Dads & Grads!
Book tour updates, new free zines, and other things worth sharing
Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:
Don’t Call It A Book Tour news: A venue change for Austin, Texas! We’ve decided to throw the June 1st book release party in-store at BookPeople. It’ll be cozier and more fun. Attendees get the book a day before everyone else. Maybe best of all, the ticket price is now just the cost of the book. You can bring a +1 as long as we have room. Plenty of parking. Easy-peasy. RSVP here!!!
Nashville! Cleveland! These are free shows, but tickets are going fast, so grab a spot while you can.
If you can’t make one of these shows and you want a signed and personalized copy of Don’t Call It Art (or any of my other books) I’m signing a huge batch at BookPeople next Friday afternoon (like, hundreds of them) so there’s still time to get your orders in and claim your pre-order bonuses!
It’s what the publishing industry calls “Dads and Grads” season. My books make great gifts for both, but if I had to drill down, I’d say Don’t Call It Art and Keep Going are the best picks for dads, Show Your Work! is great for college graduates and others about to enter the (depressing) job market, and Steal Like an Artist and the matching journal are great for high school graduates and folks who are just starting out. (Newspaper Blackout is a deep cut for the true weirdo in your life.) And again, a reminder that you can get those signed and personalized by me from BookPeople!
Since I shared a “Mothers!” zine for Mother’s Day, I figured I’d make one for Father’s Day, too:
And here’s a video showing how to make it into a booklet:
If you dig these zines, you can get issues #1-5 in the preorder goodies, #6 and #7 here, and #8 here.
“Chani, take the wheel!” The collage at the top of Chani’s Gemini “chit-chat” season newsletter sums up the vibes in our household of two Gemini parents — two birds chattering at each other on top of a cassette tape. Maycember is raging! (Time to throw on Steve Lacy’s Gemini Rights.)
If you need one, here’s “the greatest pep talk in art history.” (I quoted this Sol LeWitt letter to Eva Hesse in Keep Going.)
Better than any pep talk, I think, is watching Letterman and Colbert throw CBS property off the roof of The Ed Sullivan Theater.
“Rather than revising on screen, he prints out a section of his draft - no more than 1,000 words - deletes it from his document, and types it back in from the paper.” I can confirm that this writing tip from Oliver Burkeman works. (Here are my own 3 tips for self-editing.)
I love Hollis Heichemer’s paintings. She has a new show in NYC opening next week. (One way to own a copy of her work is to buy Walter Martin’s The Bear on vinyl.)
“‘Strokin’’ is one of the great American songs. To me, he was the Mozart of Southern music…. There’s a disc jockey in all of us, and I just wanted to share ‘Strokin’’ with all of you. Why not? Where are you gonna go and hear ‘Strokin’’ in this day and age? Where? Nowhere! Here, that’s it! I mean, if I were doing a movie about the life of Beethoven, I would use ‘Strokin’’ on the end credits. Or Shakespeare! You know, if I was doing Hamlet, imagine ending it after Hamlet’s death, and the funeral oration by Horatio or Fortinbras, then you hear ‘Strokin.’’ And that sends you right out of your chair – YES!” That’s director William Friedkin on the great Clarence Carter, who died this week. (My favorite Carter song is “Slip Away,” which I heard on the excellent Wonder Boys soundtrack. Watch him do it live on The Midnight Special in 1973.)
“My real hobby is being at the mercy of my own whims and moods.” I had several readers tell me that this typewriter interview with Brad Neely is the best one yet.
Thanks for reading! This hand-rolled, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. The best way you can support my work right now is by pre-ordering the new book!
It makes a huge difference, truly, and it doesn’t matter where you pre-order it, it helps me the same. (If you get it from your local indie bookstore, you’re helping us both.) This book really is the most beautiful object I’ve ever published.
xoxo,
Austin
P.S. Trust me, you want one of these:
Thank you so much for listening and sharing my podcast with Oliver. Made my day!
It was such fun recording it and hearing how people use that approach. I have a hunch you'll like the tip I've got from Mason Currey coming up in a couple of weeks - he treats his draft like 'funky art project'.
In thanks, here's some owlets, I can't attach a pic so here's a link to them in Notes:
https://substack.com/@becevans/note/c-255110318?
Pre-ordered from Book People! Looking forward to having another one of your inspirational books to add to my collection. I need all the encouragement I can get these days.