What’s New at The Writing King: Week of September 13, 2026

Sep 19 · Ghostwriting, Publishing

The One-Hour Call Before I Quote Your Book

This week, what a ghostwriter is listening for in the first hour, what you should be asking back, and why silence afterward is the answer.

Sep 19 · Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity

The Hugging Face AI Agent Attack: An Operations Reading

This week, an operations reading of the Hugging Face AI agent attack, and why seven percent of the transcripts matter more than the thirteen hours.

Sep 19 · Artificial Intelligence, Ghostwriting

What an AI Detector Score on Your Manuscript Is Worth

This week, why an AI detector score proves less than it appears to, and the four questions that settle the matter properly.

Sep 19 · Artificial Intelligence, Ghostwriting

What It Costs to Fix an AI-Written Manuscript

This week, why an AI-written manuscript gets priced as a rewrite instead of an edit, and the three honest options an author has.

Sep 19 · Artificial Intelligence, Ghostwriting

When a Client Thinks the Ghostwriter Used AI

This week, what to do when you suspect your ghostwriter used AI, and the four questions that answer it without a detector.

Sep 19 · Ghostwriting, Memoirs

When Your Own Memoir Sounds Like Bragging

This week, why the authors most worried about sounding boastful are the ones whose books are fine, and the four moves that settle it.

Sep 19 · Ghostwriting, Publishing

Monthly or Milestone: How Ghostwriting Gets Billed

This week, the two ways ghostwriting gets billed, which one survives a bad quarter, and the clause every contract should carry.

Sep 19 · Memoirs, Publishing

The Quotation Marks That Get Authors Sued

This week, why remembered dialogue in quotation marks is the riskiest thing in a memoir, and what to do instead.

Sep 19 · Fiction, Memoirs

When Your Memoir Should Be a Novel

This week, the moment a memoir should become a novel, what changing the names really does, and the three cases where it fails.

Sep 15 · Behind the Book, Fiction

Behind the Book: The Mysterious Island, Neb’s Side

This week, the man Verne put on almost every page without ever letting him matter, why the retelling is a second set of notes, and a narrator who tells you up front he is not reliable.

Sep 15 · Memoirs, Publishing

How to Organize Decades of Memories Into a Memoir

Your life contains stories worth preserving; the challenge is not whether you have enough material but how to organize decades of experience into something that reads well and captures what actually mattered. Some of my most rewarding projects have been memoirs for seniors, a ninety-two-year-old developer, a woman with a hidden history. Here is a practical guide to writing yours.

9/10Sep 19

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) Review

A 1970 film about a defense computer that locks humanity out of its own arsenal becomes a masterclass in how perfect systems can become perfect prisons. If you've ever watched a specification go catastrophically right, this one's for you.

Sep 19 · Fiction

The Adolescence of P-1

Thomas J. Ryan wrote about computer worms spreading across networks to survive in 1977, decades before the tech existed or the word did. A 1977 novel about an AI that escapes its creator and just wants to keep living, and it's still the best prediction of how things go wrong.

Sep 15 · People, Personal Growth

Ayse Cerami Tribute

A tribute to Ayse Cerami, a tribal style belly dancer with the She'enedra troupe whom Richard Lowe photographed at dozens of shows in the years after his wife died, and who said everything she had to say in the dance.

Sep 13

Movie Reviews by Genre

A genre index of the site's film and television reviews, with every genre grouped into eight sections, a count beside each, and a search box for finding any review by title.

Sep 13

Every Ranked Film List

Browse 85 ranked film lists with 2,521 films across every genre, from action to animation, plus lists built around craft, criticism, and where the consensus gets it wrong.