How do you work, compete, and succeed in a tech world where the very systems we've created tell us that we - and our work - are not human enough? I’ve literally had my own writing flagged as AI-generated more than once. There’s nothing quite like pouring your heart and soul into something, laboring over every single word, and then being told by a machine, "This doesn’t feel human." A human-designed AI tool telling a human they’re not human enough. We use AI to "detect" AI as if the circle of irony couldn’t tighten any further. Humans create AI, and then AI turns around and questions whether we are capable of doing what we literally taught it to do. These tools are not magical truth-tellers. They rely on patterns, word choices, syntax, and tone. Write something too polished? AI. Use big words? Definitely AI. Add sarcasm and personality? Oops, still AI. Apparently, we’ve forgotten that humans can also write thoughtfully and with depth. So... writers have their wor...

It's true! I began writing a non-fiction book when I was 24, which was roughly 27 years ago. I managed to squeeze out a preface and seven fairly decent chapters. However, college happened, which changed my entire approach to and relationship with writing. The idea of going back through all of those paragraphs to wordsmith them into something more appropriate and worthy of publishing seemed daunting, to say the least. Thus, the book stayed "shelved" on my hard drive and backed up numerous times throughout the years until I recently "dusted it off" while perusing an old external hard drive.  Another reason I had been procrastinating - aside from the fact that I had literally forgotten about it several times - was that the book was initially an autobiography of sorts. At the time I had begun writing it, I had barely started living and experiencing life. I was only seven years into my transition. Although I had a story to tell, it was far less compelling than the on...