Most Writers Are Fans

When Did We Stop Believing In Magic?

We've been told that "main character energy" is a symptom of a screen-addicted generation that can't tell reality from performance. But what if the real problem isn't that we see ourselves as protagonists? It's that we've lost the understanding of what fiction is actually for. Using Megan Garber's Screen People as a jumping off point, this episode makes the case that fiction was never escape. It was always how we understood our world.

Special: The Article That Started It All — Rose Horowitch on Reading, Education, and What's at Stake

In this special minisode, a kind of proto-episode of the Ink Over AI  [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO2Fxo943NBZTPxl_T-BRxr9NNn3JAfpS]series, Terry [http://www.mostwritersarefans.com] sits down with Rose Horowitch, staff writer at The Atlantic, to discuss her widely-read article "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books." What begins as a conversation about struggling college readers quickly opens up into something much larger: a wide-ranging diagnosis of why students across all levels have such a complicated relationship with reading, critical thinking, and the humanities. Rose and Terry trace the roots of the problem from multiple angles. Technology and social media earn their share of the blame, not just because they compete for students' time and attention, but because they've quietly reshaped what students expect from any given moment. When everything in your feed is instantly engaging, sitting with a difficult or slow-moving text starts to feel genuinely unbearable. But Rose is careful to note that anxiety about young people and reading isn't new; she cites someone raising the same concerns back in 1979, and that what makes the current moment distinct is the convergence of several concrete, trackable shifts happening all at once. Among those shifts: the lasting academic fallout of the pandemic, a decades-long pivot in educational policy toward informational texts and standardized testing at the expense of full novels, and a broader cultural devaluation of the humanities in favor of more "marketable" fields like STEM. Terry brings his own perspective as a public school English teacher in rural West Virginia, reflecting on the gap between the populations Rose was reporting on, elite college students, and his own students, and finding more overlap than you might expect. He shares the sobering experience of students telling him that listening to an audiobook in class was the first book they'd ever finished. The conversation also touches on what's actually at stake. Drawing on her reporting, including a conversation with neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, Rose makes the case that deep reading isn't just a nice habit; it's tied to critical thinking, civic engagement, and the ability to hold complexity in your mind. In an era of eroding institutional trust and easy misinformation, that feels more urgent than it might have in previous generations. The two close on a more personal note, with Rose sharing what got her hooked on reading as a kid, her current attempt to make it through War and Peace, and a brief discussion of diversifying the literary canon as one potential path toward re-engaging students who have historically felt left out of the humanities. Topics Covered: * The Atlantic article that sparked the Ink Over AI series and how this interview served as its origin point * How social media and smartphones are reshaping students' attention and expectations * The lasting academic impact of pandemic-era schooling * How No Child Left Behind and Common Core shifted classroom focus away from full novels * The cultural pressure on students to pursue STEM over the humanities * What deep reading actually does for the brain, per neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf * The challenge of motivating students when traditional tools like grades lose their leverage * Diversifying the literary canon as a potential re-entry point for disengaged students * Rose's own reading origin story and her current read: War and Peace Guest Bio: Rose Horowitch is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers education and culture. Her article "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/]" sparked widespread conversation among educators, academics, and readers about the state of literacy and the humanities in America. Edited by Nena King.

The ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ Scam

In this solo minisode of Ink Over AI, Terry starts where a lot of good rabbit holes begin: a personal frustration. While working with Claude to spec out a new gaming PC capable of running Dragon Age: The Veilguard, he noticed that RAM and storage prices were dramatically inflated, a direct consequence of AI companies gobbling up hardware at scale. That observation sent him down a research spiral about the AI bubble, boom-and-bust economics, and whether any of this is actually good for the rest of us. The intellectual core of the episode is a tension between two schools of thought. On one side, venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel argue that economic bubbles are a necessary cost of innovation, that the pain of a bust is worth the technological leap that precedes it. On the other hand, Terry draws on Elizabeth Warren's critique of boom-and-bust economics and Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book Abundance to push back on that framing. His argument: the most transformative technologies of the modern era, the internet, GPS, the touchscreen, the mobile phone, the foundational research behind AI itself, weren't products of VC-fueled risk-taking. They came out of universities, government programs, and publicly funded research during a period of relative economic stability. Venture capital didn't invent any of it. It just monetized it. From there, Terry turns to what he sees as the real cost of the current AI gold rush, not just inflated RAM prices, but something more corrosive. In the classroom, he's watching students outsource their thinking to AI tools, and he worries that a generation raised on frictionless answers will lose the cognitive muscle to generate ideas of their own. He connects this to a broader pattern he's observed in the tech industry: VC money props up a service until it's embedded in people's lives, the cash dries up, and suddenly what used to be affordable becomes essential and expensive. He uses Uber as a case study, a company that disrupted an existing industry, made fares artificially cheap, and then jacked prices once the competition was gone. He doesn't want to see AI follow the same trajectory, especially if the thing people are outsourcing is their own thinking. The episode closes with a challenge to the industry's own promises. If AI is supposed to usher in an era of abundance and ease, Terry asks, where are the measurable, tangible benefits right now? As a teacher who has to set SMART goals every year, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-based, he finds it maddening that the tech industry operates almost entirely without accountability to the people absorbing its costs. Topics Covered: * How building a gaming PC led to a rabbit hole about AI's impact on hardware prices * Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel's "good bubbles vs. bad bubbles" theory, and why Terry isn't convinced * Elizabeth Warren's critique of boom-and-bust economics and what a more stable economy actually produced * Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on the pace of innovation then vs. now * The surprisingly old origins of the internet, GPS, touchscreens, mobile phones, and AI itself — and what that says about who actually drives innovation * The Uber-ification of technology: cheap until it isn't, then too embedded to escape * AI in the classroom and the risk of a generation that can't think without it * Why Terry thinks the tech industry needs to start building real products with measurable value

How to Crowdfund as an Indie Author

In this episode of Most Writers Are Fans, Terry sits down with old friend and fellow teacher-author Cody Walker to talk about one of the most practical and often intimidating tools in the indie author's toolkit: crowdfunding. The conversation starts at the beginning, Cody's first campaign for a comic called Noir City, launched in the shadow of the Sullivan Sluggers controversy, an early cautionary tale about the hidden costs of international shipping. From there, Cody walks through his evolution as a crowdfunder: the failed December Everland comic campaign that taught him never to launch during the holidays, the pivot away from comics after realizing he didn't want to depend on outside artists, and the discovery that his prose could carry a story on its own. Terry and Cody dig into the mechanics of sustainable indie publishing. Cody keeps his Kickstarter goals modest (around $1,500, enough to cover a cover artist, editing, printing, and shipping, with a small buffer) and has found that a reliable core of roughly 30 repeat backers provides a meaningful floor for each campaign. On Patreon, he runs a simple, low-pressure operation with a single dollar tier, driven less by audience obligation than by his own need to feel creatively productive. One of the episode's most interesting threads is Cody's relationship to ambition. Terry observes that Cody doesn't seem to be chasing a career pivot; he identifies primarily as a teacher, and yet he has books planned years out and a creative output that would embarrass many full-time authors. Cody traces his philosophy back to his grandfather, a master craftsman who gave his work away freely because the making of it was the point. That ethos shapes everything: Cody crowdfunds to cover costs, not to get rich, and his most fulfilling moments have nothing to do with sales numbers; they're reading aloud to his son at an empty signing and watching him cry with laughter, or hearing his dad call Patchwork the best thing he's ever written. Topics Covered: * [0:30] Intro — Terry introduces Cody Walker and his work * [1:20] How Cody got into crowdfunding: his first Noir City comic campaign and the Sullivan Sluggers controversy * [3:54] The failed December Everland comic campaign and what it taught him * [4:46] Pivoting from comics to prose and recognizing his own strengths as a writer * [5:29] Building a loyal backer base over time, Patreon, and the value of community support * [7:57] Why Cody chose Patreon and how he keeps it simple and sustainable * [10:34] Kickstarter goal-setting: why Cody aims for $1,500 and how social media algorithms have changed promotion * [12:01] Lessons learned from early campaigns — only promise what you'll actually deliver * [14:50] Balancing full-time teaching, adjuncting, and a prolific creative output * [16:06] Cody's grandfather's craftsman philosophy and why the making matters more than the money * [17:10] The most fulfilling moments: reading to his son at an empty signing, and his dad's reaction to Patchwork * [21:52] The weird and specific dynamics of being a teacher who is also a published author * [26:43] Final crowdfunding tips for authors thinking about taking the leap * [27:45] "What Have You Been a Fan Of Lately?" — Lore Olympus, Vampire Hunter D, Elric, and James Gunn's Superman * [38:26] Where to find Cody online Guest Bio: Cody Walker is a high school English teacher, poet, and indie author based in Missouri. You can find him and support his work at patreon.com/popgunchaos and on Instagram at @popgunchaos. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tyranny of the Fey⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://books2read.com/u/3nDX9e] is now available in ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hardcover and paperback⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠eBook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠audiobook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Read my stories now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠terrybartley.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ [http://www.terrybartley.com]. Send requests to be a guest or comments about the episode to press@starlightkingpress.com Theme Song: Young Squire - TrackTribe, Piano track by sing2pianos

