Gatekeepers
Sèphera Girón

Gatekeepers are a useful tool in fiction. They provide conflict and often offer the protagonist alternative ways to figure out how to reach their goals. I think about Ghostbusters when I think about Gatekeepers unless I’m thinking about that cool roller coaster at the Cedar Point gates.

In real life, though, gatekeepers are often self-proclaimed people who have decided that the rest of the world must follow their own moral code that they’ve developed from their own personal life experiences and interpretation of social and political events around them.

Oh, how I tire of the horror writer community and the gatekeeping that goes on. Perhaps things were better before we all got online, when we didn’t really know each other and our personal beliefs or our lives or our habits. We knew nothing of each other, and maybe that was a good way to be.

As someone who grew up typing novels on a manual typewriter, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the world. I was super resistant to personal computers; I thought we’d all get radiation poisoning and die, so I didn’t have a computer until 1987 when my husband bought me one to help me with my writing. I was very late getting a cell phone; I didn’t get one until 2008, because I don’t answer the phone anyway; why would I carry it around with me?

But like most of you, I’m now addicted to having a computer in my pocket, and I love being able to correct my writing with spell check and move around entire paragraphs without having to retype pages perfectly with permanent liquid paper stains on my fingers.

Technology keeps changing, oh-so-rapidly these days. We went from screaming about having to pump our own gas to screaming about self-checkouts. Back in the day, film studios were upset at the invention of home television sets, musicians were upset about electric guitars and synthesizers, filmmakers were upset about YouTube, visual artists were upset about photography, photographers were upset about Photoshop, and now writers are screaming about AI.

When YouTube was first invented, I read tarot cards on it daily, weekly, and nearly got shut down twice because a) I was showing cards and cards are copyright-protected (even the backs of the cards) and b) another time they saw a Luke Skywalker figure on my shelf in the background, and I was nearly shut down again for copyright. And yet, look at YouTube now. People read tarot cards all over the place; they show off their Star Wars toys, and they “react” to other people’s videos or to movies. The game completely changed along the way, as did copyright and a bunch of other stuff. No one cares anymore.

Meanwhile, the invisible oligarchs who control everyone are having a field day. Everyone is falling into their traps.

The real enemy isn’t your buddy who is using AI to make a book cover; the enemy is the Powers-That-Be who thrive on dividing everyone, especially in the United States. Look at how divided everyone in the US got over politics over the past ten years, and it’s now trickled to other countries. No more, are you a fellow human? Nope, it’s who did you vote for? Well, then you must be a hateful asshole. Instant block.

But who’s the asshole?

Every week, the gatekeepers of horror writers have some new witch hunt. Sometimes it’s a good thing to suss out shitty publishers, editors, and agents. Yet, not ALL shitty ones are sussed out because, you know, there are consequences to getting all the shitty people shut down. Some people still like the opportunities to get published or represented even if it means going with the most despicable people because the gatekeepers didn’t get them shut down, or sometimes, don’t even notice. It all depends on who is buttering the toast.

Don’t think I haven’t noticed.

I like the gatekeepers who block me because I’m “friends” with “so and so” and I didn’t see the “threat” that I Will Be Blocked if I Don’t Unfriend So and So Right Now!

Puhleeze.

Are we still in grade school?

Do people really do as they’re told because they saw it on Facebook?

I have never blocked someone because someone else told me to. Ridiculous.

The past few weeks have been so tedious with all the gatekeepers out in full force. They are whipping people up into a frenzy, and more division is happening when it comes to AI. Of course, the irony is that the gatekeepers are denouncing AI, yet they are doing it on Facebook, which uses AI. They are likely typing their pretentious screeds on their phones, which also use AI. They likely sell their books on Amazon, which also uses AI.

Oh, but Sèphera, there are different levels of AI use, and some are OKAY, but some ARE NOT.

Are they though? Are some okay and some are not? Your argument seems weirdly skewed. Again, manipulating reality to suit whatever platform you want to preach from.

Yes, I’ve watched the self-proclaimed gatekeepers explain their version of the differences when it suits their blocking rampages. Good for them.

Are you watching TV? Are you using Alexa? Do you have home security? What kind of car do you drive? Do you go to the doctor? Do you watch TV? Do you go to the movies? Do you have shopping apps on your phone?

Are you truly not using AI at all in your life, and have you truly boycotted all companies that use AI?

No, of course not. You don’t even know where AI lurks. It’s everywhere right now.

It’s okay to use it for medical diagnosis but not for diagnosing if your book has a good synopsis?

Oh, Sèphera, that’s not the point. The evil is GENERATIVE AI, not all the other AI!

Sure, sure. Let’s somehow separate one form from another.

Pick and choose your evil so that you can keep gatekeeping and let the oligarchs win as the little people continue to fight against each other.

Show your zero tolerance for how other people live their lives by blocking them or cutting them out of your life because they played with an AI picture or made a little AI movie or dabbled with a bit of AI to see what happens if they used it in their writing.

