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Mimetic Armageddon and the Modern Plague of “Bad Readers”

2/1/2026

by Dimitrius DeMarco

Image by Blaz Photo on Unsplash

People who can’t read are ruining the world, and we’re letting them. If I had a dime for every instance of a title, theme, character, or concept getting bastardized by some barely-literate half-wit, I’d be part of the way across the northern sea on a luxury cruise trying to get a good look at aurora borealis. The sad truth of the matter is that we’re in trouble, and it’s permeating into every aspect of our lives: in classrooms, in media, and in government.

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Don’t Take Writing Advice

1/1/2026

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by Adam Buckley

Via Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The irony of this statement is not lost on me. By telling you not to take writing advice, I am, in fact, giving you writing advice—however!—if you follow me where I’m headed, you’ll see where I’m coming from. Age-old axioms like “show, don’t tell,” and “good characters have agency,” have kernels of truth to them; that’s why they’re so often repeated, but what comes after? How do writers really get better? My goal here isn’t to rebuke the institutions of writing criticism or education entirely, more so to make the case against generalized platitudes and advocate for contextual and self-motivated methods of improving one’s work.

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AI in the Composition Classroom: Students Aren’t Stupid, They’re Scared

12/1/2025

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by Megan Nielsen

It’s 2025, and I work in a college writing center. Of course, AI usage has run rampant in recent years. ChatGPT haunts me at work, constantly looming over me. One day, I’m shown a paper in a document with the AI prompt still sitting at the top of the page. The next day, I ask students a question, and many of them pull up ChatGPT right in front of me, with no shame, and robotically plug the question in for a response. ChatGPT is the new Google, except now when I ask students for sources, they can’t point me to a website or journal. They can only refer me to their all-knowing robot god.

Image by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Initially, when this phenomenon began a few years ago, I grew angry at my students and the world in general. I’d read all about AI, discussed it in my classes and with peers, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to use it. It steals material from artists and writers without their consent or compensation, it’s ruining the environment with its massive amounts of water usage, and worst of all, it isn’t even right most of the time. It makes up both sources and facts, and I wouldn’t stand for it. I knew I had to stop my students from conferring with the evil machine at any cost.

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What's in a Name?

8/1/2025

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by Alexa Diamant

via flickr by Steve Jurvetson

The enemies have taken over the ship! Quick, Captain, we must board our escape pods and find life somewhere else. But before we go, you’ll need to verify your identity to access the pods. What do you mean you don’t know? What’s that you say—the author changed it again? Damn those writers and their incessant need to constantly change our names!

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I Built Lit Camp on the Cheap, and You Can Too

7/1/2025

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by Stephen Harrison

Late night Starbucks lights are just enough to let you move around and know that you’re not meant to nap here. The customers typically look harried at 2 a.m., and the menu is limited. But Starbucks is open nonetheless. Fluorescent white lighting and soft talking mixed with honestly pretty shitty coffee served as a launchpad for the rest of my academic career.

Photo by Stefen Tan on Unsplash

During my education as a journalism major, I spent many evenings visiting an open all night location near Rutgers University, but I didn’t spend my time there alone. The three of us—Dan, Carl, and I—all aspiring writers, needed someplace where we could work together. The importance of this was lost on me at the time, but in retrospect, it was critical to my development. Somewhere in the late night coffees and arguments about the merits of this piece or that piece, something was brewing for me.

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Mimetic Armageddon and the Modern Plague of “Bad Readers”

Don’t Take Writing Advice

AI in the Composition Classroom: Students Aren’t Stupid, They’re Scared

What's in a Name?

I Built Lit Camp on the Cheap, and You Can Too

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