AI and Creative Writing Practice Webinar

From generative writing tools to augmented publishing processes, artificial intelligence is rapidly changing and challenging the landscape of creative writing and publishing. To respond, MyWorld and Bath Spa University’s Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries (CCCI) and Narrative and Emerging Technologies (NET) Lab have developed a series of free webinars, Writing with Technologies, to offers an in-depth look at AI’s emerging influence across writing and publishing in multiple fields. 

Watch the first of our new series of webinars, writers James Bradley, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and Mujie Li explore the impact of artificial intelligence on the craft of writing. We discuss how AI tools can enhance the creative process through the practical applications of AI in research, editing and idea generation. We explore ethical considerations, copyright issues and the environmental impact of AI tools as well as the limitations of AI for capturing human emotion and nuance and the risk of losing our unique voices. Presented in collaboration with the University of Adelaide and chaired by Professor Patrick Flanery.   

Speaker Bios

Dr James Bradley OAM is a writer and critic. His books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist, Clade and Ghost Species, a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and a work of non-fiction, Deep Water: The World in the Ocean. He is currently an Honorary Associate at the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, and his new novel, Landfall, will be published in 2025.   

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne is an author, data scientist and journalist from Sri Lanka. He is also the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Watchdog Sri Lanka, a factchecker, investigative journalism hub and community tech builder. His fiction includes novels like Numbercaste, the Wretched and the Damned, and The Salvage Crew, as well as short stories and the occasional bit of game design. His work has won the Gratiean Prize, been nominated for the Nebula and Independent Games Festival awards, appeared in venues like Wired, ForeignPolicy and Slate, and been Washington Post and Audible bestsellers. He has also shown up on Forbes’ 30 Under 30, been a Dangerous Speech fellow, and spoken at TEDx. He has several cats who care about none of these things and spends most of his time on his homestead in the mountains, learning the care and feeding of potato plants. 

Mujie Li is an experimental writer and a researcher of digital media and culture. Her research explores how literary aspects (such as writing, reading, text and language) in digital and computational technological conditions work together to shape digital aesthetics. She is the author of the novella Mirage Time (2017, published by Dostoyevsky Wannabe). Recent article: ‘Media Language and the Technological Imaginary’ (2024).   

Chair: 

Dr Patrick Flanery is Chair and Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide. He is the author of the novels Night for Day, I Am No One, Fallen Land, and Absolution, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Granta and Zoetrope: All Story. His work has been supported by fellowships at MacDowell, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Santa Maddalena Foundation, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study.