Austin Kleon

Phillip Maciak: There is something absurd about hearing a character in a movie utter the title of the movie they’re in out loud. It’s a moment that can be played for laughs, but it’s just as hard n...

I found this diary comic from (checks notes) five years ago. In last Friday’s email, I wrote: In the “Who’s having fun?” section of Don’t Call It Art, I quote Ed Emberley saying, “I am determined t...

“It’s very difficult to be very lazy. It takes a lot of imagination to do nothing and you have to be sufficiently self-confident not to have a bad conscience. You have to have a taste for life, so ...

Here’s a new mixtape, which was really inspired by me being depressed and watching Deerhunter do “Nothing Ever Happened” live in 2011 and getting really obsessed with the late Josh Fauver’s short s...

The latest typewriter interview is with violinist and author Vijay Gupta. A reader said he wished I’d included audio of the musical notation, but I think it’s a nice little treat for those of us wh...

Mark Haddon let it slip on his Instagram that he’s working on a typewriter interview for me: before i even get started i need to celebrate the questions which are a) some of the best i’ve ever been...

Jennifer Daniel did not accept the analog constraints of the typewriter interview, and that’s what made this one extra great.

Every Friday night around 5PM, before I’m about to make our pizza night martinis, I turn on KUTX and listen to “Old School Dance Party” — the “Happy Feet Dance Party with ever-lovin’ John E. Dee pl...

Buy the book Finally — finally! — after 7 years, there’s a new book of mine out in the world: Don’t Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again is now available wherever you buy books. Don’t Ca...

My latest mixtape captures my attempt to get over the depression and anxiety that can accompany “The Gulp” in between when you finish something and finally push it out into the world. (Don’t worry,...

The latest typewriter interview is with Brad Neely. Several people told me this is the best one yet.

From my letter, “Fledging season”: I spent an afternoon scanning diaries from 2023 for a speaking gig and I came across all the spring entries from when we had owlets in our backyard owl box. I was...

I can’t stop making zines! Issues #6 and #7 of my Deleted Zines from Don’t Call It Art are available for free in today’s newsletter.

I made a zine for Mother’s Day that you can download, print out, and fold into a booklet. See item #2 in today’s newsletter!

I’m doing a very limited number of events to promote the release of my new book Don’t Call It Art. Monday, June 1 in Austin, Texas: BookPeople event at First Baptist Church of Austin, 6PM. Ticketed...

Author David Epstein makes his public drawing debut in the latest typewriter interview!

The snails have returned! And I shared some recent snail mail in the newsletter.

I have been struggling with what Jonathan Lethem calls “The Gulp” in The Ecstasy of Influence: “For me, there’s a weird, unfathomable gulf—I almost wrote gulp—between the completion of a novel and ...

I asked the great Tim Kreider ten questions about writing, not writing, great writers who are funny, and more. Here are his replies.