2025 gift guide & 20% off holiday sale

10 gift ideas for artists, writers, and other creative weirdos

Hey y’all,

Here’s a list of ideas for holiday gifts or treats for yourself:

1. If you’d like signed and personalized copies of my books, you can order from Bookpeople here in Austin, Texas. I’ll sign as many as you buy, but to get them in time for Christmas, order before December 14th.
   
   

   If you don’t need or want your books signed, you can get them wherever books are sold! My million-selling Steal Like an Artist (check out the fancy hardcover edition) and the matching journal are perennial favorites. Show Your Work! is for people trying to get their work noticed or their business going. Keep Going is my guide to staying creative in chaotic times — great for pretty much everybody these days. You can get the whole trilogy on audiobook for the cost of one book. If you want a “deep cut” for the true weirdo on your list, gift a copy of my CIA-does-haiku poetry collection, Newspaper Blackout.

   

2. I’m offering 20% off paid subscriptions to this newsletter for the rest of the year. You can gift it to someone else or to yourself!
   
   

   I know it can feel weird to give a digital gift, so I made a little zine for gift subscriptions that you can print, fold, and customize. Download it here.

   

3. T-shirts! Hoodies! Onesies! Cotton Bureau is offering free shipping in the US on my two designs until the end of Monday, Dec. 1st. Just use the code THANKYOU25. (Shipping on international orders is 50% off.) Order here.

   

   
   

4. Art books that caught my eye this year: Dan Nadel’s Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, Kelli Anderson’s Alphabet in Motion, Gianni Rodari’s The Grammar of Fantasy, Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy Wears Hats, E Is for Edward: A Centennial Celebration of the Mischievous Mind of Edward Gorey, Sally Mann’s Art Work: On The Creative Life, The Essential Peanuts, Brian Eno and Bette A.’s What Art Does, Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes From Art, and Mostly Everything: The Art of Tucker Nichols.
   
   

5. One of my favorite publishers, Drawn and Quarterly, is having a holiday flash sale this weekend. They published at least two of my favorite reads this year: Guy Delisle’s Muybridge and Tara Booth’s Processing. (Their reissues of Tove Jansson’s Moomin books make great gifts for readers of all ages.)
   
   

6. New gear in the studio: I spent a lot of this year experimenting with color, starting with block printing (Speedball makes an easy beginner block printing kit) and continuing with drawing succulents with Caran d’Ache pastels. I use these acrylic book stands to prop up books, CDs, and cassettes. Meg got me this cup cap accessory for my Yeti Rambler, so now it works great in all seasons.
   
   

7. Old favorites: I write and draw with Pentel Portable Pocket Brush pens, a Lamy Safari fountain pen, Pilot G-2 Bolds, Pentel Sign Pens, and Posca paint markers. My favorite notebook is an A6 pocket-sized Leuchtturm1917. My very favorite pencil is still the Musgrave 600 NEWS, which I make last with Derwent pencil extenders. I love my Trodat professional self-inking date stamp and their self-inking DIY stamp kits for custom return addresses and other messages. Almost every day I use my cutting mat, a set of X-Acto knives, orange-handled Fiskar scissors, a bone folder, and UHU glue sticks. (Outside the studio, I still keep a pad of Aqua Notes in the shower and a Rite in the Rain spiral notebook beside the pool.)
   
   

8. Music gear I splurged on for our home studio: This Focusrite audio interface plugs right into an iPad and plays nice with GarageBand. I love this Orange Crush 50W bass amp. I wish I could put this Line 6 looping pedal in a time machine and send it to my teenage self. The Akai MPK Mini Play doubles as a good MIDI controller and standalone travel keyboard — we stuck it in one of the kids’ book bags and they played it a bunch on vacation. (I still think Wonderboom bluetooth speakers are great for casual music listening inside and outside of the house.)
   
   

9. Kids’ stuff: My kids (10 & 13) love Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales series. On holiday breaks we love to solve a puzzle from the Magic Puzzle Company together. We play UNO with a regular deck, but if we didn’t, I might try to trick them into playing with Super Mario or Minecraft decks. (I bought an automatic card shuffler a while back and it’s good fun.) These thermal printer cameras are pretty cool. I’m surprised how often they use the Paper Mate triangular mechanical pencils and sticky notes we put in their stockings. They write in their one line a day diaries every night with their these retractable cat gel pens. My youngest loves his Carl Angel-5 pencil sharpener. We buy them lots of paper books but they love the Kindle Paperwhite for Kids. I wish I’d got them one of these bug catchers when they were little. (Better late than never!)
   
   

10. For more gift guides, check out Robin Sloan, Colossal, Recomendo, Emma Withers, and Hallie Bateman. If you have a gift or a guide you’d recommend, drop it in the comments:
    
    

Thanks for reading. This hand-rolled publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. To keep Friday free for everyone and get an extra exclusive email from me every Tuesday, take advantage of the 20% off sale and become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin