Larry M. Edwards's Blog

A short account of my debut exchange with a chatbot. Its final comments may surprise you, as it did me, in more ways than one. (My disclaimer: This piece has racial overtones but is not intended to offend anyone, although devout AI evangelists may take issue with it.)

You know that feeling when you have something on the tip of your tongue but cannot quite formulate the precise words you’re looking for? That happened to me this morning as I tried to recall the title of an old blues song. I cou...

Coming soon from an author I work with as editor . . .

Book 5 of 5: A.J. Hawke Legal Thriller
Blood in the Water: An A. J. Hawke Legal Thriller
by Donald E. McInnis
Release date: June 1 2025

The two children of a ruthless Mexican drug lord have been kidnapped and are being secretly held by the FBI. . . .

I found this review of AI tools illuminating and it saved me a lot of time to confirm what I suspected. Thank you, Ariane Peveto and Jane Friedman.

https://janefriedman.com/the-hidden-costs-of-ai-copyediting-tools-an-editors-review/

I recommend reading the entire piece, not only by writers and editors, but purchasers and consumers of written material edited by AI, and, in particular, produced by AI.

Conclusion: AI copyediting tools, like their counterparts created for line and developme...

Autumn, shorter days, longer nights, calls for good reads . . .

Coming soon . . . from two of the authors I work with . . .

Camp Salvador: A Novel
by M.L. Meurs
Release date: November 5, 2024

Experience a trip to a quirky beachfront surfer camp and its unusual cast of aging ex-pat characters and animals in Baja California, Mexico . . . in cartel country.

Pre-order at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJ4HCWKD

Cops Gone Bad: An A.J. Hawke Legal Thriller
by Donald E. McInnis
Book 4 of...

One of the authors I worked with this year, Hannah Snyder, has her book out: My Kaleidoscope Brimming With Light: A Memoir.

Heartwarming story about a 3-year-old adopted from South Korea by a family in the American Midwest, her struggles to adjust, and her effort to track down her birth parents.

My Kaleidoscope Brimming With Light: A Memoir.

Mark your calendar: October 11, 2024

Book release: Chariot Canyon: A Rent Beacham Mystery by award-winning author and Pulitzer Prize nominee Larry M. Edwards.

When investigative journalist Rent Beacham looks into reports of EBT fraud, he has no clue his investigation not only will take him into a remote, semi-lawless area of San Diego County, but that a twist of fate will give his probe a more personal—and deadly—nature than he ever imagined.

As Rent digs deeper, he suspects a sinist...

Sly brilliance? Or happenstance?

I want to believe the former, but I suspect the latter.

Either way, thank you, Los Angeles Times editors, for the laugh.

I thoroughly enjoyed the placement of three opinion pieces in Sunday’s Op-Ed section (March 31, 2024), in particular the pairing of the piece about Easter being a nondenominational beacon for hope, and below it a piece about the “real nightmare” of AI. I love the irony, the paradox, the dichotomy—choose yo...

Sad state of affairs . . .

San Diego Public Library Joins Campaign to Protect Access to #BannedBooks https://timesofsandiego.com/life/2023/09/28/san-diego-public-library-joins-campaign-to-protect-access-to-banned-books/

A recent report from the nonprofit PEN America that found a 28% increase in book bans enacted across the country in the first half of the 2022- 23 school year, compared to the previous six months.

Reading this insightful item in the New York Times brings to mind my own role as a teacher in years past—and believing that its author, Ms. Bridgette Exman, will be sequestering in her Iowa office a book with which I am not only familiar, but encouraged my students to read.

This Summer, I Became the Book-Banning Monster of Iowa. There are no winners in the game of censorship.

Were some of today’s laws regarding book bans in force when I taught junior high school 50 years ago, I have ...

Or C. Brontë Takes on the Publishing Establishment and English Literati

Today’s so-called “indie” authors bemoan the state of the publishing industry, complaining that they don’t get respect nor a fair shake from the publishing establishment and, thus, have no choice but to resort to the “vanity” of publishing their works themselves. They proceed as independent publishers or employ a publishing service, such as Amazon’s KDP or Ingram’s IngramSpark, or one of the many other outfits offering si...