Dave Eggers Defends Human Writing as Astronomers Preview 2027 Eclipse

San Francisco novelist and literary nonprofit founder Dave Eggers compared using artificial intelligence for creative writing to "lining up for a marathon, then getting into a car and driving to the finish line" in a profile of his new novel Contrapposto by Lou Fancher in East Bay Magazine. In science and astronomy coverage on Sunday, astronomer and Totality App creator Jeff Bennett joined KCBS News Anchor Danny Decrescenzo on KCBS Radio to outline early preparations for the Aug. 2, 2027 "Eclipse of the Century."

Dave Eggers on Contrapposto, Student Writing, and the Art + Water Center

Now 56, Eggers spent 20 years completing Contrapposto — the longest gestation of his career, which spans a dozen novels, 20 books for young readers, short story collections, and nonfiction works since his 2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius recounted becoming the 21-year-old guardian of his 8-year-old brother.

Stretching across 5 decades and illustrated with black-and-white drawings largely sketched by Eggers himself, Contrapposto follows protagonists Cricket Dibb and Olympia Argyros — alongside fellow artist Carpenter — as they navigate artistic integrity, arts education, and lifelong human relationships. Eggers begins each book with handwritten notes on paper before moving to an offline 1998 MacBook Pro with a cracked screen running the same copy of Microsoft Word he has used since 1999.

Beyond running McSweeney's (the nonprofit publishing house he founded in 1998) and 826 Valencia (the youth writing nonprofit and pirate-supply shop with chapters nationwide), Eggers recently announced Art + Water, an arts center that will provide free studio space to 10 established senior artists who will mentor and instruct 20 local emerging artists free of charge. Calling on parents, teachers, policymakers, and university officials to "draw a hard line" against AI in student writing and to help teenagers set boundaries around answering 200 text messages a day, Eggers stressed that young people must learn to write with their own minds.

Astronomer Jeff Bennett Previews the Aug. 2, 2027 “Eclipse of the Century”

Looking ahead to next summer's major celestial event, astronomer and Totality App creator Jeff Bennett told KCBS Radio that travelers and amateur astronomers should begin planning now for the total solar eclipse on Aug. 2, 2027. Known as the "Eclipse of the Century," the Aug. 2, 2027 alignment will produce one of the longest durations of totality in the 21st century and will mark the last comparable total solar eclipse until the year 2114.