Harvard writers abandoned; AI tells; novelist deal rescinded: Newsletter 5 August 2026

Newsletter 162. Harvard trashes a world-class writing center. Plus, Bret Stephens figures out AI writing is a scourge, a Nigerian novelist loses a $2 million deal over AI accusations, three people to follow and three books to read.

Harvard’s writing program takes a step backwards

Harvard University had wisely invested in a student writing center for decades. This week, they took a huge step backwards. According to the Harvard Crimson, the university newspaper:

The Harvard College Writing Center will no longer operate as a standalone unit after its director was laid off and its functions were consolidated as part of a restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, prompting swift backlash from current and former writing tutors.

In a Thursday email obtained by The Crimson, the center’s director, Jane Rosenzweig, told tutors that she was laid off and that they could potentially continue working through the Academic Resource Center. She was among dozens of College staff informed of layoffs and job changes last week as the school moves forward with a restructuring that will reshape several of its main offices.

The Writing Center offers support to students through one-on-one peer tutoring and other resources. FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm confirmed in a statement that “several offices and functions within the College have been consolidated, including the Writing Center.”

This is a dumb move at the worst possible time.

Writing is a key competency for all educated adults and is especially important for undergraduates, who will need to navigate complex writing requirements as they enter a rapidly changing work environment. Among the skills colleges teach, writing is among the most essential. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a marketing manager, a software developer, an entrepreneur, or a nonprofit manager, your ability to write is how you will effectively communicate and lead.

Any decent university has an expository writing requirement for freshman. At Harvard, the tutors from the Writing Center were available not only to students taking that class but to students throughout the curriculum. There is no better way to learn effective writing than to practice and get expert feedback. There are simply not enough teachers to provide that level of feedback. The Writing Center helps to fill that gap.

The departing director of the Harvard College Writing Center, Jane Rosenzweig, was widely admired as an innovator. The estimable writing expert John Warner has already weighed in on her behalf and decried this decision. As several former Writing Center tutors wrote in the Crimson:

For over 20 years, Jane Rosenzweig has been the source of the Writing Center’s success. She has been responsible for the rigorous training of generations of undergraduate tutors, a process of dialogue and reflection that begins the moment a tutor is hired at the Writing Center and continues through to graduation. For the past two decades, the Writing Center has employed tutors from diverse backgrounds, whose studies range broadly across the disciplines represented at the College.

As alumni, we benefited immensely from Jane’s mentorship. Regardless of our subsequent career path — in medicine, politics, journalism, education, or the law, among others — we all learned some of the foundational lessons in our craft from Jane.

Thanks to Jane’s leadership, we not only came together in service of shared goals but found new confidence in our capacities to collaborate, innovate, and succeed. The loss of her leadership and vision will have a deleterious impact on both writing tutors and the broader undergraduate community they serve.

Rosenzweig took on the challenge of teaching strategies for students in the age of AI and under her leadership, the Writing Center published recommendations on how to leverage AI as a tool rather than a poor substitute for writing skills. This should be a required element of teaching writing in 2026, and Harvard was appropriately investing in it — but now who knows what will become of this worthwhile effort.

Harvard has the richest endowment of any university. This is the stupidest possible way for a rich university to economize. I call on Harvard’s donors — rich business leaders — to pressure the university to reverse this decision. They should insist that the university increase its investment in teaching students to write intelligently rather than substituting AI for their brain power. Maybe a few enlightened business leaders can create a restricted endowment directed purely at beefing up the Writing Center and keeping it technologically relevant.

Harvard had been a leader in this effort. Now it’s leading higher education in the wrong direction at a critical moment. They’ll regret this tragic error, and a generation of students are about to pay the price.

News for writers and others who think

Another book deal collapsed amid AI accusations. This time it was Nigerian crime novelist Jerry Falade whose “stunningly good” manuscript, as described by his agent, had received a $2 million offer in a 14-way auction. Falade denies that he used AI and says the critique is motivated by racial discrimination. If you’re an author, take note: you will need to document how you did and didn’t use AI in any book deal. Lying about it puts any contract you receive at risk.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens pleads for writers not to use AI (gift link). Welcome to the chorus, Bret. You’re late to the party with hackneyed insights, but at least you’re on the right side of the argument for a change.

Tracking AI tells is a moving target. Em dashes (—) were supposed to be one. Now its lack of punctuation and overuse of the word “and.” As an editor, what I see is that each new AI tell is just machines picking up ordinary bad writing habits. This target is shifting so fast that any article claiming to catalogue such tells has a half-life of about a month.

Benjamin Breen has vibe-coded a tool for discovering award-winning nonfiction books. Beware what happens when you turn a geek book-lover loose on publication databases.

Alex Karp, the CEO of the government’s favorite AI surveillance tech company, Palantir, took a shot at the big AI megacompanies in his most recently investor letter. He describes describing the AI giants’ use of other people’s content as having “Marxist overtones and undertones” as LLMs “capture the means of production of their purported partners.” You have to love it when the greedy AI capitalists start lobbing rhetorical grenades at each other in hopes of capturing a larger share of the AI grift economy.

Three people to follow

(All Amanda edition.)

Amanda Ripley , investigative journalist

Amanda George , thoughtful and insightful copy editor

Amanda Montell , author of incisive books on language

Three books to read

Stupider People Have Done It: Marketing Truths, Career Moves, and Life Advice for Doers by Jay Schwedelson (Lasega, 2026). Radical marketing insights. Free your mind.

The California Pizza Kitchen Story: How Two Federal Prosecutors Changed the Way America Eats Pizza by Rick Rosenfield (Amplify, 2026). Crispy pizza and people-first culture . . . from lawyers.

Write it: How to Move From ‘Just Thinking About It’ to Actually Finishing Your First Nonfiction Book by Adina Samuels (Entrechat Press, 2026). This is the book for people who want to stop making excuses for not being an author already.