The Lost Generation Problem

In this minisode of Most Writers Are Fans, Terry steps back from writing craft to dig into something that's been on his mind as a lifelong comics fan: a phenomenon he's calling the Lost Generation Problem. It starts personally. Terry came to comics in college through Geoff Johns' Teen Titans — Tim Drake, Conner Kent, Cassie Sandsmark — and fell in love with the energy of younger heroes still figuring out who they want to be. But over time, he noticed something troubling: those characters tend to vanish. A creative team wraps up, priorities shift, and a character with real momentum simply stops appearing. When they resurface, it's usually under a new writer with a rebooted status quo, and everything that came before has been quietly erased. Cassie Sandsmark is the episode's through-line. After strong pre-New 52 characterization, she was reimagined under Scott Lobdell's New 52 run as a much darker figure — thorn-covered lasso, a suit that caused her constant pain — then disappeared entirely when Lobdell left. When Bendis brought her back in Young Justice, she was rebooted again, with the prior era treated as though it never happened. Both DC and Marvel repeat this pattern constantly. X-Men titles introduce new classes of young mutants with every creative era; when the run ends, most of them quietly fade. Jenny Hex, introduced in Bendis's Young Justice with genuine promise, hasn't been seen since. The counterexamples are instructive. Miles Morales and Kamala Khan avoided this fate because Marvel decided they were priorities — pushed across games, animation, and team books. Magik has remained relevant since her debut because someone always champions her editorially. The difference isn't which characters are more interesting; it's whether anyone in power keeps fighting for them. This is where the Lost Generation Problem becomes a Lost Generation Opportunity. Terry pitches a 12-issue Cassie Sandsmark miniseries built around her identity as Zeus's daughter: a Hercules-style trials arc culminating in a choice between ascending to godhood or staying on Earth with the life she's built. It's a story that maps directly onto something real for young readers. the pull between an extraordinary opportunity and the roots you've already put down. The episode closes with Terry naming the real emotional cost of the Lost Generation Problem: the anxiety that sets in every time you invest in a new character. He loves what Eve Ewing is doing with young mutants in her X-Men run and is following Gail Simone's Outliers closely, but he's already bracing for the possibility that when those writers move on, those characters disappear too. His ask to Marvel and DC is simple: stop treating the end of a creative run as the end of a character's story. Topics Covered: * [0:00] Cold open * [0:30] Terry's comics origin story: the Bruce Timm animated universe and Geoff Johns' Teen Titans * [1:49] The New 52 and Scott Lobdell's reimagining of Cassie Sandsmark / Wonder Girl * [3:08] Brian Michael Bendis's Young Justice and the erasure of prior continuity * [4:19] Defining the Lost Generation Problem * [5:23] The X-Men's recurring new class problem — and Chamber as a case study * [6:26] Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, and Magik as examples of characters who escaped the cycle * [8:11] Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle as a prime Lost Generation example * [9:45] The untapped story potential of sidelined characters * [10:15] Terry's pitch: a 12-issue Cassie Sandsmark trials miniseries * [13:56] The Lost Generation Problem as a Lost Generation Opportunity for publishers * [14:45] Current anxiety: Eve Ewing's X-Men and Gail Simone's Outliers * [16:01] What Terry actually wants: continuity, not resets Tyranny of the Fey is now available in hardcover and paperback, eBook, and audiobook. Read my stories now on terrybartley.com. Send requests to be a guest or comments about the episode to press@starlightkingpress.com [press@starlightkingpress.com].