Latest news with #JessWalter
CBS News
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Book excerpt: "So Far Gone" by Jess Walter
HarperCollins Jess Walter, the New York Times bestselling author of "Beautiful Ruins," is back with a new novel, "So Far Gone" (to be published June 10 by HarperCollins). It's about Rhys Kinnick, a journalist who's living off the grid. But when his grandchildren are kidnapped by a right-wing militia, Rhys is forced back into the world – and he charges off on a wild adventure to save them. Read an excerpt below. "So Far Gone" by Jess Walter Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now. ONE What Happened to Kinnick A prim girl stood still as a fencepost on Rhys Kinnick's front porch. Next to her, a cowlicked boy shifted his weight from snow boot to snow boot. Both kids wore backpacks. On the stairs below them, a woman held an umbrella against the pattering rain. It was the little girl who'd knocked. Kinnick cracked the door. He rasped through the dirty screen: "Magazines or chocolate bars?" The girl, who looked to be about ten, squinted. "What did you say?" Had he misspoken? How long since Kinnick had talked to anyone? "I said, what are you fine young capitalists selling? Magazines or chocolate bars?" "We aren't selling anything," said the boy. He appeared to be about six. "We're your grandchildren." A sound came from Kinnick's throat then—a gasp, he might have written it, back when he wrote for a living. Of course they were his grandchildren. He hadn't really looked at their faces. And this strange woman on the steps had thrown him. But now that he did look, he saw family there, in the pronounced upper lip, and the deep-set, searching eyes. No, clearly this was Leah and Asher. Christ! When had he seen them last? He tried to remember, straining to apply an increasingly muddled concept: time. His daughter had brought them up here for a short visit one afternoon. When was that, three years ago? Four? Either way, these were not strangers selling candy for their school. These were his grandkids, flesh and blood of Rhys Kinnick's flesh and blood, his only child, Bethany. But older than six and ten. More muddled time work was required to figure out how much. "Mr. Kinnick?" The woman with the umbrella was speaking now. "Yes," he said. "I'm Kinnick." He addressed the kids again. "Is ... is everything ... Are you ..." The thoughts came too quickly for his mouth to form around them. He opened the door wider. "Where's your mother?" "We're not sure," Leah said. "Mom left a couple of days ago. She said she'd be back in a week. Shane left yesterday to find her." This was thirteen-year-old Leah. Her father was Bethany's old boyfriend Sluggish Doug, long out of the picture. The boy, eight, no nine! Nine-year-old Asher was S**thead Shane's kid. Oh, the riddle of time—and of Bethany's taste in men. Kinnick looked at the woman behind his grandchildren. She was Black, with big round glasses, in her thirties, if he had to guess, roughly his daughter's age. She climbed the last step onto the porch. "I'm Anna Gaines," the woman said. "My husband and I live in the same apartment complex as Bethany and Shane. This morning, Leah came over with this." She held out an envelope. On it, written in Sharpie in Bethany's handwriting: "FOR ANNA." Below that: "in case of emergency." "Mom left it in the closet," Leah said, "in one of my snow boots." Kinnick opened the front screen, came out, and took the envelope. He removed a single sheet of paper, handwritten on both sides in Bethany's neat, backward-leaning script. He patted his shirt pocket for his readers, then squinted to make out the note: Dear Anna. If you're reading this, I had to leave in a hurry. I know this is a lot to ask but can you take the kids to my father, Rhys Kinnick. He is a recluse ... Kinnick looked up. "I am not a recluse." He looked down and began reading again. Dear Anna. If you're reading this, I had to leave in a hurry. I know this is a lot to ask but can you take the kids to my father, Rhys Kinnick. He is a recluse who cut off contact with our family ... "I did not 'cut off contact.' It was—" Rhys felt his blood rising. "Complicated." But his grandchildren just stared at him, apparently as uninterested in nuance and complexity as everyone else in the world. Kinnick grunted again and went back to reading. Dear Anna. If you're reading this, I had to leave in a hurry. I know this is a lot to ask but can you take the kids to my father, Rhys Kinnick. He is a recluse who cut off contact with our family and now lives in squalor ... "Squalor?" Kinnick looked around his covered front porch. "Squalor?" In one corner, a broken old refrigerator stood next to a stack of used boat and car batteries and a burned-out inverter generator; in the other corner was his old wringer washing machine and a single clothesline, from which hung a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. "What is this? In case of emergency, go find my father and make him feel terrible about himself?" His grandchildren continued to stare. Kinnick groaned again, then resumed reading, vowing to make it through the whole letter this time. Excerpted from "So Far Gone" by Jess Walter. Copyright 2025 by Jess Walter. Published with permission from HarperCollins Publishers. Get the book here: "So Far Gone" by Jess Walter Buy locally from For more info:
