In 2026, original, human-crafted writing is having a moment.

Small business owners are returning to long-form content, sloughing off the algorithm’s unattainable demands, and finally realizing that 24/7 content creation is an unsustainable, neverending game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

At the same time, academia is in a weird spot—navigating the potential uses of AI while trying to remain inside the ethical lines, even as those lines are shifting in the face of technology.

And authors? They’re still authoring, and mostly nursing a healthy mistrustof non-human-writing and any type of writing that could be seen as “selling out.”

Each of these three writing-dependent worlds sits in its own little silo, isolated from the other two—but there’s so much wisdom to be gained from a bit of cross-pollination.