Don’t Call It Art: Rediscovering Creative Joy With Austin Kleon

Don’t Call It Art: Rediscovering Creative Joy With Austin Kleon

From The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers by Joanna Penn

June 8, 2026 · 1h 10m

About this episode

Austin Kleon discusses rediscovering creative joy and the importance of play in the creative process.

Have you ever lost the joy in your creative work — that sense of fun you had when you were starting out, before the admin and the algorithms drained it away? How do mid-career creatives get it back, and what can a four-year-old teach us about play? Austin Kleon talks about productive procrastination, silly rituals, the case for paper reference books in an AI world, and how his newsletter went from a marketing cost to the day job that keeps the lights on. In the intro, Does social media still sell books? [ Self-Publishing with ALLi ]; Trial by algorithm [ The Bookseller ]; Publishing’s AI Hypocrisy Problem [ The New Publishing Standard ]; ALLi AI survey for authors ; Brave New Bookshelf Podcast , and Pics from signing at BookVault . Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book  before  you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at  www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported…

People in this episode

Host: Joanna Penn

Guest: Austin Kleon

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ProWritingAid

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going, Don't Call It Art: 10

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