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David Gutowski and Jami Attenberg put together this cool little event at Bookpeople, noon on Saturday of SXSW. Jami, Bill Cotter, and Stephen Elliott read and Alina Simone sang some songs. There were munchies and mimosas. It was a good time, and I was really sorry David couldn’t be there. Next year!

PS. Speaking of Bookpeople, mark your calendars: we’re having our Newspaper Blackout release party there on April 13th!

Man, this was such a cool, chill party. I sat up in the balcony at Klub Krucial dead center and drank ice water that the nice dude next to me kept bringing me when he’d go to buy whiskey. I liked all the bands, but I LOVED The Golden Filter and really liked Dum Dum Girls. Thanks, Gorilla Vs. Bear!

UPDATE: Cameron Cantu took this cool pic of me drawing during The Mantles’ set. Thanks, Cameron!

On Monday, I did my first-ever booksigning at the SXSW bookstore. My awesome publisher had copies shipped hot off the press to SXSW, for sale a whole month before the release date. People who picked it up at the conference officially owned it before anyone else…including me!

I’d never actually seen the final book before –I haven’t received my author copies yet, so I didn’t get to do the whole un-boxing-your-author-copies-at-home thing — the first time I saw the book, Adam Norwood tweeted that he’d seen it, so after a panel I rushed over to the bookstore to see it stacked next to Laura Dern (not a bad first impression):

I must say, I was not 100% about the book cover until I saw it in person. It looks really great, it has a matte finish, and feels real nice in your hands.

Here I am gesticulating to somebody. Loved getting to chat with all the folks that came up to by a copy. The added bonus was that everybody had their SXSW badge on, so spelling names was no problem…

After things wound down, I signed the rest of the copies:

Last I checked, there were only about ten or so left, so I’m hoping we sell out over the rest of the week.

Hope to have more pics up of the book soon. Thanks to my shutterbug wife, Meg, for all the awesome pictures. You can see a few more on Flickr.

In the meantime, be sure to get your pre-order in!

My SXSW sketching bag…ready to go. See my drawings from last year.

SXSW starts Friday. If you’re in town for the conference, here’s where you can find me:.

• Sunday, March 14 @ 11:00PM, I’ll be doing 10-minute mentor sessions with folks on blogging and publicity. You can sign up here.
• Monday, March 15 @ 3:30PM, Visual Note-Taking 101 – this is my panel with my friends Dave Gray, Mike Rohde, and Sunni Brown. You should NOT miss this, as we have a really special surprise for people who show up. Really special. Something you can take with you…
  
• At 5:50PM, on Monday, barring any postal disasters I’ll be doing my first ever signing of Newspaper Blackout at the SXSW bookstore! That’s right: come get the book before it’s in stores! Super-pumped about this. (Note: might not show up on the bookstore schedule, since we’re shipping them last-minute.)
  
• Tuesday, March 16 @3:00 PM, I’m interviewing Ian Albinson & Alex Ulloa of The Art of The Title for Studio SX
• At 9:00PM on Tuesday I’ll be part of a panel over at Stagira Studios on the relationship between art and money, with my friends John T. Unger and Hugh MacLeod.

Phew! Of course, I’ll be roaming around, hitting up a ton of panels, films, and music acts. (I have a platinum badge this year.)

You can see my schedules online (although I’ve resorted to planning on sticky notes):

http://my.sxsw.com/user/schedule/austinkleon

http://sitby.us/austinkleon/

If you want to meet up, @reply me on Twitter (@austinkleon). I’ll also be trying out these GoWalla and FourSquare thingies…I’ll be carrying around a bunch of cool postcards for the book, so come find me.

If you have a tip for something I just have to see, or you want to invite me to a party, leave it in the comments!

And of course, if you’re not going to the festival, follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr: thanks to the magic iPhone, I’ll be posting photos of my notes and drawings throughout the week.

Don’t know how it happened, but I was going through my archives recently and found these index cards from Mirah‘s gig at Domy Books here in Austin during SXSW 2009. I had a lot of fun at that show, and a lot of fun drawing there. These drawings make me happy.

Our Visual Note-Taking 101 panel made the cut for the first batch of 2010 SXSW programming!

Here’s the description:

Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters: how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them.

The lineup isn’t finalized yet, but I’m hoping that Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and Mike Rohde will all be able to sit on it. Read about our previous work together on the topic.

Thanks so much to everyone who voted!

Other panels I’m interested in seeing: Dan Roam‘s “Blah Blah Blah: Why Words Won’t Work” and Casey Caplowe from GOOD Magazine on “Interactive Infographics.”

See my visual notes from SXSW 2009.

Please do me a huge favor and head over to the SXSW Panel Picker site to vote for a SXSW panel on visual note-taking that will include me, Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and Mike Rohde. Here’s the description:

Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters: how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them.

Even if you’re not planning on going to SXSW this year, if you’ve enjoyed my mind maps, my SXSW visual notes, or drawing tutorials, please head over to the SXSW site, put in a vote, and leave a comment!

Thanks so much!

Vote now!

SXSW 2009 is over, and I am exhausted. Below are some of my highlights. Go to my SXSW 2009 Flickr Set to see more drawings.

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This was simply the best thing I saw at SXSW. A couple of brothers (really nice guys, too) made a documentary about their small town in Ohio. Check it out.

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The Future of Visual Storytelling is Interactive (Or is it?) panel

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Somebody get @philstuart to post his diagrams of interactive story structure (see the flow-chart-ish part of the drawing), b/c they are freaking brilliant!

Phil finally uploaded the diagrams!

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Shift Happens: Moving from Words to Pictures

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I had the good fortune to spend time with everyone on this panel at SXSW, and they’re all great, smart people. @sunnibrown @davegray @danroam @leelefever @thcrawford

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RIP! A Remix Manifesto

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Documentary about copyright and Greg Gillis (aka Girl Talk). Great stuff.

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Objectified

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From the director of Helvetica.

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From Blog To Book Deal: How-To

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Certainly the most animated panel I went to. And I finally got to chat with Hugh Macleod a bit beforehand.

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Thanks to @marquessaid for this photo of me in action:

See more drawings in my SXSW 2009 Flickr Set, including a caricature of Richard Linklayter, a cartoon of waiting in line, some drawings of Mirah during her awesome Domy Books set, and some special Indexed cards Jessica Hagy drew me!

Read more of my SXSW-related posts on the tumblelog.

Like this stuff? Be sure to check out Mike Rohde’s sketchnotes and Sunni Brown’s live keynote drawings.

I was too lazy and disorganized to make business cards for SXSW* this year, so instead I’ll be carrying a Sharpie and a stack of index cards. If you see me, say hi, and I’ll doodle you something.

*I’ll be at interactive, film, and music this year. Follow me on Twitter for updates.

**PS Yes, this is basically Jessica Hagy and Hugh MacLeod‘s territory. So what? Plenty o’ room.