature.

Meryl:

Yeah.

Jesse:

I exactly. I like I here all time. I want some fresh air, some mountains, some hiking. I walked in Denver. I was the only person to walk in Denver. Everybody drove cars, which I thought was hilarious. But I was there for a month and I realized, from doing all that, we did editorial, marketing, publicity, every single piece of it. I came back and I gave notice. I said

Meryl:

thanks for the time off. Exactly.

Jesse:

This is lovely. I finished out the year and they said, we wish you well. This has been a wonderful relationship, but clearly you wanna do other things. I said, yeah, I do. So within a month I landed at Random House. My boss was a publisher of an imprint there, and really I was, you know, the 30,000 foot view of the industry where it was really how do you run an imprint? How do you make decisions about covers? How do you make acquisitions decisions? How do you look at your list and your season spread overall and say, we have a little bit of everything, we're striking all the right notes, we're speaking to current events and what matters in the world, but also what matters in, fiction translation. What is popular in Korea that maybe we should consider here? It was really kind of a way to get that global view and a fascinating, amazing place to do it too. One of my favorite things about that piece of the industry is the acquisition side, where you have to go into a room and you're gonna have to defend what you believe in. You're gonna have to say, oh, there's this debut author. I love their work. Here's why they matter. Here's why they matter for our list. Here's why they should be here. This is the right home for them. in that way it really it opened my eyes, I would say to how the sausage is made.

Meryl:

Yeah, I was wondering about that. Since you are a creative writer as well, have you found ever that the market has drifted into your psyche as you're writing? Do you ever worry about that?

Jesse:

I can't say that I do. And that, I either I don't know, for better or worse, I would say I'm aware of the market, but I also know that, when I sit down to write something, when I have the blank page staring at me, it has to be its own authentic form. It has to be, not necessarily, I know, for example, romantacy is hugely popular now. I think if you had a gun to my head, I don't know if I could write romantacy, I would go, do I have to? Is that gun loaded? Okay.

Ariana:

I literally had this conversation yesterday on the train with my friend there was like what is it? A court of Thorn and rose's poster

Jesse:

Mm-hmm.

Ariana:

on the subway.

Jesse:

Mm-hmm.

Ariana:

and

Jesse:

uh.

Ariana:

And, and she's oh, what's that? And I told her and then she's oh, you should write romantacy, then you can make money. And I was like, I

Meryl:

money.

Ariana:

I, I can't write that. That's not what I write.

Jesse:

Exactly. Exactly. And I think there, I think that every writer should be, and this is just, my one person perspective, you should be aware of the marketplace, but you shouldn't let it influence your authentic vision of what you want to do. Because I think really, that old adage of kind of, you make what you wanna make and then your people find you, I think is true. Where there, I think chasing trends and, we've seen, book tok, TikTok, all this stuff, it's fantastic for visibility. It's fantastic for getting the word out about things, but I think taking it too seriously, and again, just in my own opinion, can be damaging to someone's creative output.

Meryl:

And there's such a lag time between getting an agent and selling a book to the book actually coming out. So if you try to chase something, you're gonna

Jesse:

be,

Ariana:

you're already behind.

Meryl:

behind. Yeah. Jesse and I met through ghost writing. So I was ghostwriting for a while. That's something I stumbled upon when I was in LA. And I worked on quite a few projects. I had to stop doing it during grad school because I felt that I really was dedicating that time to work on my own stuff and to have other people's books in my head wasn't helpful for that. But during a period I guess it was probably around eight years ago, I went to this one brown paper bag lunch for, one of the ghost writing companies. And Jesse and I met, I don't know, did we meet the elevator or something?

Jesse:

I, probably my way lq. I was gonna say l say exactly. I, I have a distinctive memory of us sitting around that table, and zeroing in on you and thinking, I wanna know you better. Yeah. And I think that we just struck up a conversation on the way back down and then, we, I assume at that time we were probably on facebook, right?

Meryl:

Yeah. yeah

Jesse:

bet we facebook.

Meryl:

So yeah. So then we've just been friends and, we've recommended each other for some projects. Yeah, We we never looked back. Never looked back.

