When I was a child, I got hooked on the feeling of putting an idea on paper. I’d spend hours revising it until it glinted with a magical light. Words are how I see the world; they’re the reason I journal every morning, scribble down metaphors in notebooks, and craft poems to send to my friends on their birthdays. I earned my degree in writing, and it's one of the best choices I've made. It is now my mission to give away what I learned.

People are worried AI is going to take the jobs of artists, and maybe that’s true. But no one can steal the joy of creating from us. That’s why I’m here—for the love of the game (and to reclaim the em-dash). I don’t write for the final product, I write because I enjoy it. An AI engine cannot give you the satisfaction of having toiled to create something true, good, and beautiful.

Words have power. In the beginning, God created the world with words, and I doubt that’s a coincidence. If we are made in the image of a creative God whose Son is called the Living Word, then we have both the capacity and the duty to create.

Big tech tells us to consume more, and it’s killing us, which is why I started Living Poet Society. My desire is to use language for good, to give you tools to make it easy to choose creativity over consumption, and to build a community of artists who are ready to see, speak, and live again.

If you want to join me in this countercultural act of creating, it would be an honor to have you.

-Mary Grace Curran