In My Work
- I do not use artificial intelligence/large language models (AI/LLMs) in my work at any stage as an editor, author, and translator, to the best of my knowledge.
- In apps I am required to use for professional purposes, like Microsoft Word and Adobe products, I have turned off AI assistants. They invariably come back after an update, and I turn them off again.
- I use DuckDuckGo without AI for search. I prefer to visit trusted sites directly, including JSTOR and online library catalogs, rather than relying on search results.
- My drafts are created in LibreOffice Writer or Scrivener, and there are usually at least a few saved versions. As of fall 2026, I have started using the snapshot feature in Scrivener to timestamp my drafts in case of a review request.
- When translating, I work by hand. I use paper and pen, and I keep the notebooks.
In Your Work
- If you would like me to edit your work, I would prefer to not edit writing created by AI/LLMs, especially highly creative works like novels, narrative nonfiction, and memoir. I understand that this is difficult to prove, and I don’t want to spend my time trying to ferret out ChatGPT and Claude passages instead of editing human-made books. I really just want to trust you. There are plenty of editors out there who are willing to work in a more cooperative way with AL/LLM assistance. The EFA job boards are a good place to find an editor that fits your process.
- Microsoft Word remains the publishing industry standard for manuscripts, and so I do use it. However, I prefer to work in LibreOffice Writer without any AI assistance. If you are okay with that, great! We can always save a clean Writer file as a Word file (.docx) to send to agents and editors.
- Since I do not use AI/LLMs, your work will not be uploaded to an AI/LLM on my watch. Your writing will not, in this instance, be used to feed the machine.
- I save all my editing work in three places: on my local Windows computer (with CoPilot as turned off/removed as I can manage), on a Sync cloud server that does not to my knowledge use AI/LLMs, and on a separate physical hard drive that does not connect to the internet.