The Nobel Prize for Literature Goes to…

vic fortezza
3 min readFeb 23, 2023

Headline from nypost.com: “Sci-fi magazine won’t accept submissions after surge of bot-written stories.” Will authors be replaced by AI? According to an uncredited — bot? — article from Reuters: “There were over 200 e-books in Amazon’s Kindle store as of mid-February listing ChatGPT as an author or co-author, including How to Write and Create Content Using ChatGPT, The Power of Homework and the poetry collection Echoes of the Universe. And the number is rising daily.” In his 1971 short story collection, Vermillion Sands, the late J. G. Ballard mentions automated poetry machines in Studio 5, The Stars. I’m not sure anyone else got as close to the idea, although several writers foresaw AI. What do I think about it? I don’t care. Hundreds if not thousands of self-published books hit the market each year. All but two of my books are self-published. The glut seems permanent and I doubt it prevents good work from reaching an audience… Silly sidebar: I was thrilled to have dug up the title of that book from my memory. I read it more than a year ago. Such is life at 72+… Photo from Google Images:

And in a vein similar to the above, NYP headline: “Faking it: AI is transforming porn industry: It ‘will never be as interesting’.” I find it hard to believe anyone would prefer it to the real thing. Part of the allure is the recklessness and rebelliousness porn taps into that is suppressed in most folks.

For once the accusation seems valid, headline from nypost.com: “‘It’s immoral’: Resisting the growth of charter schools is racist, supporters claim.” And: “The evidence of charter-school success is undeniable — why hold them back?” Guess.

Government in a nutshell, headline from NYP: “Spritz of sanity: It’s insane that NYers can use — but not buy pepper spray for self-defense: Change this now.” It might come in handy when the likes of Pepper Anderson aren’t around. Photo from GI:

I spent most of today’s session of the floating book shop in the car, out of the raw cold. My thanks to those who donated, swapped and bought wares, especially the woman who took home four of my books: Curious Sicilian, Class of ’67, Killing and Exchanges, the latter now profitable. Here’s what else sold: I Am Legend (2007) on DVD, a history collection from Brooklyn College; The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter; American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race by Douglas Brinkley; The Year of the Flood by Magaret Atwood; Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind; Whale of a Crime by Karen MacInerney; Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe. I am blessed.

My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts

Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza

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vic fortezza

I was born in Brooklyn in 1950 to Sicilian immigrants. I’ve had more than 50 short stories published world wide. I have 13 books in print.