Don’t call it a book tour!

Live events, a zine for Mother’s Day, and 8 other things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

Lots of stuff today. Let’s get right to it:

1. Don’t call it a book tour: Austin! Nashville! Cleveland! I’d love to see you in June to celebrate the release of Don’t Call It Art. You can find more details and RSVP links here.
   
   

2. Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Don’t panic! My books make excellent gifts. You could even pre-order the new one and give her this special Mother’s Day zine I made:

   

   

   Deleted Zine #8 - Mothers!

   2.04MB ∙ PDF file

   Download

   Download

   Here’s a video with instructions for how to fold and cut the zine into a booklet:

   If you’d like to download issues #1-5 in the Deleted Zines series, follow the instructions on this page. (Issues #6 & #7 will be in a forthcoming Tuesday newsletter!)

   

3. “I didn’t think a residency was for me. I have a studio. I don’t have kids. What could I get out of it?” Wendy MacNaughton reports back from seven weeks in the woods.
   
   

4. Every time I hear about a creative residency I think about this bit from Also A Poet, Ada Calhoun’s great memoir about her father, the late art critic Peter Schjeldahl: “My father rolled his eyes. He thought residencies were lame. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead at a writer’s colony. My mother snapped at him: ‘Your whole life is a writer’s colony.’”

   
   

5. “Whenever I spend some time, even a little bit of it, goofing off with a friend or family member's kid, I can see the small respite it gives to the parents. And let’s not forget my own selfishness. I feel a lightness of being—an unanchoring in my heart—that seems harder and harder to come by these days. It’s a feeling I relish.” I somehow missed Isaac Fitzgerald’s 2022 Esquire essay “The World Needs Uncles, Too.” Isaac is what I call a “curious elder.” He embodies the spirit of the “Borrow a Kid!” chapter of Don’t Call It Art. (Thanks to Kevin for the recommendation!)  
   
   

6. I’m excited to read Isaac’s new book American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed for a very specific reason: Other than line dancing to Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses,” one of my favorite childhood memories from summer 4-H camp is when we sang “Johnny Appleseed” as grace before meals:
   
   Oh the lord is good to me / and so I thank the Lord / for giving me / the things I need / the sun and the rain and the appleseed / the Lord is good to me.
   
   (I later found out it’s the first verse of a song called “The Lord is Good to Me,” which was featured in an old Disney movie called Melody Time.)
    
   

7. On Wednesday, one of my nightmares came true while walking my kid home from school: I saw two sixth graders jaywalk across what is essentially a four-lane highway — as I’ve seen many of their classmates do — cross in front of a parked school bus, and get hit by a car in the next lane. Thankfully they were okay. Special shout-out to members of the Austin EMS and Fire Department, who were so good at their jobs I asked if I could shake their hands afterwards.
   
   Do me a favor! Drive slower and teach your kids the words of Ghoulardi:

   

8. On a (much) lighter note, I’m enjoying Walter Martin’s “30 Greatest Living American Songwriters” shows, which he made as an “emotional response” to the New York Times’ list people were arguing about online. (Is there any other reason for such a list?) I found the print magazine’s “The Objects That Inspire Them” feature more interesting than the actual list. Here’s some creative wisdom from Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields: “It’s very easy to dismiss an idea as derivative or stupid before it’s written down. If I had dismissed the title ‘The Book of Love’ as derivative, I wouldn’t have a house.”
   
   

9. Do you need a nudge to release that special thing you’ve been working on? Sign up for the “collective deadline” of Creative Mornings’ Release Day on May 29th. Our local Austin chapter asked me if I’d make a little video about it:

   
   

10. The latest typewriter interview is with author David Epstein, whose new book Inside the Box is out this week. (Includes drawings!)

    

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 ways you can support my work right now: pre-order the new book and/or become a paid subscriber!

xoxo,

Austin

P.S. Big thanks to my friend Ryan Holiday, who recommended my book Keep Going on Morning Joe. He’s been a supporter of that book — my most Stoic! — from day one, and I’m very grateful to him. If you’re having a hard time right now, I think this book can really help.