March 2026 Edition
Resisting AI and Technology for the Analog World, Starman After Midnight Award Finalist, Upcoming Events, and More
Photo by Maximus Mazar on Unsplash
Welcome to the March 2026 edition of my newsletter. Sorry I’ve been silent recently in the newsletter department. The last few months have been rather trying as my favorite uncle passed away in November and the mother of one of my best friends also passed away in December, putting a damper on the holidays. The first two months of the new year I was busy writing new fiction and finishing up a new novel manuscript—a comedy! I’m very excited about this new novel. We’ll see if I can find a new publisher for it this year.
I took my family to see the new movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fun sci-fi comedy like a cross between The Matrix and Groundhog Day. Although a little heavy-handed in some spots, it’s a fun flick. And my wife and I found ourselves liking the movie more as the days went by, discussing some of the scenes we couldn’t shake from our minds. The movie is about a time traveler who comes back to the present to recruit a crew of do-gooders to fight an impending AI apocalypse. We marveled at how the movie depicted people’s addiction to social media as making them something akin to zombies. It was almost unbelievable really, until I noticed a few days later, people in a bistro silently gazing at their phones, ignoring their companions at the table. Maybe this movie is more prescient than we initially thought, this scene in real life playing out like it was from this movie. Crazy!
There is real evidence that people are rejecting AI technology and social media specifically. Kids are turning their backs to social media by using flip phones, which they can’t install apps on, and actually going outside to hang out with their friends. This may seem unbelievable to you, but it’s a real-world phenomenon. Young people are understanding more and more what social media has done to them and their friends, and they are wholeheartedly rejecting it in some cases. There’s hope for these younger generations, it seems.
Analog media is also making a comeback: vinyl, compact discs, DVDs, etc. People are becoming tired of streaming services telling them that they can own digital media forever and then taking away their favorite movies and TV shows without warning. They thought they’d have access to them forever as promised. People are rediscovering the joy of looking at vinyl album covers or owning their favorite movies on DVD. Physical books in some ways are making a comeback, too, particularly during and after the pandemic. I can only hope that physical book sales will continue to climb.
A study has shown that technology in schools has set a couple of generations back in intelligence and some countries like Denmark are going back to school lessons on paper, ditching computers all together. There’s a real connection between writing with pencil and paper and memory retention. The same goes for reading from physical books, the three-dimensional page flipping and tactile feel of the paper helping with concentration. Reading a good book should be a slow and enjoyable process akin to sipping a fine wine. Some people with attention deficit issues may find reading physical books boring, but reading helps people discover empathy and deep-thinking techniques. Reading books should be savored!
Finally, the Authors Guild has publicly released their Human Authored Certification program. With this, authors can register their books as being created solely by a human being without assistance from AI technology. All my books have been registered in this database. The Authors Guild provides a serial number and a graphic that can be included in books to show readers that they are completely human-generated pieces of art. Super cool!
With all of this evidence that many people are rejecting AI and searching for human connection as well as connecting to tactile art in the real world, maybe there’s hope for humanity after all. We can only hope; there’s always hope. Thank you for reading!
Starman After Midnight – Book Award Finalist
Starman After Midnight is a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Finalist for Humor. Winners will be announced in June 2026. It’s always an honor to be selected as a finalist for a book award especially one like this that celebrates independent publishing of the highest caliber. Thank you to the editors of Foreword Reviews for this honor. And congratulations to all of the finalists this year.
For the list of 2025 finalists, go here: https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/finalists/2025/
For the finalist page for Starman After Midnight, go here: https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/books/starman-after-midnight/
Upcoming Events
I’ll be at the Hill Country Literary Festival hosted by the Mammen Family Public Library (a great public library just north of San Antonio, Texas) on Saturday, March 21, 2026 in Bulverde, Texas. I know it’s a ways off, but mark your calendar! Find more info here:
https://hillcountryliteraryfestival.org/
One of the book festivals I look forward to the most is the Greater Austin Book Festival! At the beautiful Central Library location in downtown Austin, GAB Fest is a super fun lit fest featuring writers from Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties. I’m a featured author, so come out and say hello! More info here:
https://library.austintexas.gov/gabfest
I will be a panelist at this year’s Writers’ League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference. The 31st annual conference will take place from June 26-28, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Austin. It’s one of the premier writers’ conferences in the country. So, if you’re a writer, then I look forward to seeing you there. More info here:
https://writersleague.org/programs/a-e-conference/
My Books
All of my books and audiobooks are available everywhere you buy your favorite reads. Find my preferred retailers here:
Latest Novel: STARMAN AFTER MIDNIGHT (2025), Publishers Weekly calls it “Darkly funny... Semegran has a knack for drawing colorful characters. This waggish slice of life is worth a look.” Audiobook version here.
Previous Novel: THE CODGER AND THE SPARROW (2024), the winner of the Discovery Prize for Fiction in the Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards. Audiobook version here.
The Novel Before That: THE BENEVOLENT LORDS OF SOMETIMES ISLAND (2020), 2021 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards - First Place for Middle-Grade/Young Adult. Audiobook version here.
The Novel Before That One: TO SQUEEZE A PRAIRIE DOG (2019), 2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Winner - Gold Medal for Humor. Audiobook version here.
Thank you for your support. Take care, read more books, be good to each other, and don’t forget to renew your local library card today!
Sincerely,
Scott
Good to see you back, Scott! I have to catch up on Starman ... damn, my pile just grows. About AI, my publisher for my upcoming co-written retro-noir added this on the copyright page: No AI was used in the creation of this work.
It's the first time I see the notice in one of my books... from now on, I'll insist on it.