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This article first appeared in Book Gossip, a newsletter about what the literati are really thinking. Sign up here <\/a>to get it in your inbox every two weeks.<\/p>\n Last month, two incidents appear to have shifted the conversation around AI and publishing for good: (1) Jamir Nazir\u2019s prize-winning short story \u201cThe Serpent in the Grove,\u201d chosen by the Commonwealth Foundation and then hosted on Granta\u2019s website per a preexisting agreement, was suspected of being written using an LLM<\/a>, and (2) author Steven Rosenbaum said that ChatGPT \u201cfucked up\u201d his book<\/a> about how AI is reshaping reality by inserting a number of misattributed or totally fake quotes. (You couldn\u2019t prompt Chat to write a more on-the-nose irony than that.) While book publishers, who do not systemically fact-check longform nonfiction works, appear particularly vulnerable<\/a> to unknowingly propagating AI hallucinations, literary-magazine editors are now faced with the dilemma of whether to screen submissions for prose generated with the so-called help of AI and how.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Serpent in the Grove\u201d struck a nerve with readers and writers, but lit-mag editors are not yet panicking about the possibility of AI-inflected stories overwhelming their inboxes. \u201cI think we\u2019d be having a different conversation if the technology could do the things we like and want,\u201d said Samuel Rutter, editor-in-chief of the relatively new mag Kismet. \u201cWe\u2019re still working with a lot of writers for whom the ideating and the writing is almost the more exciting part than the publishing,\u201d he said. Joyland co-editor-in-chief Walker Caplan agreed that any AI-authored stories would be weeded out through their usual editorial standards organically, arguing that conversations among Joyland staff about AI dovetail into existing questions about the type of work they want to publish in general. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to accept writing simply because it sounds like a plausible or optimized story,\u201d Caplan said. \u201cWe want to accept stories that have a singular, even idiosyncratic vision.\u201d Editors who prioritize style are already hunting drafts for the type of muddy turns of phrase and mixed metaphors that LLMs are known to deploy.<\/p>\n Unlike news organizations, lit mags have the benefit of taking their time. Per N+1 co-editor Lisa Borst, lit mags are a \u201czone of beautiful, countercyclical inefficiency. We publish pretty infrequently. The work isn\u2019t meant to be super-easy to digest or to write.\u201d It\u2019s an intensive process that involves the type of back-and-forth between editor and writer that Borst believes would double as a screen for AI. \u201cThe question is, \u2018Can this person nimbly respond to your suggestion or defend their own work?\u2019 And if they can\u2019t, that to me is the biggest red flag,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean there won\u2019t be unintended negative consequences for new writers especially. A couple of the editors I spoke to were concerned that, as magazines increasingly lean on writers they already know and trust, it may become more difficult for emerging talent to break into publishing. Still, many publications remain committed to discovering new talent, even if it costs them time and energy. Kelley Deane McKinney, managing editor at The Paris Review, said when they find a debut writer they want to work with, they might give feedback on several stories before finally publishing them: \u201cArt isn\u2019t produced via efficiency; good writing isn\u2019t better than bad writing because it\u2019s efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n