Discovering your creative system (and the perpetual motion machine), with Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. Before all of that, he'd been a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. Discover Austin’s path to becoming a famous author, how he successfully navigated that pivot, and the vast web of influences that inspire his creative work and daily life.

More from the episode…

• Austin describes the “catalytic moment” he met cartoonist Lynda Barry, and how it transformed his creative practice.
• Why obscurity, especially at the beginning of your creative career, can actually be a positive thing.
• How does working in public view continue to feed his creative process?
• What is Austin’s “perpetual motion machine” for producing new material, and how did he discover it?
• When do you know if a creative work is finished? Is it ever?

About Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. He’s also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. His books have been translated into dozens of languages and have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons.

Connect with Austin

https://austinkleon.com

twitter.com/austinkleon

instagram.com/austinkleon

Links from the episode

The comedy of survival

Quiet: The power of introverts a world that won’t stop talking