Jesse:

Mm-hmm.

Meryl:

So I'd love to talk a little bit about how you got into ghost writing And now you're matching ghost writers with projects.

Jesse:

I will say I've never been a ghost

Meryl:

writer

Jesse:

I have, you know,

Meryl:

really? Oh, I didn't realize that.

Jesse:

No, it's true. Yeah. Never. I've, I've edited until I'm blue in the face. All different kinds of things. But as far as actually, becoming someone's voice

Meryl:

on the

Jesse:

it's not something I've done. Interesting. Okay. But I will say, in terms of the work that I do on the ghostwriting side, I work with one company to, to do matchmaking work, and that is meeting with clients and seeing what their need is. And again, it's. It's like you're part matchmaker, you're part therapist because you're really getting on that call going, okay, what do you need? What is this project? Why does it matter to you? And why are you doing it? And that, that's the basis of how you start the conversation. And then from that, you're talking to'em, you're learning about, the shape and form of it, and you're getting a sense of their needs. Then from there, you're considering who are the writers available who might be a good fit for this. And it's really, I think that's an important piece of it where you get these people who can be subject matter experts. They can be thought leaders, they can be founders, CEOs, creators of some kind or another, they create social movements. They're great in front of a crowd. But then you say. Can you write this down? And they go, right, right.

Meryl:

It's so interesting. They could talk to 500 people.

Jesse:

Exactly.

Meryl:

But can't.

Jesse:

Yeah. They're, they, I mean they, they can activate entirely in one way, but then, another way they might put pen to paper and you just get notes, which I think to throw a cover on those and say, Hey, here's this book. Read it. Someone's gonna go. Not a book, But then if you find someone who is a match for them in, their thought patterns, their style, and they can capture their voice on the page, suddenly you get that magic, alchemical connection where they're able to meet with that person and say, here's what I wanna say. And that person goes, yes. and then they're off to the races, I like it a lot. I really the therapy, illusion I just made, I think is apt in many senses where you see people light up talking about their idea and I go, ah, it's beautiful.

Meryl:

What would you say I don't know if I was the best ghost writer. I think I've, I think I'm all right at it. What would you say are the qualities of a good ghost writer?

Jesse:

I would say, first of all, I don't know that you can necessarily, I don't know if there, there will be an absolute list on that. But what I would say is that somebody who can approach

Meryl:

a project

Ariana:

without a

Jesse:

sense of ego,

Meryl:

that's what I was thinking.

Jesse:

And to be able to really get to the crux of what the person wants to say without the sense of, oh, I wanna put my spin on this, or here's how I would do it. Because I think you, you have to be able to take your skillset and you have to be able to map it to somebody's need, And then I think also flexibility is, is a massive asset, and, the ability to take feedback, I think for, for any writer, arguably that's, very important. Vital, even. But for ghost writing, I think where, it is you air quotes on the page, but it's not really you because it's the client, it's whatever their need is and it, it's in their voice, it's in their style, it's in their kind of, how aggressive are they? How passive are they? How what is their mix of kind of tone and style and voice. And then familiarizing yourself with that, and being able to apply that to use your skills, to disappear behind the words. And then from that point. Create something that they're going to, they're going to love that will meet their needs, meet their message, do whatever it has to do out in the world.

Meryl:

Yeah. I feel like the ability to emotionally detach, but also, work with passion. Mm-hmm. Because I found for myself sometimes, I would start getting emotionally involved in the story or wanting a certain things to go a certain way. But you wanna advocate for what will make the book best, but also what makes it the client happy. So

Jesse:

I guess, I'd actually kick back to you for a second on that. How did you confront that challenge, that sort of finding the ego or the sense of kind of self bleeding into the work? What was your approach there?

Meryl:

Yeah, I had to remind myself this is their book, not mine. I, i, what I think doesn't matter, but also myself assert myself too when I needed to. So that was the interesting challenge. But people would always say, oh, so your name's not gonna be on it. aren't you mad? and I'm, I don't give no, I I name.

Jesse:

yeah.

Ariana:

Got a paycheck.

