Reimagining creativity in the age of AI

Nadim Sadek is a psychologist, founder, entrepreneur, and author. He has written 2 books about AI and publishing and the creative industries, ‘Shimmer don’t Shake: How Publishing Can Embrace AI’ and ‘Quiver don’t Quake: How Creativity Can Embrace AI’ (both Mensch Publishing). He is also the author of a series of children’s books, due to be published by Wonder House in 2026 and is currently writing a book on the psychology of motorcycling and its brands. We share his journey as an author.

From publishing’s AI anxieties to creativity’s vast new possibilities, Nadim Sadek charts an authorial journey driven by curiosity, optimism and a deep belief in collaborative human intelligence. Here, he shares more in conversation with Emma House. Excerpts.

Emma: Your career has spanned psychology, market research, advertising, technology, entrepreneurship and publishing (among many other twists and turns). What moment or realisation marked the point where you knew you had to write the AI books?

Nadim: My best subject at school was English. I loved writing stories and had one published in an Irish newspaper when I was 16, in the ‘Young Writers’ section. I’ve waited a long time to get back to it! When ‘Everyday AI’ broke cover with ChatGPT at the end of 2022, I had been working with AI for about 10 years, so I knew a bit about it and noted how most people were confounded by it. I thought I could help.

Emma: What inspired you to write your first book – Shimmer Don’t Shake (SdS) and then why did you feel there was a need for the follow up – Quiver Don’t Quake (QdQ)?

Nadim: It seemed natural for me to explain AI, and at the same time, to trace the history of publishing and how the two industries really are not so very different from each other. I tried to familiarise publishing with AI at the same time as showing what the road ahead might look like. After that, I felt the dialogue was getting bogged down and there was a need to ‘think big’ and show how the world can benefit from AI, focusing particularly on Creativity and how AI enables all 8 billion of us on earth to identify, excavate and share our creativity.

Emma: What are the main purposes of each of Shimmer Don’t Shake and Quiver Don’t Quake?

Nadim: ‘SdS’ was about enabling publishing to ‘get AI’. ‘QdQ’ is much more ambitious and I hope will help everybody to feel able to enjoy and express their creative insights with the world. It’s written as much for the ‘everyday person’ as for a creative professional.

Emma: How do Shimmer Don’t Shake and Quiver Don’t Quake speak to one another? Are they companion pieces, or stages in the same inner journey?

Nadim: The first is a simple guide to AI really, whilst the second presumes some knowledge of AI and is much more about the great ways in which, creatively, we can use. It also talks about some of the horrors AI can bring to the world, and salutes its doubters for their scepticism…but in essence, ‘QdQ’ is an excited and optimistic study of how AI enables humans to be more human. You don’t need to read ‘SdS’ before ‘QdQ’ but I notice that a lot of people do that.

Emma: If a reader takes just one feeling or insight away from these books, what do you hope it is?

Nadim: With ‘SdS’ I hope they simply feel confident they understand AI (and how it works in publishing). With ‘QdQ’ I’d love people to feel exhilarated at the prospect of manifesting their own creativity more fully than they’ve ever done before.

Emma: Were these books written more as guidance, reflection, or conversation—and who were you imagining on the other side of the page?

Nadim: ‘SdS’ was very much written to share knowledge and give guidance, mainly to publishers. ‘QdQ’ was written to inspire, and to innovate how we think about ‘Allied Intelligence’ and achieve ‘Collaborative Creativity’ together. It’s a book anyone should feel galvanised by, to cook a new dish, create a new medicine, imagine new architecture, weave a new pattern, write, sing, paint…whoever you are and however you feel like being creative, I hope ‘QdQ’ helps you to achieve it.

Emma: Quiver Don’t Quake was named the TNPS (The New Publishing Standard) book of the Year 2025, with the author describing the book as ‘the Most Important Book Publishing Professionals Will Read This Decade’. Why do you think this is?

Nadim: It’s very flattering! The critic is a journalist focused on Publishing, and has made it clear that he believes fundamental narratives and processes need to change in publishing – including moving on from a broad aversion to AI. ‘QdQ’ is deeply respectful of human psychology and creativity, and very excited by the prospect of many new voices being heard, not by AI writing for them, but by machine intelligence intertwining with human intelligence in a brilliant, creatively emancipating way. It does, fundamentally, show how publishing can be a facilitator of creativity, rather than a processor of words.

Emma: Given the research in Quiver Don’t Quake around AI adoption in the other creative industries, how do you think publishing is faring in comparison?

Nadim: Publishing is lagging behind other creative industries, especially in the UK and USA. I think it’s largely due to the conversation around AI being blighted by the topic of copyright theft. It’s obviously an important and legitimate issue to focus on. I hope that 2026 sees a workable ‘recognition and remuneration’ system in place, so we can move on from our objections and start to benefit much more ambitiously from this brilliant technology.

Emma: Many authors talk about “finding their voice.” Did you feel you already had one, or did it emerge through the act of writing these books?

Nadim: I have always written a lot, and speak in public too, so I guess I know ‘how I sound’. My writing is very much like my conversation, I think. I also enjoy writing and do it pretty quickly, without very much revision. With the AI books, I’m very much talking about my everyday life and work, so the subject wasn’t very daunting and I could see ‘the big picture’. The children’s books need a very different voice, and there I really recall the early years of my four children and how I loved their wonder and engagement with fascinating worlds created by simple words…I’m itching to write so many more kids’ books!

Emma: What did your writing process look like—disciplined routine or emotional bursts—and did it evolve between the two books?

Nadim: I think I’m constantly ‘writing in my head’. Right now, I’ve got the third book on AI forming – I’m calling it ‘Wax, don’t Wane – how life can embrace AI’, another children’s series about ‘Mr Anchovy’ who is a little fish wandering around New York, another book about a society of clouds looking down on human civilisation, the motorcycling psychology one, and the one I’ll find hardest but really want to get to, which is a ‘Scandi-Noir’ thriller. I do the putting of words to the page very fast, but the story formation is constant and evolving in my head.

Emma: How did writing these books differ from other forms of creative work you’ve done including your children’s books? What surprised you most about becoming an author at this stage of your life?

Nadim: I’ve done some film-making on Youtube and always enjoyed writing the scripts. When I talk to the Warner Artist I manage, it’s nearly always about her lyrics. Words are always flying around in my head, forming new patterns and thoughts. The AI books were different in that they needed true discipline of research and the formation of coherent and logical narrative flows, as opposed to creative expression. I guess the AI ones are more about conceptual communication, and my other work is more about the art in articulation.

Emma: What are your children’s stories about and when can we expect them to come to market?

Nadim: I spent 5 years as a child in Malaysia and they were such happy, adventurous days! The books are inspired by that time.They’re about a boy, his ‘girl best friend’, and his dog, which is their constant companion.They chase butterflies, get attacked by bats, secretly swim in reservoirs, visit haunted houses, and all sorts of other adventures. They’re currently going through illustration, but at least some of the 10 titles will be ready for Bologna Children’s Book Fair this year!