Here’s video of “Steal Like A Writer,” a talk I gave back in June at Cleveland’s Weapons of Mass Creation festival. It’s sort of a remix of the ideas in Steal Like An Artist geared towards designers, musicians, and anybody who wants to get better at writing. Here’s the original description:

No matter what your discipline, it’s hard to get any good work done without clear, straightforward communication. Simply put, being a good writer makes you better at your job. Using a few school supplies, a little visual thinking, and a whole lot of creative theft, this talk will help get you started on the way towards becoming a wordsmith.

Here’s the remixed list of ten:

And here are the slides:

And here are the links to the recommended reading:

• Anne Lamott, BIRD BY BIRD
• Lynda Barry, WHAT IT IS
• Scott McCloud, UNDERSTANDING COMICS
• Unsuck-it.com
• @shamblanderson’s sentence of the day

It was a fun talk to give and a really nice audience — thanks to Joseph Hughes and the folks at WMCFest for having me.

See more of my talks→

UPDATE: Wanted to share these cool sketchnotes of the talk by Carolyn Sewell:

Can’t see the video? Watch it here→

I was so thrilled that my friends and favorite bloggers Maria Popova, Maris Kreizman, and Maud Newton agreed to be part of this panel last week in NYC. It was really really fun, McNally Jackson was packed, and best of all, someone was there filming and has posted a video of the conversation online for your viewing pleasure.

Also, dig these hand-drawn notes by @mosteverybody:

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When I was in San Francisco, the folks at Google recorded a version of my Steal talk for their Authors at Google series.

See more of my speaking gigs?

When I was in Kansas City, the folks at TEDxKC had me give a 10-minute version of my Steal talk at the Nelson Atkins Museum after the TEDxChange simulcast. Watch below.

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Last week I had the new-to-me-and-slightly-surreal experience of being on three local TV shows — in Phoenix, they did something out of the ordinary: they asked me to draw! The producer found a room with a wall-sized chalkboard, and I talked about Steal Like An Artist while drawing some of the concepts in the book in chalk, and the team later edited the clip and sped up the tape to show me drawing. The effect is really cool:

Can’t see the video? Watch it here?

Can’t see the video? Watch it here?

For “normal” interviews, check out KATU in Portland and KPIX’s Bay Sunday in San Francisco:

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Polaroid via The Impossible Year

At SXSW Saturday afternoon Kirby Ferguson and I showed clips from his video series Everything Is A Remix and then had a conversation about creativity, influence, and theft. I collected some of the tweets, photos, and other reactions, and there’s already a video online of the whole 55 minutes. (I think SXSW requested that video be taken down, but they have audio of the conversation online.)

Maybe best of all, a small army of visual note-takers were there sketching. Here are notes from Craighton Berman:

It was a helluva turnout — some folks couldn’t even get in and had to listen outside. (So sorry about that, y’all!)

Thanks so so much to everyone who showed up! For more coverage, check out this page.

Christopher Hitchens said that “the great thing about writing a book is that it brings you into contact with people whose opinions you should have canvassed before you ever pressed pen to paper. They write to you. They telephone you. They give you things to read that you should have read already. [Putting out a book is] a free education that goes on for a lifetime.”

Last month I got an email from Mike at The Encyclopedia Show Austin, telling me about Censored Mother Goose Rhymes—a charming little book featured in the Ransom Center’s excellent “Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored” exhibit.

Published in 1929 by a writer and editor named Kenneth Banning, it was dedicated to “THE CENSORS who have taught us how to read naughty meanings into harmless words” and was supposed to be a demonstration “of the effect of censorship upon anything it touches.” If I’m not mistaken, it was even passed out to congressmen in the middle of the censorship debates.

It’s a very very funny book.

Anyways, Mike asked me if I’d do something with the book, and while I almost never read my poems publicly, I think this book is even better read aloud, so, with the help of my iPhone, I read a few at the show.

Watch the video →

See the slides →

A few weeks ago I gave a talk on Newspaper Blackout and Steal Like An Artist at The Economist’s Human Potential summit in New York City. They had an awesome tech staff, so we even managed to weave some of my live drawings from the conference into the talk. Enjoy!

Watch the video →