Meryl:

Right. The other thing that's interesting is that many of the people who hire have the money to hire someone to write their book. They have done interesting things. They are often a little eccentric. And they let you into their interesting world, and you're like a their chef or their housekeeper.

Jesse:

Exactly. Someone's walking the dog, someone's writing book, someone's making the salad.

Meryl:

You're just on staff. Um, So yeah.

Ariana:

Did you find, or were you ever in place where it was hard to find your voice again, having written written for these different clients, I guess yeah.

Jesse:

honestly, I think that for me it, it is difficult, and really, we've talked a bit offline about, the challenges of finding the time, finding the, breaking through the inertia on writing. And for me, I think having tried so many different pies within the industry, it's a bit hard to clear my palate. To go, okay, I'm going to factor out the ghost dreading world. I'm going to factor out, the think tank wonky stuff. And then get back to, my, my voice on the page. I think that, that is a challenge. It's not so much the inability to access the voice. It's the discipline to make the time. And to be able to go, okay, I know I have to, finish X, Y, Z deadlines today. I have x, Y, Z deadlines tomorrow, the next day I have to go to the gym, I have to do my laundry. I, what am I gonna make for dinner? I don't know. And then to block all this stuff out. And especially, you know, as freelancers you can I'm sure empathize. You have to be such a master of your own time, and for me, I think time management, I am so good when it comes to clients. I am

Meryl:

That's good when

Jesse:

it comes to myself.

Ariana:

Yeah. It's like, what is, what is that it's like, Oh, like even organization, like my file organization on my computer, for my project folders, all beautiful. Then my writing, i'd never know where my documents are. but

Jesse:

I mean, I don't know. My, my invoice folders are. Hospital, corner bed style, so tight, down to the week, the hour, the minute

Meryl:

Nothing in my life is organized so i'm impressed by you

Jesse:

of we We all have our strengths Strengths. Yeah,

Ariana:

we do do Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. is have you trying out anything these days, like for cleanse

Jesse:

I would say, i'm trying to dedicate, certain days of the week to, to my own work, and I think, oftentimes it will be a Friday because Fridays are slower, the invoices are out, the deadlines are met, and I say, okay, I have, four or five hours here to do this. And to some extent of late that has worked. Where I've been, I'm working on something, creatively now, and I'm, I would say in the research and pre drafting phase, where I'm making a lot of notes, I'm pulling a lot of sources, I'm doing a lot of kind of digging into kind of the things I wanna write about, and I'm making time for that in a really set way. And that, in that case, it's it helped, and it's helped a lot.'cause my Mondays through Thursdays, honestly, are usually pretty hectic.

Meryl:

Right. And that's actually good'cause you're cleaning the palate for the weekend.

Jesse:

And this is something that I'd be curious to, to hear from you both about is how sacred are your weekends? Because I would say my weekends are immensely sacred to me. I know people who are freelancers who will, they will be freelance writers and they'll say, oh, no I'm working all day Saturday, and half a Sunday. I'm thinking to myself, I respect that. I respect that hustle. I respect that grind. When are you living? When are you living? Because I think, there, there's this great, I'm gonna mangle it. I'm sure there's a great Fran Lebowitz quote about how writers need to experience life and they have to be out in the world. They have to be, taking a walk in a park. I I think the one she uses is sitting at a bar, listening to people more or less bullshit. Yeah. And to go, alright, soak all that in. Because I think ultimately writers and, i'm sure you could pull a thousand analogies, but I think of writers as a sponge to the world. And we're soaking things in and we're saying, okay, here's what I've taken in, here's how I'm going to wring it out in an entirely different form. And then, and in that way to express yourself. So in that case, I think of my weekends as sacred because that's what I am experiencing, and and doing

Ariana:

try do laundry in the middle the week always my goal

Jesse:

a bold choice,

Ariana:

and that's how I keep my weekend sacred. They're not for laundry and they're not for grocery shopping because first of

Jesse:

all, those

Ariana:

places are too crowded, especially on a Sunday. Absolutely not.

