Austin Kleon
Writer and artist · Steal Like an Artist
A writer who draws, based in Austin, Texas. His illustrated books on creative work, among them Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work! and Keep Going, have sold over two million copies and appear in more than 35 languages. He started out blacking out newspaper columns with a marker and posting the poems to the blog he has kept since 2005. Earlier he worked as a librarian, a web designer and an advertising copywriter. Most of his working day runs on paper. Four notebooks go at once, pencils sit in the margins of books, and one desk in the office takes nothing electronic.
- Entries
- 27
- Does
- 23
- Recommends
- 4
- Discusses
- 0
Gear
10 pieces of gear in this stack
- GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Kindle e-reader
Owns a Paperwhite and reckons about half his reading happens on it. He says he loves paper anyway.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: Kindle e-readerOn record from 6 of 62 tracked people: 6 do it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Paper notebook
Four notebooks running at the same time: a logbook, a pocket notebook, a commonplace diary and a diary. He flags this as descriptive rather than prescriptive, since writing is his job, and tells anyone starting out to buy one notebook and write or draw in it every day.
Source: AustinKleon.com: My 4 notebooksView item: Paper notebookOn record from 3 of 62 tracked people: 3 do it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Lamy Safari fountain pen
Avoided fountain pens for years, then took to this one for his morning pages. He says he likes the flow.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: Lamy Safari fountain penOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Moleskine Daily Diary
The dated Moleskine has held his daily logbook for over a decade. He uses the smaller hardcover himself and points to a bigger one for anyone who wants it.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: Moleskine Daily DiaryOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen
Draws and writes in his diary with these every day, and calls them easy, elegant and long-lasting. He fills them with Lamy fountain pen ink instead of the standard cartridges, on the grounds that it is fluid and does not clog them.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: Pentel Pocket Brush PenOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Pilot G2 pen
Names the G2 Bold his favorite pen for general writing. The reason is thickness: by his own admission he does not like writing longhand with anything less than a millimeter of ink.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: Pilot G2 penOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Self-inking date stamp
Keeps a big heavy Trodat professional model on the analog desk. Newsletter readers already know how much he likes date stamps, he says, and part of the appeal of this one is the satisfying noise it makes.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: Self-inking date stampOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Sharpie permanent marker
He says he makes the blackout poems with newspaper and a Sharpie, most mornings, and has worked that way since 2005. He scans the finished page, then plays with the levels in Photoshop before posting it.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A brief history of my newspaper blackout poemsView item: Sharpie permanent markerOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Spotting scope
Runs a cheap scope and an old iPhone on the owl box in his yard, filming around the clock. Mornings in owl season he reviews the footage and draws stills into his diary, which he says is how he gets himself to actually look at what he is looking at.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Another owl season beginsView item: Spotting scopeOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Typewriter
A 1960s Smith-Corona Galaxie sits among the analog tools he lists in the studio. He introduces the whole list as things he uses rather than endorsements, most of it picked because it worked and he stuck with it.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearView item: TypewriterOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it
Books
3 books in this stack
- BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Keep Going
Ten ways to stay creative, focused and true to yourself, aimed at anyone burned out, starting out, starting over or already doing well. Build a bliss station, and forget the noun and do the verb, are two of the ten.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Keep GoingVisit austinkleon.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Show Your Work!
Wrote it for people who hate the very idea of self-promotion. Where the first book was about stealing influence from others, this one is about influencing others by letting them steal from you, across ten chapters on sharing the process.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Show Your Work!Visit austinkleon.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Steal Like an Artist
His own book, written up from a 2011 talk to community college students built around ten things he wished he had heard when he was starting out. Over a million copies sold since, and more than thirty translations.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Steal Like An ArtistVisit austinkleon.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it
Protocols
4 entriesStructured routines and practices with a defined method.
Fell for riding in 2022 and rides with a group he calls The Turtles. Two hours is plenty long, by his reckoning, and he keeps a simple bike he can get on without fuss. His advice to new riders is to buy whatever fits the budget and work out what you want after six months.
