Vauhini Vara

honestly a journalist’s dream, getting to be the medium by which so much important knowledge gets transmitted to people who want and need it. Thank you back!!!

AI and the Cost of Our Data In conversation with Vauhini Vara, author and journalist

AI has the capacity to shape what we collectively come to understand as truth. I sat down with @vauhinivara.bsky.social to unpack who's really in control and what we're giving up.🎙️ New episode of @artofcitizenry.bsky.social out now!

🔥#AWP26 ALERT: You'll see a bunch of AI-related panels this year at AWP. This is THE one for learning & sharing tactics for AI resistance in writing & teaching, feat. some of the field's most eminent writers & thinkers: @alexhanna.bsky.social, Carmen Maria Machado & @authorsguild.org's Umair Kazi. 🤯

Register Now! – Bridging the Gap: Amplifying Incarcerated Voices – Chicago Teachers Union Bridging the Gap: Amplifying Incarcerated Voices – Chicago Teachers Union, Fri May 29, 2026 - Sat May 30, 2026 - You are invited to join Look2Justice and Haymarket Books in Chicago May 29th-30th for B...

🔥 This is for anyone who wants to work with incarcerated writers and journalists or already does: a first-of-its-kind gathering from @haymarketbooks.org & Look2Justice (with which I'm doing some exciting work, details TBA) on covering prison from the inside. events.haymarketbooks.org/events/hayma...

ooooh great idea! might need to come back to you to learn more about how you did this!

Promotional graphic for an online book talk titled Searches. The layout features muted gray and cream tones with collage-style images. Text reads: “Book Talk. February 26th, 10am PT / 1pm ET. Online.” It invites viewers to join a conversation with author Vauhini Vara about her book Searches, in conversation with Luca Messarra, exploring how technology fulfills and exploits human desires for understanding and connection. The left side includes two portrait photos of the speakers and an illustration of a stack of books.

Slide featuring a still-life painting of flowers, pastries, nuts, and tableware arranged on a table. Text at the top reads: “‘Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age’ by Vauhini Vara,” with a note identifying her as the author of The Immortal King Rao and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Faded background text discusses how the image metaphorically represents the relationship between technology, AI, and human experience.

📢 TOMORROW!

Learn how tech & capitalism shape human creativity in SEARCHES: SELFHOOD IN THE DIGITAL AGE w/ Vauhini Vara & Luca Messarra.

🎙️📖 A LIVE #booktalk you won’t want to miss.

📅 Thurs Feb 26, 2026
🕙 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET
📍 ONLINE
🎟️ www.eventbrite.com/e/future-kno...

@vauhinivara.bsky.social

And how had I not known about this book????? Ordered!

Ooh, this is a great idea! I'd heard a similar one involving walking — tried to describe it here but it exceeded the character count! This is now my list.

I help host a writing club for my 10-year-old and his friends. We've been sharing writing, but this weekend, I want to mix it up. What are writing games or activities for fifth graders (fun, not babyish) that build community, confidence and attention to observation and language? Movement is a plus!

Dear Maryland friends, especially those in College Park: I'm thrilled to be joining brilliant @lillianyvonne.bsky.social to talk about AI, literature, and my book SEARCHES on March 10th. Come one, come all!

ah thank you for reading and for this note!

This great dashboard from @randomwalker.bsky.social, @sayash.bsky.social & @stvrb.bsky.social shows that the models behind popular chatbots have gotten only barely more reliable (which could explain why people and businesses aren't getting much value from them?).

hal.cs.princeton.edu/reliability

PSA for @iowawriterswksp.bsky.social people going to AWP: RSVPs for this event, on the Friday of AWP, close on Monday! You can find it in the AWP schedule — you might also have an email in your inbox or spam from the Iowa alumni / development office. via always in-the-know @khaliah.bsky.social

Opinion | OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made. I Quit.

This piece by departing OpenAI researcher Zoe Hitzig is terrific, partly because it explores concrete solutions to the problem of AI companies binding their financial success to exploitation of users. Read it www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...

Join us! 👇🏾✨

Opinion | OpenAI Seems to Be Making a Very Familiar, Very Cynical Choice

in June, I wrote for @nytopinion.nytimes.com about how ChatGPT ads would fit into a long Silicon Valley history of companies hating on ads, then adopting them. Now the ads are here. Hope you’ll read If you missed it back then. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/o...

The first post is up and it’s great -- points out that the Post no longer has either a dedicated critic of Amazon‘s (and other companies’) tech products or a dedicated Amazon reporter. This is one to subscribe to. 👏 geoffreyfowler.substack.com/p/washington...

We caricature Thoreau for glorifying self-sufficiency but relying on his mom for meals. But he was an abolitionist too. I loved this essay, from a mother who also runs a major refugee resettlement agency, about how her appreciation of Thoreau has transformed over decades. lithub.com/turning-to-t...

Wait, what? Geoff, too? surely he’s already gotten a zillion job offers, but, if you’re reading this, you, too, should offer him a job. (Or, editor/agent friends: get him to write a book!!!)

I feel quite convinced that @nitasha.bsky.social must already have a number of job offers already on the table, but, hey, psst, publications, look at who you have a chance to snap up????? 🤯

I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done. After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.

After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Ooh can’t wait to read this!!!

Why Slop Matters | ACM AI Letters AI-generated “slop” is often seen as digital pollution. We argue that this dismissal of the topic risks missing important aspects of AI Slop which deserve rigorous study. AI Slop serves a social funct...

New paper on Why Slop Matters w/ great group of co authors (@hoytlong.bsky.social @eduede.bsky.social @ari-holtzman.bsky.social + others not on Bluesky) from ACM AI Letters. We try to move the debate re: AI Slop past normative, neg claims & towards parsing its social uses. dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Donate to Washington Post 2026 layoff fund, organized by Rachel Siegel On Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, The Washington Post laid off hundreds of journalists. We ar… Rachel Siegel needs your support for Washington Post 2026 layoff fund

Whatever you think of the Washington Post at this moment, here's a chance to support the dedicated, hard-working journalists who were just laid off. If you have the means, your donation is most welcome. If you don't, a kind thought and maybe spreading the word to others is support enough 💙

How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post The Amazon founder bought the paper to save it. Instead, with a mass layoff, he’s forced it into severe decline.

This excellent piece, from a former Washington Post writer, is the most comprehensive I've seen so far, answering a lot of my questions: Why has the Post's business suffered while the NYT's has been sustained? What are some better possible futures? www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

It's time to apply for the second annual DAG Prize, celebrating innovation and supporting sustainable careers in the arts — $20,000 apiece for a writer, a musician, and a visual artist! Last year's winners were @michaelzapata.bsky.social, Elizabeth Ziman, and Ziba Rajabi. Please share widely! ✨

I think Brian Glavey at University of South Carolina? sc.edu/study/colleg...

I hope someone good applies for this and gets the offer and then writes a tell-all essay about it in like the @yalereview.bsky.social or @thebeliever.net

SEARCHES won the Porchlight Business Book Award, alongside @karenhao.bsky.social's excellent EMPIRE OF AI and others — thank you, @porchlightbooks.bsky.social! ✨

www.porchlightbooks.com/blogs/news/c...

The deadline's in two days — apply, apply!