A Better Place is a work of flash fiction that explores what it means when the place you find yourself turns on you. It began as a series of zines, then evolved into a collected work in three sections: Here, There, and Nowhere.

These stories were created through an experiment: not to see whether AI can write creatively on its own, but whether it can serve as a useful partner in the human creative process. I’ve previously tried to use AI to help with drafting but found it frustrating and ultimately abandoned it (probably why a project I call “Space Marple” is taking so long).

My conclusion is that it can, but only in specific ways.

For this collection of flash fiction, I found AI valuable as a first draft collaborator, editor, and endlessly patient reader. It helped me move from an idea to a draft more quickly and gave me something concrete to react to, revise, and reshape. I found it far less capable of producing work that matched the voice, tone, and emotional precision I was aiming for without substantial intervention.

I recognize that using AI in creative work is controversial.

My own view is that creativity itself remains a fundamentally human act. The ideas explored here, the themes, the narrative choices, and ultimately the judgment about what belongs on the page are mine. I have been exploring a different question: whether AI can become another tool, alongside notebooks, editors, writing groups, and trusted readers, that helps an author better express an idea.

I documented my process and conclusions as a disclosure notice at the end of the book.

I also noticed something unintentional and a bit shocking: my own natural writing often looks like AI writing. Is that the way it’s always been? I doubt it, but over the last half-dozen years I’ve deliberately worked to make my writing sharper and shorter, and in the last couple of years I've used AI tools like Grammarly to help me improve. Does that mean I’m converging on writing that sounds only semi-natural, or more like AI?