Vauhini Vara, an award-winning journalist and novelist, chats with Aarthi Vadde, co-founder of Novel Dialogue and editor of a Norton Anthology. They dive into how big tech influences our understanding of communication and personal identity. Topics include the evolving roles of AI in writing, the blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction, and the potential impact of large language models like ChatGPT. Their conversation reveals a thoughtful examination of tech's role in literature while maintaining a humorous perspective on co-writing with AI.
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insights INSIGHT
Blurring Fiction and Nonfiction
Vauhini Vara sees fiction and nonfiction as differing mainly in claims to truth, not truth itself.
She embraces a fluid genre boundary, mixing personal subjectivity and factual grounding.
insights INSIGHT
Subjectivity Unites Journalism, Fiction
Journalism and fiction both involve subjective communication shaped by perspective.
Vara acknowledges her early journalistic belief in objectivity was naive, embracing subjectivity now.
insights INSIGHT
Fairness Through Subjective, Fact-Based Writing
Searches balances personal subjectivity with fairness grounded in facts and research.
Readers see varied interpretations on the book's stance toward big tech, reflecting its nuance.
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Michel de Montaigne's "Essays" is a landmark work of Renaissance literature, comprising over 100 essays on diverse topics ranging from personal experiences to political and philosophical reflections. Written in a conversational and introspective style, the essays reveal Montaigne's personality and intellectual curiosity. His exploration of human nature, skepticism, and the complexities of life has had a profound impact on subsequent writers and thinkers. The essays' intimate and personal tone established a new literary form, influencing the development of the personal essay and memoir. Montaigne's work remains relevant today for its insightful observations on human experience and its enduring exploration of fundamental questions about life and death.
Alphabetical Diaries
Sheila Heti
Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries is a unique and experimental work that reorders a decade's worth of diary entries into alphabetical order. This unconventional approach challenges traditional notions of time and narrative, creating a fragmented yet compelling exploration of self-discovery and the creative process. The book delves into Heti's personal life, thoughts, and experiences, weaving together seemingly disparate entries to reveal a deeper understanding of her artistic journey. The alphabetical structure forces the reader to engage with the text in a non-linear way, prompting reflection on the nature of memory, identity, and the passage of time. The book's experimental form and introspective content have garnered critical acclaim and established Heti as a significant voice in contemporary literature.
The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde's essay, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," critiques the limitations of using existing power structures to achieve social change. Lorde argues that relying on the tools of the oppressor will only perpetuate oppression. She emphasizes the need for marginalized groups to develop their own strategies and tools for liberation. The essay highlights the importance of embracing difference and challenging dominant narratives. It remains a crucial text for understanding the complexities of social justice movements.
The Immortal King Rao
The Immortal King Rao
Vauhini Vara
Searches
Searches
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Vauhini Vara
In an essay about her recent book Searches (Pantheon, 2025), a genre-bending chronicle of the deeply personal ways we use the internet and the uncanny ways it uses us, Vauhini Vara admits that several reviewers seemed to mistake her engagement with ChatGPT as an uncritical embrace of large language models. Enter Aarthi Vadde to talk with Vauhini about the power and the danger of digital tech and discuss to what it means to co-create with AI. Vauhini tells Aarthi and host Sarah Wasserman that at the heart of all her work is a desire to communicate—that “language,” as she says, “is the main tool we have to bridge the divide.” She explains that the motivation in Searches as in her journalism is to test out tools that promise new forms of communication—or even tools that promise to be able to communicate themselves. Amidst all her interest in new tech, Vauhini is first and foremost a writer: she and Aarthi discuss what it means to put ChatGPT on the printed page, what genre means in today’s media ecosystem, and whether generative AI will steal writers’ paychecks.
Considering generative AI models as tools that “don’t have a perspective,” makes for an episode that diagnoses the future of writing with much less doomsaying than authors and critics often bring to the topic. And if all of this writing with robots sounds too “out there,” stay tuned for Vauhini’s down-to-earth answer to our signature question.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vauhini Vara, Searches (2025), The Immortal King Rao (2022), “My
Decade in Google Searches” (2019)
Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays (1580)
Tom Comitta, The Nature Book (2023)
Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries (2024), “According to Alice” (2023)
Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools will never Dismantle the Master’s
New Books Network 
