Why Author Laura Resau Avoids AI Like the Plague

Guest post written by Laura Resau, author of The River Muse
Laura Resau is the author of The River Muse, The Alchemy of Flowers, and eleven acclaimed books for young people. Her books have won five Colorado Book Awards and spots on “best-of” booklists from Oprah, the American Library Association, and more. She has a background in cultural anthropology and languages, and teaches graduate creative writing at Western Colorado University. Visit her at www.lauraresau.com.

About The River Muse (releases May 12, 2026): When a musician escapes her ex-partner and takes refuge with her young daughter in a French village, she reclaims her voice, power, and second chances at friendship and love.

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As an author, I’ve frequently fielded questions about the role of AI in writing books. I’m proud to belong to the forty-eight percent of authors who do not use generative AI in our work and do not plan to (Bookbub, 2025.) Fiction writers like myself are particularly adamant in our rejection of AI (Publishers Weekly, 2025.)

Bottom line: I avoid using AI. Like the Plague. Like my humanity depends on it.

That said, I do have empathy for all humans as we’re trying to navigate this new technology that could change what we are as a species on this planet. I don’t judge anyone for their stance on AI—we all have our own life experiences and challenges that we’re bringing to the table. (Well, maybe I do judge the handful of selfish billionaires running the show.)

Creativity has always been a sacred act for me, a way to connect with something deep and mysterious, to feel fully alive. That’s why I do this work. For me, it would feel sacrilegious to use AI during the creative writing process, whether for brainstorming or researching or drafting or revising. When AI tries to sneak in (I’m looking at you, Google!), I make every effort to ignore it and go directly to human-produced sources of information.

Over the past two decades of my writing journey—through my thirteen books for kids, teens, and adults—one of the greatest joys has been making human connections. I connect with readers, writers, collaborators, consultants, and even with my own deeper self. That’s where the heart and soul are for me.

Let’s take the research stage as example. Most of my research is in person, and for my latest novel, The River Muse, that meant searching for truffles with dogs in the Mediterranean, touring ancient wine cellars and wine-tasting in France, and listening to oral histories from my French host family over delicious meals that stretch from sunset to midnight in Provence. This research strengthened existing friendship bonds and sparked new human (and canine) bonds… while stimulating all my senses in my human body (Truffles! Burgundy! Ratatouille!)

My online searches for human-made websites often result in meaningful, real-life connections too. When I was researching advice on querying agents for my adult debut, The Alchemy of Flowers, I came across author Sarah Penner’s website, where she offers insightful personal essays on this topic. While I was on her website, I looked around (which I’m guessing is what she intended when she created these resources in the first place!).

I’d never heard of her work before, but I promptly read The Lost Apothecary, loved it, and attended an in-person Community Read event, where we chatted… and soon after, she kindly agreed to read my own debut adult novel to consider blurbing it (which she did!). If I had just read Google’s AI overview for “how to get an agent,” I wouldn’t have formed a meaningful connection with Sarah. (I also met a new friend in the signing line, who invited me to a local, in-person book club, which multiplied the human connections.)

Even apparently mundane tasks like fact-checking can enforce human bonds. When I asked my Colorado neighbor from Paris to weigh in on my French expressions in The River Muse, we did so over tea on her deck while our dogs played in her yard. My childhood friend from Maryland, who now lives in the Burgundy region of France, helped with my wine pairings for every meal in the book, resulting in a string of WhatsApp messages (interspersed with cute videos of her daughter’s dance performances) that reinforce our lifelong connection.

But AI does even more harm than taking the heart, soul, and human-ness out of creative endeavors. In my opinion, it’s unethical. I believe that before we use AI for a task, we should ask ourselves these questions:

• Is this necessary? (For me, almost always, no.)
• Is this harming humans’ creativity? (For me, yes.)
• Is this harming human connections? (Yes.)
• Is this harming humans’ job prospects? (Yes.)
• Is this harming the environment? (Yes.)
• Who is ultimately benefitting the most from AI? (A handful of billionaires.)
• Was this AI trained on work by humans who did not give permission? (Most likely, yes.)
• Do our individual actions make a difference? (Yes.)

Again, as humans, we’re all doing the best we can during these chaotic times. Still, part of doing our best means reflecting on our choices and their consequences—for our human connections and our human selves.

In the fourteenth century, the bubonic plague killed off about half of Europe and changed the course of human history. Those victims had little agency in the matter. This time, we do. This time, our eyes are open. Do we want to kill off what makes us human? Hand our creative souls to a handful of billionaires on a silver platter? Or will we resist?

For me, the answer is clear. I avoid AI like the Plague.