Meryl:

I'm pretty lazy as I've mentioned. So I would say I'm a hardcore happy hour to Saturday night. No, I don't wanna think about any kind of work. Sunday there's a, I might try to do something, probably not a ton, but just a little to, to probably, partly to give like the, get the Sunday scaries out

Jesse:

Right? Right.

Meryl:

So that i'm like, not oh, Monday, what is your life?

Jesse:

Like a

Meryl:

soft

Jesse:

reentry right?

Meryl:

soft reentry.

Jesse:

So Also, evenings are when there are readings right. make time for the readings

Ariana:

How do you feel about readings?

Jesse:

I like seeing the people who are reading these books in person. Because I think reading is such a solitary activity for the most part, outside of book clubs. one of those, we can talk about that too.

Meryl:

Oh. Oh.

Jesse:

But, um, um

Meryl:

I'm trying to get into a book club, no one will ever let me in.

Jesse:

Wait, wow. Exclusive book clubs you're trying to get into the VIP, I think that, it's nice to see honestly the people who are consuming the stuff that everyone's making, and to see the passion, where you get someone who just come up and they'll say, oh, I just finished this book and I love this book. And the sense of just the appreciation where, I think we can finish a book, close a page and go, oh, that was nice. I like that. But you're not really, very often you're not in community with people and that's one of the rare outlets outside of, literary festivals and those sort of things to do that. And I think also, like I say this with love. Book people are weird. and I think that's fantastic because like we need more weird in the world. But then, you see all the weird when you go to these readings, like How come as you are, Come as you are. And people do that to readings. Uh,

Meryl:

I would say like about 60% of the time I regret going to a reading.

Jesse:

Oh.

Meryl:

Ooh. But it's really dependent on how the writer is as a performer. Like some people, they just don't have a great reading voice. I'm probably one of them. And they're just, they don't know how to make it come alive, and then I just can't listen. Yeah. I think they should be like five minutes. And then the, the talk should be longer the question Yeah

Jesse:

Like q and an hour, reading 10 10 minutes. Yeah. yeah. If P-S-A-P-S-A

Ariana:

a. Or so I went to this reading and actually hopefully we'll get this woman on our show. Hawley Hussey. She's an artist and writer. She, I went to her reading and she made it so fun. first of all, she lives in Coney Island. So what she did was she would read parts of her book and then she'd have friends do little performances in between the reading part. So she had someone do a little guitar, she had someone do a dance. I can't remember exactly all the things, but it was there were all these different sections. So instead of one chunk of reading, it was broken up with I guess guess Palate cleansers. Pallet cleansers. And then we had questions and talks in between that. So it was a very dynamic reading.

Jesse:

I will say, it, it's funny, your point about the author's voice not always being the best for speaking Meryl, I think about that in audio books too. You know where I mean in the book club? In the book club, I try and mostly read on paper, but here and there I will get, a Spotify audio book version and there was one book, I'm not gonna say the title because I don't wanna besmirch the narrator, but the voice was so grading it was this sort of an I'll do the best that I can. It was very much a kind of. This sort of tone, and then it was a lot of vocal fry. So i, I could not listen. That for hours. That was the, I was and it was the entire book. And these jobs are hard to get. I know. And I know a couple audiobook narrators and they're really, it's a fierce competitive Yeah. Yeah. But I will say that it really got through it because I sped up the tempo. So I went to about time and a half and then suddenly it was little Fry, but it was a bit faster. So I could just go through this way and the chapters they flowed. I got through it. I will say I when I listen to that one again? No, but I was ready for the discussion.

Meryl:

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't wanna potentially besmirch to your book club, but I'm curious are there a lot of writers in there? How is it as a writer and a publisher?

Jesse:

It's interesting. We don't have a lot of writers in our. Uh, book club there's two of us. Oh.

Meryl:

does hearing their perspectives, did it, does it feel different than the...

Jesse:

it does because here's the thing. The club is run by, like a a dear friend and former colleague of mine who is, she's the other writer in the group. And then there are a couple of teachers. And they bring That's interesting. Like the educational component and really, when, one of them, she says all the time, and I love it. She's we'll go into this conversation and then people will run off on tangents and she'll always she sits there for a moment and then she goes, okay bring it back. And she gestures, she goes to the text.

