This workshop, led by Gabrielle Benabdallah (HCDE), explores the intersection of AI and creativity, focusing on techniques for customizing large language models (LLMs) for academic and creative applications. We'll look at how to customize LLMs for specific research topics and writing projects, using OpenAI’s GPT model and open source and local models, such as Meta’s Llama. We will go over some basics of LLM fine-tuning (how to choose the model, the dataset, how to iterate, etc.) and offer practical guidance for tailoring AI tools to support academic and creative writing and research. Bring a laptop as this is a hands-on workshop!