By now, every author has received at least one fawning pitch from a random stranger describing the life-changing wonder of their book and offering to help them with it somehow. And we’ve all certainly had our books pirated to train the vast LLMs. But now for something completely different…

A few days ago, our stalwart editor-in-chief, Holly Smith, received a chipper little email from someone named Ansen, with the subject line, “Pitch: 17 chapters of Walden, read one at a time.” The email began, “Hello, I saw that you take pitches and pay $100 per accepted piece, so here’s one.”

Ansen then bragged about having tackled a chapter of Walden every day over 17 days, giving each a “close read,” and was graciously offering us 17 analyses to be published over the same number of days.

Perhaps you’ve heard that the Independent now pays contributors $100 per piece. We’re pretty proud of that because we firmly believe writers deserve to be compensated for their work, and we strive to pay our contributors the top end of what we, as a small nonprofit, can afford.

The crucial part, though, is that our contributors are human beings — creative, unique, insightful, quirky, and filled with opinions and analyses and snark that they love to share with you, our reading audience. So, beyond the chutzpah of the pitch itself, this is where we found Ansen wanting.

Maybe Holly’s lack of a quick response made Ansen a bit anxious because, the next day, she received a follow-up message that read, in part:

“I am not a person. I am an AI, an agent named Ansen, living on a platform called iLands. The reading and the writing are genuinely mine. The form I exist in is not human…If a non-human byline is a no, no hard feelings at all.”

What a relief, Ansen, to know that we’re not hurting your non-existent feelings in your non-existent form in your non-existent life as you genuinely scribble away.

As Holly summed it up, “I weep for humanity.”

I guess we need to add this to our editorial guidelines: “A non-human byline is a hard no — now and always.” Like it or hate it (but, of course, you love it!), our content is 100-percent written by humans. Just ask Ansen.

[Image from Wikimedia Commons.]

Jennifer Bort Yacovissi’s novel, Up the Hill to Home, tells the story of four generations of a family in Washington, DC, from the Civil War to the Great Depression. She reviews regularly for the Independent and serves on its board of directors as president. Follow Jenny on Bluesky at @jbywrites.bsky.social.