Human Writes:
Writing in the age of AI and social media.
with Catherine Mayer, Jamie Bartlett, Luke Jennings and Winnie M Li
On April 16th, 2026, bestselling author and journalist Catherine Mayer moderated the panel Human Writes, featuring technology writer and broadcaster Jamie Bartlett, acclaimed novelist Winnie M Li and Killing Eve author Luke Jennings exploring the challenges of writing and promoting books in the age of AI. The event was part of the Alternative Book Fair. Here is an unedited recording.
Broadcaster and tech writer Jamie Bartlett whose books include the brand-new How to Talk to AI: (And How Not To), The Dark Net (2014) and The People Vs Tech (2018). He wrote and presented the smash hit BBC podcast series The Missing Cryptoqueen which uncovered a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme.
Catherine Mayer is a bestselling author and award-winning journalist, the former Europe editor of TIME magazine and the co-founder of the Women’s Equality Party and Primadonna Festival. Her books include Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly about the changing attitudes to age and ageing, Attack of the 50ft Women, described as ‘a compelling feminist call to arms’, and a memoir, Good Grief. Her biography Charles: The Heart of a King generated worldwide headlines with its claims of dysfunction in the royal courts and was a Sunday Times top-ten bestseller. Her first novel, Time/Life, was published by Renard Press in 2025.
Winnie M Li is the author of three novels and Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. Her most recent novel What We Left Unsaid is out in paperback now. A former film producer, her debut Dark Chapter won The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize, was nominated for an Edgar Award, and translated into ten languages. She has since adapted it for the screen. Her follow-up Complicit was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award. Winnie holds a PhD from the London School of Economics in Media and Communications and an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland.
Luke Jennings is the author of the Killing Eve novels, the basis for the worldwide hit TV series. The novels follow the thrilling, obsessive duel between Villanelle, an elite assassin, and Eve Polastri, the MI6 agent tasked with hunting her down. The sixth of these novels, Luke’s much-anticipated new title Killing Eve: Medusa, is published on May 11. Further novels tracking Villanelle and Eve’s lethal adventures and volatile relationship will follow. Luke is a London-based former journalist who has written for the Observer, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. He is the author of Blood Knots, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson and William Hill prizes, amongst other fiction and non-fiction titles. With his daughter Laura, he wrote the Stars stage-school novels.