Authors take to TikTok to prove they are not using Generative AI

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Authors take to TikTok to prove they are not using Generative AI

20 June 2025

Criticism and warnings of Gen-AI authors snagging coveted deals are flooding both Threads and TikTok, with writers and readers sometimes flinging around accusations when they suspect someone is using AI as part of their creative process. Now, Aveyard and other prolific authors are not only calling out people who use AI to write, they’re also posting livestreams and time-lapses of their writing processes to defend themselves against such complaints.

The camera never lies. But will that be enough to convince book readers who otherwise suspect some authors are using AI tools to assist them write?

Harry Potter producers pull lead actors for ten year TV adaptation from hat

31 May 2025

Two years after the announcement of a ten series TV adaptation of the (original) Harry Potter books, members of the primary cast have been announced.

This includes Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton, and Alastair Stout in the roles of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, respectively. Other castings include John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape. No word yet on who will portray bad guy Voldemort, though rumours suggest this might be Cillian Murphy.

So, another ten years of Harry Potter on the screen. No doubt fans will be delighted. It is anticipated the first series will be broadcast sometime in 2026 or 2027.

I Want Everything, the debut novel of Dominic Amerena

28 May 2025

If literary scandals of the plagiarism variety intrigue you, then I Want Everything, by Dominic Amerena, an Australian author who lives between Melbourne and Athens, Greece, might be a novel worth adding to your TBR list.

The legendary career of reclusive cult author Brenda Shales remains one of Australia’s last unsolved literary mysteries. Her books took the world by storm before she disappeared from the public eye after a mysterious plagiarism case. But when an ambitious young writer stumbles across Brenda at a Melbourne pool, he realises the scoop of a lifetime is floating in front of him: the truth behind why she vanished without a trace. The only problem? He must pretend to be someone he’s not to trick the story out of her.

Book bloopers: when authors AI prompts are published in their novels

26 May 2025

Matthew Gault, writing for 404 Media:

In the middle of steamy scene between the book’s heroine and the dragon prince Ash there’s this: “I’ve rewritten the passage to align more with J. Bree’s style, which features more tension, gritty undertones, and raw emotional subtext beneath the supernatural elements:”

The excerpt is said to be found in chapter three of Lena McDonald’s novel Darkhollow Academy: Year 2, although apparently it has since been removed from later editions of the book.

If you must use AI, especially in fiction work, remember the rules, whereby the first rule of using AI to write a novel, is not to be caught using AI.

For those wondering about the J. Bree reference, J Bree is a West Australian based author of fantasy and dark romance novels. The incident also indicates that Bree’s work has been appropriated by AI models, most likely without her prior knowledge, or approval.

Nam Le wins 2025 NSW Literary Awards Book of the Year prize

21 May 2025

Vietnamese Australian lawyer turned writer Nam Le has won the Book of the Year Award prize, with 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, a collection of poetry, in the 2025 NSW Literary Awards.

Earlier, Le was named recipient of the Multicultural NSW Award. Winners of the NSW Literary Awards, previously known as the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, which span eleven categories, including the people’s choice prize, were announced at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, on Monday 19 May 2025. The Book of the Year recipient is selected from the winners of the Award’s other categories.

Other recipients include Fiona McFarlane, who won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction with Highway 13, and Emma Lord, who took out the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature prize for her debut novel Anomaly. The full list of 2025 winners can be seen here.

The best books of the twenty-first century, so far, according to Kirkus Reviews

2 May 2025

Kirkus Reviews, an American literary publication, founded by teacher and editor Virginia Kirkus in 1933, has published a list of the best books — so far — of the twenty-first century.

It alarms me, as somewhat of a book reader, that I have not read even one of the fiction titles they list. I have seen a few of the film adaptations of some books though.

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books, literature, novels

The Emperor of Gladness, a new novel by Ocean Vuong

30 April 2025

The Vietnamese American writer’s second novel will be published next month:

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, was published in 2019. Six years seems like a bit of time between drinks, but Vuong also published a book of poetry, Time Is a Mother, in 2022.

We Are the Stars, Gina Chick, tops 2025 Dymocks Top 101 Book poll

7 April 2025

We Are the Stars, by Australian author Gina Chick, has claimed the number one spot in the 2025 Dymocks Top 101 Books poll. We Are the Stars also enjoys the distinction of being the first work of non-fiction to top the the list in almost twenty years.

Notable fiction inclusions (being titles I’ve also read) in this year’s Top 101 include Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, and Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.

Every year, customers of the Australian bookseller vote to determine their favourite titles of the previous twelve months.

Signs of Damage, a new novel by Australian author Diana Reid

5 March 2025

Signs of Damage is the third novel from London based Australian author Diana Reid.

The Kelly family’s idyllic holiday in the south of France is disturbed when Cass, a thirteen-year-old girl, goes missing. She’s discovered several hours later with no visible signs of injury. Everyone present dismisses the incident as a close brush with tragedy.

Sixteen years later, at a funeral for a member of the Kelly family, Cass collapses. The present and the past start to collide as buried secrets come to light and old doubts resurface. What really happened to Cass in the south of France? And what’s wrong with her now?

I’ve read Reid’s 2021 debut Love & Virtue and have her second, novel Seeing Other People, published in 2022, on my (lengthy) TBR list. Signs of Damage will be published later this month.

Somebody Down There Likes Me, a new novel by Robert Lukins

19 February 2025

Melbourne based Australian author Robert Lukins returns with a new novel, Somebody Down There Likes Me, a follow up to his 2022 book, Loveland.

As with Loveland and his 2018 debut, The Everlasting Sunday, Somebody Down There Likes Me, is set outside Australia, this time in a town called Belle Haven, in Connecticut, in the United States, during the final years of the twentieth-century:

Against the backdrop of the last decadent gasps of the twentieth century, the Gulch family have led a charmed existence in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Belle Haven, Connecticut. Now, the empire they have built is on the edge of collapse, and as the decades of fraud and criminality that lie beneath the family’s incredible wealth is exposed, the Gulch children are summoned.

I read Loveland a couple of years ago, and look forward to Somebody Down There Likes Me. I must also get hold of The Everlasting Sunday as well.

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