Separating facts from lies, and real thoughts from fabrications, can seem more difficult than ever: Words and images are easily faked, and some writers at every stage—students, academics, novelists—are letting machines do the work for them. The author may as well be dead. Ubiquitous cameras are eroding human privacy, creating the sense that we live in a panopticon. And across many popular platforms, information is often shorn of context, if not outright false.The fact that I feed my kids and pay my rent as a novelist and teacher likely intensifies the queasiness I feel at these developments. Yet my profession...