Gwern's 2025 Inkhaven Writing Interview - By Gwern

In this interview, Gwern sits down with Adam Mastroianni at the 2025 Inkhaven writing residency — an experimental blogging bootcamp held at Lighthaven in Berkeley — to talk about the messy, serendipitous origins of his writing. The conversation covers how he develops ideas from initial sparks to finished pieces, the mental habits and frameworks he relies on to stay prolific, his views on the creative potential (and limitations) of collaborating with LLMs, and why he thinks the conventional "blog" format is the wrong paradigm for most writers. There's also a lively audience Q&A where Inkhaven participants push back on some of his more contrarian takes about publishing and perfectionism. It's a candid, practical look at how one of the internet's most distinctive essayists actually works.00:00 - Introduction* 03:40 - Opening Speech* 06:22 - Poems & Incubation* 13:15 - Polymath* 14:59 - The Apprenticeship* 17:54 - Self-Experimentation* 22:09 - The Writing Pipeline* 24:55 - Tools For Thought* 30:00 - Blog Brain: “That’s A Post”* 34:47 - Essay Archetype: Universal “if and only if” Concrete* 38:49 - The Voice: Ideas As Earworms* 40:30 - Audience Q&A* 40:32 - Modalities & Comparative Advantage* 43:37 - Publishing Thresholds* 45:56 - Wikis Vs Blogs* 52:26 - LLM Followup Questionshttps://gwern.net/interview-inkhaven Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe