Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about Draft2Digital, Bookshop DRM, Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Contest, and AI Slop books. Then, stick around for a chat with Benjamin Hale!
Benjamin Hale is the author of the novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore (Twelve, 2011), the short fiction collection The Fat Artist and Other Stories (Simon & Schuster, 2016), and the nonfiction book Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks (HarperCollins, 2026). He has received the Bard Fiction Prize, a Michener-Copernicus Award, and nominations for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. His writing has appeared, among other places, in Conjunctions, Harper’s Magazine, the Paris Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Dissent and the LA Review of Books Quarterly, and has been anthologized in Best American Science and Nature Writing. He is a senior editor at Conjunctions, teaches at Bard College and Columbia University, and lives in a small town in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Check it out!
Benjamin Hale: https://benjamin-hale.squarespace.com/
Cave Mountain: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/cave-mountain-benjamin-hale?variant=43731587661858
Draft2Digital and Bookshop DRM – https://selfpub.substack.com/p/draft2digital-and-bookshop-open-ebook
Unhappy Returns: Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Contest –
For Some Reason, Someone Who Generates AI Slop Books Has Unmasked Herself – https://gizmodo.com/for-some-reason-someone-who-generates-ai-slop-books-has-unmasked-herself-2000719325
AutoCrit: https://autocrit.com/
Author Anchor: https://authoranchor.com/
BookTrib: https://booktrib.com/promote-your-book/#
Show Links:
Writers, Ink on YouTube! – https://www.youtube.com/@jdbarker_author/podcasts
J.D. Barker – https://jdbarker.com/
Christine Daigle – https://www.christinedaiglebooks.com/
Jena Brown – https://www.jenabrownwrites.com
Kevin Tumlinson – https://www.kevintumlinson.com/
JP Rindfleisch: https://shop.jprindfleischix.com/en-cad
BookTrib: https://booktrib.com/promote-your-book/#
TODAY’S SPONSOR:
AutoCrit – https://www.autocrit.com/jd (click this link to take advantage of our Writers, Ink special offer!!!)
Other Links
Best of BookTok – https://bestofbooktok.com/
Booktrib – https://booktrib.com/author/writers-ink/
Music by Nicorus – https://cctrax.com/nicorus/dust-to-dust-ep
Voice Over by Rick Ganley and recorded at Mill Pond Studio
Website Design by Word & Pixel – http://wordandpixel.com/
Contact – https://writersinkpodcast.com/contact/
Transcription: https://app.castmagic.io/share/2ffd7459-4a4c-440b-a4cd-32e0cface870?tab=transcript&ai_content=true&magic_chat=true
*NOTE: Some of the links are affiliate links.