Source: AustinKleon.com: One year of bikingEverything good in his career traces back to the blog, he says: the books, the art shows, the speaking gigs, some of his best friendships. Liking it is the third of the three reasons he gives for still posting after fifteen years.
Source: AustinKleon.com: 15 years of blogging (and 3 reasons I keep going)Two desks in the office. The analog one holds markers, pens, pencils, paper and newspaper, with nothing electronic allowed on it, which he says is how he keeps himself off Twitter. Editing and publishing happen at the other one.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A look at my office and some recent interviewsStuck for a subject, he opens his old notebooks to today's date in earlier years, a studio routine he credits to reading Thoreau's journals. It usually turns up something worth a post, and he says it also shows him the cycles his own life runs on.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A good assistant to your future self
Habits
10 entriesRecurring behaviors recorded in public statements.
Publishes a list of the best things he read each year. For 2025 he set no quotas and no goals and read to escape writing, then published the list anyway because he is a completist who cannot stand to break the streak.
Source: AustinKleon.com: My reading year, 2025Calls himself a huge believer in the benefits of walking, and wonders in passing whether it counts as a religion. With a friend in town he skipped the shops and the museum for a 30-minute stroll, the same route he had walked alone days earlier to clear his mind.
Source: AustinKleon.com: The 30-minute noticing workoutFive years of daily diary entries on paper, on his own count, on top of notebooks going back twenty. His reason is research: the diary serves the person he will be later, and the dull entries pay off furthest out.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A good assistant to your future selfBlogging and writing in his diary are the two things he tries to do every day, whatever else is going on. First on his own list of writing rules: do something small every day and let it add up.
Source: AustinKleon.com: 10 things about writingMarks up books with a pencil and likes soft lead that can get really black. The Musgrave 600 is his favorite for it, and the chunky Prismacolor Ebony does the same job as well as shading backgrounds in his diary comics.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Studio gearStarted making them in 2005, posted them to his blog, and turned them into a book in 2010. He points out that the method has a 250-year history he knew nothing about, and that blackout poetry now runs in classrooms and ad campaigns with no connection to him.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A brief history of my newspaper blackout poemsOne of the four notebooks he keeps going at once is a commonplace diary. He links to the exact one he uses, while saying he endorses no brands and does not think everybody should keep a notebook, let alone four.
Source: AustinKleon.com: My 4 notebooksFifteen years of daily logbooks, on his own count, kept alongside the diary rather than in place of it. He values the mundane detail, and quotes Grant Petersen on how an entry that seems bland when you write it down will seem epic in thirty years.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A good assistant to your future selfBrowses the recently returned shelves at his local Yarborough branch of the Austin Public Library, CDs and DVDs included. He quotes Elisa Gabbert on why that shelf works: nobody's taste imposed on you, nothing an algorithm surfaced, an escape from hype.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Recently returnedArgues writers should collect books they are not sure they will ever need, citing Nassim Taleb's case for a shelf full of unread ones. Books are a material, in his framing, and an unsorted shelf throws up connections a tidy one would not.
Source: AustinKleon.com: Tidying up
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“Often, I simply find something that works for me and stick with it.”
AustinKleon.com: Studio gear (opens in a new tab) “Another way to think about it: Keeping a diary is being a good research assistant to your future self.”
AustinKleon.com: A good assistant to your future self (opens in a new tab) · 20 Mar 2023 On Journaling
“One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it turns into your life’s work.”
AustinKleon.com: 15 years of blogging (and 3 reasons I keep going) (opens in a new tab) · 9 Sep 2020 “The analog desk has nothing but markers, pens, pencils, paper, and newspaper.”
AustinKleon.com: A look at my office and some recent interviews (opens in a new tab) · 11 Jun 2011 “I have noticed that if I walk with a notebook in my little hip pouch, I’m more likely to get ideas.”
AustinKleon.com: Walking with a net (opens in a new tab) · 11 Aug 2023
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