AI & I · Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Kevin Kelly discussed his profound admiration for Annie Dillard's writing, particularly 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,' which he discovered in a library in Sri Lanka. He credits her unique blend of detailed observation, scientific trivia, and profound introspection as a key influence on his own writing.
“For those for those who aren't familiar with Annie, she burst onto the scene with a meteorite of a book called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, that for some reason, it's account of her spending some year on musing, kind of like a Henry David Thoreau, intimate investigation of a creek in Virginia or West Virginia, I don't remember.”
“But there was something about her spirit as well as her writing, which was very expansive, cosmic, enthusiastic, questioning.”
“It was it was a very distinctive way of kind of wrapping epesodic ecstasy with very concrete science trivia and oddities.”
“In some ways, it's why I write at all, because I, I came across that book in the weirdest of places.”