Six Bridges Book Festival

John Warner & Liz Pelly

PRESENTERS: John Warner & Liz Pelly
BOOKS: More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI & Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist
MODERATOR: John Williams

About the authors:

John Warner is a writer, speaker, researcher, and consultant. The former editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, he is the author of the books Why They Can’t Write and The Writer’s Practice. As “the Biblioracle,” Warner is a weekly columnist at the Chicago Tribune and writes the newsletter “The Biblioracle Recommends.” He is affiliate faculty at the College of Charleston and lives in Folly Beach, South Carolina.

Liz Pelly is a journalist living in New York. Her essays and reporting have appeared in the Baffler, where she is a contributing editor, as well as in the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and many other outlets. She frequently speaks about music streaming on radio shows and podcasts, including appearances with the New York Times Popcast, NPR’s Morning Edition, and others. Pelly teaches in the recorded music program at New York University and has spent over a decade involved in all-ages show booking.

About the books:

More Than Words argues that generative AI programs like ChatGPT not only can kill the student essay but should, since these assignments don’t challenge students to do the real work of writing. To Warner, writing is thinking—discovering your ideas while trying to capture them on a page—and feeling—grappling with what it fundamentally means to be human. More Than Words calls for us to use AI as an opportunity to reckon with how we work with words and how all of us should rethink our relationship with writing.

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist takes an unsparing look at Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike. Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, it takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.