Ariana:

Yes we need those we need those

Jesse:

I love that. Love that. And she keeps us on track, you know, because someone's like, oh well, and they, and they go off and tell this lovely but rambling story, and then she's always back to the text, and I'm thinking, I appreciate you, Yeah. You really bring it home and keep us on track. I will say, our book club reads exclusively nonfiction and they're all kind of, we've read history, we've read memoir and, but a lot of them are like really idea driven books. So the conversations are always meaty. And I love that, it really I, generally I think probably'cause I read memoir myself, so it's a hop, skip to read, different, a music memoir, a drug memoir. We read that Emily Whit memoir recently. And that was such a divisive book, where people really, some people felt like, oh, I love the kind of peak into the oughts music culture.

Meryl:

Then other people

Jesse:

like,

Ariana:

why all the drugs?

Jesse:

So many drugs? We need all the drugs. Exactly. You know, and I think we it that way. It's always funny'cause I, I love the club because you never know how people are going to take something. And, and it really we read a book about the blue stockings, which were, like a, and I'm sure you both know like a, a very kind of revolutionary group of women who were writing and thinking and speaking and having salons in a time when that was not done generally, or it was for the men. And we really, that was such a great kind of moment of looking back at writing as not just in industry, but something that people engage with and, dealing with, looking the historical complications of that and really the beauty that came out of it, and outta these people who were willing to fight for what they wanted to talk about, think about, write about, and they wrote books upon books. These women individually. So it was really, I with that stuff in our club. It's enjoyable.

Ariana:

Do you have any top memoirs that you like?

Jesse:

The one that I often tell people to read is Sally'Manns Holds Still. Okay. She's a photographer and it's an unusual memoir where it deals with her. First of all, because she's a photographer. It's very visually rich too. So it's text dense and visually rich.

Meryl:

Visually as in as in she has a lot of pictures in there?

Jesse:

Exactly. yep. Throughout the entire book. She has and really the, the great part is, she talks some about the craft. and refining her craft. And she'll show, in the book she shows like photos that didn't quite make the cut. and you really get the sort of guidance on the page through her words. And then you see it play out with the visuals as well. But it's also, it's a great book because it's multifaceted. It deals with, her historical, considering her family, and their involvement with enslaved people in the American South. And it really is just it's her life as a photographer, but also her life against this massive context. And, and I will say it's, it is a meaty book. I think it's probably, it might be like 500 pages, probably less, but I think it's at least 400. But it's a book where I really I go to bat for that every time, you know, and every time I recommend and I say to someone, you have to be ready for some heavy, dark stuff. You have to be ready for some beauty and you have to be ready for just sticking it out. Cause it's a very intensely written book. and I would also say everyone should read not to jump on the soapbox. Again, more Fran Lebowitz, but what's

Meryl:

please, Oh yeah

Jesse:

New yorkers read more, fran.

Meryl:

Oh God, yes. Yes. And she write more. as she should.

Jesse:

Please come on.

Meryl:

It's it's been a long time

Jesse:

today We're waiting. We're waiting. And I would say that because. Really she's the, in some sense it's opposite of Sally man, where that, that is a book at length and Fran can do nothing at length.

Meryl:

No.

Jesse:

She is bite-sized snippets, bon mots, witticisms. And I think now, particularly just again, in my

Meryl:

own point of view

Jesse:

we need those critical voices mm-hmm.

Meryl:

who are not afraid to offend.

Jesse:

Yeah. Yeah. And who aren't afraid to speak truth to power, and be willing to call things out, where I think a lot of people are a little more. Trepidatious now. there's definitely

Ariana:

a element of

Meryl:

fear and anxiety. something. something.

Jesse:

in the air.

Meryl:

Yeah. I'm gonna bungle her quote, but one of the quotes that I love by her is something about people now think that rich people are smart.

Jesse:

Anyone who thinks that rich people are smart,

Meryl:

never met

Jesse:

anyone

Meryl:

smart and never met anyone rich.

Ariana:

Right? Snaps.

Meryl:

better

Jesse:

Snaps

Ariana:

for that.

