News Roundup: December 16, 2022

In this week’s roundup: An update on the HarperCollins strike, NPR interviews one of our Authors Guild Banned Books Club authors; Ukrainian and Russian authors offer their takes on the ongoing war; ChatGPT has made significant advances but still has limitations; fifteen books by Black authors to read this winter; and more.

HC Union Update: Authors Co-Host Rally at Harper Headquarters; Agents ‘Overwhelmingly’ Support Strike
Publishers Weekly
Unionized HarperCollins employees will rally outside the publisher’s New York headquarters on Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, a survey by the Association of American Literary Agents found that 79.1 percent of agents who responded support the action.

Banned Books: Author Ashley Hope Pérez on Finding Humanity in the “Darkness”
NPR
Ashley Hope Pérez, whose historical novel Out of Darkness will be our Authors Guild Banned Books Club selection in February 2023, spoke to NPR about writing the human experience and the impact of book banning on marginalized authors who are most often the target.

ChatGPT Can Tell Jokes, Even Write Articles. But Only Humans Can Detect Its Fluent Bullshit
The Guardian
Much has been written about the impressive advances of OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI chatbot, but its propensity to generate inaccurate text with high confidence reveals it still has some of the same limitations artificial intelligence has always had.

15 Books by Black Authors to Read This Winter
Essence Magazine
Add these books by Black authors to your winter reading list. From fiction to poetry to essays and more, there’s something for everyone.

“Putin Killed Off Russian Culture,” Ukrainian and Russian Authors on Ten Months of War
CNN
A Ukrainian novelist and a Russian historian discuss how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has ended joint creative relationships between their two counties and what else has changed after nearly a year of war.

The Baby Names Authors Chose for their Own Children
Book Riot
Many authors are known for the names they’ve given their characters. Here are the names that more than 60 authors chose for their children.