Coming August 17, 2026: a new podcast on AI and writing, straight from the minds of teachers and scholars of writing and rhetoric.

It's the podcast version of the open access book Bad Ideas about AI and Writing: Generative Practices for Teaching, Learning, and Communication (2026), edited by Christopher Basgier, Anna Mills, Mandy Olejnik, Miranda Rodak, & Shyam Sharma, and read for you here by Kyle Stedman.

Transcript of Trailer

So something like a year ago, my wife suggested I give a public lecture in town, and I said, “I don’t know if the things I study and write about are the things that really fit in a public-lecture kind of context,” and SHE said, “But you’re a writing professor, and I think you know what people these days want to hear a knowledgeable, legit writing professor talk about, right?”

I thought for 2 or 3 seconds before I said, “You’re talking about AI, right?” She said, “Bingo.”

I’m Kyle Stedman, and it’s true, I’m a writing professor at Rockford University in Northern Illinois, and it’s true, I have opinions on Generative AI, like most other people these days—and like all writing professors. But I never gave that public lecture that my wife suggested; it felt like too big a topic to wrap my head around, with messy boundaries that change too often.

So when I saw the release of a new open access book on misunderstandings people have about GenAI, written by scholars of writing and rhetoric, I realized what I could do: I could podcast it.

And making a podcast wouldn’t be totally out of the blue or anything. From 2020 to 2022 I read aloud an open access book called Bad Ideas about Writing, and I released it slowly as a podcast. It had 60-something chapters written by different authors, so in the process of reading it for the podcast’s audience, I got to learn a lot of new ideas, connect with a ton of authors I didn’t know, and make that text more accessible. It was great.

So now there’s this new book—at least it’s new now as I’m speaking, in summer 2026—called Bad Ideas about AI and Writing—and this one’s got a subtitle—Generative Practices for Teaching, Learning, and Communication, edited by Christopher Basgier, Anna Mills, Mandy Olejnik, Miranda Rodak, & Shyam Sharma. So I figured, why not dive in and make another podcast? Like the first book, this new collection has a bunch of short chapters written by a diverse group of super-smart scholars, giving me—and you—all the benefits of the first book and podcast: ideas, connections, accessibility, you get it.

And hey, check it out: podcasting gives me a way to engage with these ideas without needing to put together a public lecture of my own. This way, I can just tell people all the typical stuff, which also happens to be true: “Subscribe to the podcast! It’s free, available wherever you like to get your podcasts! Episodes will come out weekly-ish, when I can make that happen, starting August 17, 2026! Leave a review and share with your friends! There aren’t any ads!” All that stuff.

So get ready for episodes to start dropping soon, and let’s explore some bad ideas about AI and writing together, giving us all some ideas about how to respond to this cultural moment.