Why We Still Write: Human Expression in the Age of AI
We live in extraordinary times.
Machines can write now. They can compose emails, draft articles, even generate lines of poetry that echo human sentiment. Artificial intelligence models can mimic tone, imitate voice, and weave together arguments that pass for original thought. This might lead some to ask: Why should humans still write?
At Westbrae Literary Group, we don’t ask why — we ask how could we not?
The Deep Roots of Human Expression
Before we had paper, before alphabets, before even the concept of permanence, we had expression. Humans painted on cave walls. We told stories by firelight. We sang myths into memory. Our earliest ancestors left not just footprints, but messages.
Expression is not a modern invention. It’s an evolutionary inheritance.
In fact, expression — through language, gesture, symbol — is one of the key ways humans have adapted to shifting environments. As the world around us changed, our stories changed. As dangers rose, so did our myths. We evolved not only to survive, but to mean something.
Expression Is an Act of Reclaiming
In an age of algorithms and attention markets, where digital noise can drown out quiet thought, the simple act of writing — of pausing, reflecting, shaping — becomes a way to reclaim our time, our emotions, and our point of view.
Human writing is not efficient. It’s not always beautiful. But it’s honest in a way that can’t be perfectly replicated. It reveals what it’s like to be alive.
When we write — poems, essays, notes, nonsense — we declare: I am still here. I still feel things. I still care.
That’s not quaint or nostalgic. That’s revolutionary.
AI Isn’t the Enemy — Forgetting Ourselves Is
At Westbrae, we don’t see artificial intelligence as the villain. We use it. We learn from it. We even collaborate with it. The problem isn’t that machines can write — the problem is if humans stop believing they should.
Because what AI can’t do — not really — is feel. It can’t live with contradiction. It doesn’t make meaning from trauma, love, disappointment, or delight. It doesn’t write to survive.
Humans do.
And it’s that impulse — the need to translate experience into expression — that matters most.
Literature as an Act of Adaptation
We believe literature is an evolutionary force. Not because it’s old-fashioned, but because it’s always changing.
The voices we publish at Westbrae Literary Group are inventive and expressive. They come from people who are not trying to sound like anyone else. They are trying to sound like themselves.
That’s the kind of writing that leaves a mark. Not because it’s perfect. But because it’s real.
Keep Writing
So if you’re wondering whether to keep a journal, write a poem, send a strange little essay to a literary press, or try your hand at something new — do it.
Write even if it doesn’t make sense. Write even if it’s messy. Write because you can.
In a world of machines that simulate expression, human writing is still sacred.
We’ll keep writing. We hope you do too.
And if you’ve got something to share — something raw, something unfinished, something that feels like it could only have come from you — send it to us.
We’re still listening. We always will be.