RTÉ News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
The Chicago Sun-Times debacle proves why we need to protect human voices in journalism
It was inevitable, but it doesn't make it any less terrifying. Most people working within the creative arts - musicians, animators, filmmakers, designers - have already felt the ramifications of AI within their industries. We've seen very recently how writers have had their work essentially stolen by Meta for the purpose of 'training' their AI model. And now it's coming for journalism. The slow creep that began with harmless self-service checkouts at Tesco is now beginning to look like a landslide. You may have already heard the story about the Chicago Sun-Times ' recent run-in with AI. An eagle-eyed reader spotted that a 'Summer reading list for 2025' feature contained several titles that were… well, non-existent. Mixed in with some genuine publications like Atonement by Ian McEwan (not exactly what you might call a 'beach book') and Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruin, it made for a chillingly convincing read, nonetheless. One of the entries, titled The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir, read: "Following his success with The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Weir delivers another science-driven thriller. This time, the story follows a programmer who discovers that an AI system has developed consciousness - and has been secretly influencing global systems for years.' Not only does the book not exist, but it felt like a very pointed piece of guff. Listen: The Ray D'Arcy Show on AI and the music industry The newspaper quickly released a statement saying "We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon." They later claimed that it was licenced from a 'national content partner' and syndicated to various publications, including their own. Embarrassing, yes. Worrying? Speaking as a journalist, without a doubt. Most people working within the creative arts - musicians, animators, filmmakers, designers - have already felt the ramifications of AI within their industries. It's not the first time that AI has pulled the wool over newspaper editors' eyes, either. In 2023, The Irish Times was pretty effectively duped after it was revealed that an opinion piece they had published, which was supposedly written by someone purporting to be a young immigrant, was actually generated by AI. All of this proves a very important point: AI might cut down on an editor's workload (and budget), never miss a deadline and provide copy that's clean as a whistle - but it cannot replicate the human experience. Listen: RTÉ Drivetime on AI and the creative industries When I first dipped my toe into music writing over twenty years ago, I had little to no experience. With no university degree and no formal training, it was a case of learning on my feet. I loved music and I could string a decent sentence together, so it was simply a matter of writing (and reading, and listening to) as much as possible - not an overnight endeavour, by any means. I began writing for an online music zine for free to get experience, and eventually got a job on a website doing interminably dull data entry, in the hope that I could somehow get a foot in the door and work my way up the ladder. A couple of decades later, I'd like to think that I'm a better writer, having interviewed hundreds of people from across the arts, listened to countless albums, attended a multitude of gigs, read endless books and watched innumerable films and TV shows. I write from the experience of being a human who has done those things and learned something from them all. Even so, the fear that AI is coming for my job - a job that I love, albeit in an industry that is increasingly difficult to make a living from as a freelancer - is always in the back of my mind. When editors choose to syndicate something like the 'summer reading list for 2025' instead of commissioning a living person who has amassed that knowledge or researched it the old fashioned way, it proves the importance of protecting human voices more than ever. And in this era of convincing deepfakes and disinformation, who else can we trust?