Meryl:

I think one of the things that, that upsets me about AI every, a lot of things upset me is the idea like of the jobs that aren't necessarily being a creative writer that are ways to write and people who have the skillset of writing are going to really disappear. And I've had friends say things like who cares? That's not really writing anyway. But it's very hard to make money in this world. And if you have the skill of being a writer, there aren't opportunities and some of these jobs, like writing content. Going, all of that stuff, going to AI, it just means that there's less people with our skills who can make money and live well.

Jesse:

And I, I would argue also, think about it in the long tail, right? As time goes on, if there are fewer of those people, what happens to communication? how we communicate and speak to each other, and you,

Meryl:

if we were not even learning or valuing that as a human skill

Jesse:

exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Ariana:

back to grunts and like we're going back down yes. evolutionary, Yes scale.

Meryl:

Yes, exactly. exactly

Jesse:

there, there's an arc for everything, right? Yeah. maybe we're on the downward trend. No.

Ariana:

I tell my students, like when I was teaching English composition, cause no one wants to be there and I'm like, look, you can use if you want, whatever. But having your own voice that keeps you relevant, yeah. Don't be replaceable by machines. Like you are, you have a story to tell whatever it is, and through whatever means you live in this world And yeah,

Meryl:

Don't give that up. Don't up. Exactly

Ariana:

Don't give that up give that readily.

Jesse:

Here's the thing is I think, can we wave a magic wand and make it, make AI not a thing anymore? No, we can't. I think, and I think realistically we have to grapple with what that means for the writing industry and entertainment as a whole. But I think there are, it's. It's advancing. But I think about, for one example, I remember reading a story about somebody going to AI and asking, I don't know if it was GPT or some other service, what do I put on a pizza to make cheese stick? and the answer came back was glue. Okay. Perfect. Okay,

Ariana:

Yes, that works.

Meryl:

so we're okay for a for a minute.

Jesse:

Exactly. and I think that, it's going to get better, but also I think, you know what does interest me is how people will engage with it and work with it. I've read so many job postings for AI, prompt engineers, people who are communicating with, and feeding the best possible linguistics into the ai. I think that's a temporary job. I think that's something that will, as soon as AI advances enough, that will go away too. But I'm curious to see, how people use it organizationally. For example, and let's just, let's spitball for a second here. Let's say you're trying to outline something and you're stuck, and you're thinking, okay, I have a vague idea for how I wanna do this I know, the kind of themes I wanna touch on, the kind of characters I might employ for the first, three to five of them. And then let's say you bring it to aI and you say. Okay give me an outline modeled after Hamlet, but using these kinds of characters make these sort of plot points and beats and things to jump off from and then it spits something back at you, potentially. Would that be serviceable? I don't know. But maybe for someone to say, okay, you know what? Now I have a draft outline. Do I love it? No. Is it perfect? No. Did it give me, a recipe for putting glue on pizza in the middle? Maybe. Here's a serviceable document based upon plot points of Hamlet that I can then take and adapt from my own uses. And then write your own work. By no means, I think like the problem is in using it solely for generative writing. Right. Because then you get, Ariana, to your point, the lack of voice. But I think about a sense of where, using it as that jumping off point versus the generative language. Right. Because really, you get, I mean they, they said the piece said something about AI loves to use the word delve, so everything's always, you're always delving into something. Which is very dramatic. Just thinking about different applications there I agree. Where if the tide turns and it is a generative use and a full scale replacement of jobs. That's a problem. And we don't have UBI right now, so so Yeah. What are people gonna do?

Meryl:

Right,

Ariana:

I think also the fear is also' it is taking from other, from artists' work,

Jesse:

7 million copyright and work. Right? Works that we're in

Ariana:

so they're, so they're, actually stealings stealing stuff. So it's not really generating anything new. It's taking from existing stuff and and Remixing. Yeah. Yeah. Which is. Problematic.

Jesse:

And I think also, and i'd be curious to hear both of your points on this or perspectives. I worry about in a world where culture gets lazy and good enough is good enough. What does that do to high art?.

Meryl:

think it's all terrible.