AI is here. It’s been coming since I was typing on a manual typewriter. You can let the robots win by becoming less human by cutting out all your friends, fans, family, and readers because they dared to try out AI, or you can be a human being and let people explore and figure things out for themselves.

Hollywood is already embracing AI.

Many companies use AI.

AI can be useful for tedious tasks such as creating listings on eBay or Poshmark. Do you shop or sell on those platforms? They totally use AI now, so you’d better boycott them too.

I went to the AI panel at Stokercon, and of course, most of the panelists were vehemently anti-AI. An audience member stood up and pointed out that they learned about the panel because they saw it on Sched, which is the app that the HWA/Stokercon uses, and THAT is AI. Doesn’t HWA have an anti-AI stance? Oh, but of course, THAT is okay; it’s all the other AI stuff that isn’t.

Sure. Sure.

Yes, we know AI is using up resources. So does driving a car or a plane. So does building a new home. So do a lot of things. Humans have always used up Earth’s resources and usually not nicely. There are reservations and other Indigenous communities in Canada that have never had clean water and have been ravaged by pipeline construction. But somehow that’s been okay for the past fifty years or a hundred years, and very few people scream about that. But suddenly, AI is the enemy, not everything else we’ve been doing all along.

Suddenly YOUR water might not be so clean, so now it’s a Big Deal.

You can all keep screaming and blocking people who dare to use AI. Go ahead. I’m tired of “I can’t believe so and so DARED to use AI to create their cover/write synopsis/make an avatar, so they need to be BLOCKED RIGHT NOW!”

“I can’t believe so-and-so who is a leading author in our field, and I’ve read and loved all their books, but they DARED to use AI so now I can’t read anything else they’ll ever write ever again, and they must be BLOCKED!”

Knock yourself out.

In the meantime, you could be posting happy, fun, proactive things instead of lecturing and whining that everyone has to do things YOUR way and see the world YOUR way and live life YOUR way.

It’s a Wild West right now with regard to AI. I remember when people were screaming about self-publishing. Yet, here it is. People were cranking out a book a week, a day, before the latest AI developments. Some people make a fortune, some don’t. Some people write their own books, some don’t. People with a lot of money can buy more advertising and can sell more books regardless of whether they’re well written. It’s been that way forever.

The reading public will buy what they will buy. Screaming about what’s right, wrong, ethical, unethical, and pitting your fellow writers against each other isn’t helpful.

You do you, but in the meantime, like with everything else that’s been invented in my lifetime, I’ll watch what’s going on and see how it fits into my life. No one screaming on Facebook is going to sway my opinion one way or another, except to help me see you as a closed-minded gatekeeper, and I probably won’t buy your books.

Everyone on earth is affected by the new advances in AI. It’s in every industry everywhere. You can’t pick and choose anymore. It’s in science, it’s in the arts, it’s in technology, it’s spreading faster than Audrey 2. It’s growing faster than our human minds can keep up with it. It is part of our lives in so many ways that we may or may not realize.

All the drama and arguments in the horror writing field would be less prevalent if people could have conversations and educate each other. No one really and truly knows what’s going on or even what the bottom line or end goal is. But what we do know is that here at the HWA, we are all writers, we all work in publishing in some capacity, and AI is here to stay. HWA has a public stance against generative AI. But not everyone knows what that is or even how to use it.

Instead of blocking people and then telling others to block those people because those people DARED to explore AI potential for their own careers, why not be human and educate each other? Watch out for each other. Help each other. RAISE EACH OTHER UP.

We’re a writers' organization, and we should be exploring ways to be more cohesive, not more divisive.

If you are confused about AI, ask for help.

If you aren’t sure if you are even using AI, you should be able to ask for help without a huge witch hunt shutting you down.

You should be allowed to experiment with this new technology without fear of your fellow writers accusing you of terrible things whether you’re tinkering with your avatar or creating a book trailer.

As writers, editors, and educators, we should be more tolerant of one another rather than trying to shut each other down.

The witch hunts are exhausting and quite embarrassing, really, not the best look for professional authors.

You can choose to be a gatekeeper, or you can choose to have some humanity for your fellow human beings who are just trying to figure things out.

No one has the answers yet, so why do you think you do?

Sèphera Girón is the author of over 25 traditionally published novels. Sèphera was Chairperson of the Ontario/Canadian Chapter of the Horror Writers Association for nearly thirty years and now is a trustee! Her recent work includes Skin of the Night, Theatre Macabre, and she also edited The Lizzie Borden House Anthology. Sèphera is an author, actor, editor, tarot card reader, and mom. Sèphera lives in Toronto. Check her out at sepheragiron.ca or sephera.substack.com

Note: This article is mirrored here from its original location at https://mailchi.mp/87ef3a6e4036/hwa-member-newsletter-august-2026#Trenches26 in order to preserve it for the public record, as HWA has since removed Giron from her position on their Board of Trustees and vociferously spoken out against the thoughts presented here. Thus, this blogger fears this article may one day be removed from its original source in an attempt to silence this view from the public space, and this mirror is an attempt to prevent that from happening.