Green Herons and Goslings, AI Lit Mag Scandals, Planning for Writing Residencies
- At May 23, 2026
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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Green Heron (!!)
Green Herons and Goslings
It was a wonderful week for bird watching – we saw goslings, ducklings, Great Blue Herons, a Green Heron (much rarer!), more Goldfinches. We had a couple of perfect sunny days to see flowers blooming – roses, peonies, clematis, azaleas, even lavender in some places already.
The Pacific Northwest, and specifically, Seattle is doomed, say some, with their new millionaire tax. Yes, why would anyone want to live here? I mean, there’s no state income tax for anyone but millionaires but… a millionaire tax? I’m out! Just kidding.
Me in Kirkland with roses and Lake Washington
Planning for a Writer’s Residency
I’m planning for a writer’s residency and thinking about what makes for a successful residency – crunchy snacks? comfortable pants and shoes? Inspiring reading material? A set of goals? I want to work on my book that I’m still sending out and write some new work – either essays or flash or poems. I haven’t felt very creative the last few months for some reason.
So I’m hoping this time away will give me some new perspectives, some time away from social media, television, and the routine.
This pair of barn swallows is gossiping about AI writers
AI Lit Mag Scandals
This pair of barn swallows is gossiping about the latest AI lit mag scandal – that a very prestigious fiction contest at Granta was won by an AI story possibly written by an AI company. The prize came with some pretty good money attached so the human beings who were rejected are pretty steamed, understandably.
Then there’s other scuttlebutt: if AI writing can only be judged by AI tools, um, isn’t there a snake biting its own tail or something? Is the author even a real person or just some AI collective hoping to scam the system? If the writing was boring and rote, is that what the literary community prize system rewards? Is this the end of human writing??
Okay, probably not. But it does point out that now we literary writers – basically making a couple of dollars a year – are now competing not just with human writers, but with AI. I mean, can’t they just leave us alone?
Okay, wishing you all a good week, with very little scandal, a lot of late spring moments of wonder, and time to write and be inspired.
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
