If you write, this hour of discussion is well worth your time

It’s rare that I get this excited to talk to some people — but this is one of those times.

Imagine you could listen in on as the four smartest, most diverse thinkers on effective writing grapple with how AI is undermining things — and discuss how to fix it? When I figured out I could get that event to happen, I jumped on it.

What gets me jazzed about this is that these folks aren’t surface-level “influencers” seeking attention with the same clichéd viewpoints. We’re talking decades of experience coaching writing, in one place.

Here’s what this is, what problem we’ll be solving, and who these folks are.

What it is

A free interactive online discussion with four experts on writing in the age of AI. Register here.

What we’ll cover

Our objective is to identify how AI is undermining people’s ability to write (“cognitive corrosion,” if you will) and what it will take to fix it, both in academic and corporate contexts.

We’ll discuss:

• Are we headed to a world where writers can no longer think?
• Is there evidence that students and workers write less effectively now?
• How might this undermine our ability to be effective?
• If you had the power to change things, what would you change to improve the quality of writing overall?
• What parts of AI are actually improving people’s ability to write and think?
• How should you react to someone who sends you meaningless slop in place of effective communication?
• What elements of writing training — both in college and in workplaces — would get people back on the right track?

Who are these folks?

Put simply, these are four of the world’s top thinkers on teaching people to write better.

• John Warner has been teaching writing and analyzing what works for more than 20 years, including three books on the topic. He’s been railing against formulaic writing assignments including the execrable “five-paragraph essay” — and his latest book, More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI has just been updated and rereleased. He sees AI as an opportunity to reassess our relationship with writing.
• Jane Rosenzweig spent more than 26 years teaching writing at Harvard, including as director of its writing center since 2004 . . . until, in what has to be one of the stupidest moves ever in higher education, the university closed the writing center and canned her. As she wrote, “uncertainty is a valuable part of the experience of writing in college: as we figure out what we think, things often become more complicated rather than simpler.” If anyone knows what it takes to get writers back to thinking, it’s Jane.
• Jessica Weber Metzenroth has had the unique experience of running writing centers both in higher education and, for more than a decade now, in workplace organizations. She is an expert on not just what it takes to get workers to write better, but how to motivate them and why it matters. Writing Without Slop is her latest partnership dedicated to this end.
• Josh Bernoff (that’s me). I’ve been a professional writer for 44 years, a writing mentor to research analysts for 20, and an editorial sherpa for authors for 11. I’ve run dozens of writing workshops based on my book Writing Without Bullshit for corporate writers at organizations like Netflix, Spotify, and Disney. I’m also the author of the writing industry’s most comprehensive study on the impact of AI, soon to be updated for 2027. As Jessica’s partner in Writing Without Slop, I’m passionate about solving the puzzle of how to fit AI into corporate writing environments without unleashing a deluge of toxic workslop.

Admit it. This will be worth it just to see the four of us go at it to try to solve the biggest challenge to writing and thinking ever.

And if you don’t find this the most interesting part of your week, I’ll give you double your money back.