The speed at which ChatGPT has penetrated higher education has been nothing short of astounding. ChatGPT is able to respond to prompts or commands and generate original content: in other words, it can write. For writers and readers ChatGPT may trigger anxieties about the very essence of authorship and originality, which in turn reflect certain deeply held notions of subjectivity. It is hard not to feel unsettled by the current moment. In this essay I reflect on the very practice of writing itself, and the values we ascribe to it, at this very moment at which its upending seems likely.