Ariana:

This might be a optimistic point of view, but taking the movie industry yeah. As an example. At this point, Marvel's just churning out. out It's a lot of this stuff is good enough. Most streaming sites and have to just be Marvel. Streaming sites are just like these movies, these TV shows that are just underdeveloped they could be good, but they're just like, eh, that'll work. Let's do it. But then you get Sinners for example, and it blows up or Severance, people do react to things that are actually stimulating or have a unique point of view. So I feel like that will still exist. Whether these, the gatekeepers, the money people will give money to these folks that's another question. But I think artists will still make art, you know, dark ages. We still, we the renaissance after Right.

Meryl:

I think that there is a desire when we engage with art to be engaging with other humans. Yeah. So I just don't see how AI could actually replace that for and make us feel feel same way yeah

Ariana:

There, yeah, there's that loneliness epidemic with the younger generations and they're actually talking to AI someone, was it you were telling me Meryl, no, my friend was like, I was on the train and I just glanced over at someone's phone and I didn't mean to read it, but I realized this woman was or this girl, was texting to an aI bot all her feelings

Meryl:

yeah I this is happening a lot and it's really weird,

Ariana:

I have to imagine that it'll backswing in that you realize you, all you want is to connect with somebody.

Meryl:

Or maybe it won't, maybe it'll be better. Maybe people will love hearing robot. Like there will be less conflict. No. All right. Let's see.

Ariana:

less conflict because of the robots mean robots yes,

Jesse:

No, not

Meryl:

human. Think the are

Ariana:

they're gonna create even more division.

Meryl:

What I mean? But they'll be like, you are nice to me in in a way that humans aren't, oh, like they what have to deal saying with the conflict of other actual humans. Humans

Jesse:

But then, it raises the point of is some conflict. Good? Right? Does it push you to grow? Does it push you to confront your, your faults, your failings, other people's faults and failing shortcomings?

Meryl:

I would think so. so That's

Ariana:

you can't be, That's why I think it's really hard to be with somebody who's exactly like you. Right? Because you, you need that, you need the tension. Right. And

Meryl:

Whereas

Ariana:

I think it makes it more interesting. Makes you think of other things.

Meryl:

An AI companion, I feel like is just reflect, it's just just a mirror

Jesse:

yeah. And also, to, to your point, like it's this soft of a landing as you want it to be. So it's like you could just live in like a marshmallow world of the AI being nice to you,

Meryl:

but then you go outside and

Jesse:

Right. it's just paroting stuff back to you

Meryl:

I think we're gonna learn. Do people want to grow? Do people want to think, do people wanna communicate, I guess the next few years? we'll see.

Jesse:

I'm really curious about that. I wanna believe they do. And I think some portion will, will I think there are some who maybe won't or don't.

Ariana:

Yeah.

Jesse:

But, humanity beautiful complex.

Meryl:

In one word, how would you your reading life?

Jesse:

Expensive

Meryl:

how about your writing life?

Jesse:

In flux.

Meryl:

And your weirdest obsession.

Jesse:

Lately it's getting really good at bowling.

Meryl:

I love that. I love

Jesse:

I joined a social league a year ago. It has consumed my Life life that a I bought a ball. What does that tell You is there

Meryl:

You are in there.

Ariana:

It's all right to love book clubs or It's all right to hate book clubs.

Jesse:

Yes it's all right to learn from your book club. club It's all right to push back against the robots. Yeah. it's all right to tikTok. it, right

Ariana:

Question

Jesse:

Question mark.dot. Dot dot dot it's all right to strike out and try Again.

Meryl:

ooh. Yeah. Mm.

Ariana:

it's all right that your weekends are sacred. To

Jesse:

keep your Yeah. I love that. I love that.

Ariana:

you can check out. It's All Write on most streaming platforms. So Apple Spotify, Amazon. All the all the places. We release new episodes every other Tuesday, so every two Tuesdays you can follow us on Instagram at it's All right pod. And you can also email us at it's all right pod@gmail.com. And that's w right spelled W-R-I-T-E.

Meryl:

Thanks for listening. See you next time

People on this episode

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Ariana McLean

Host
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Meryl Branch-McTiernan

Host