Leon Marcus Uris was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books, including Exodus and Trinity.
Linda Jean Barry, known professionally as Lynda Barry, is an American cartoonist. Barry is best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. She garnered attention with her 1988 illustrated novel The Good Times are Killing Me, about an interracial friendship between two young girls, which was adapted into a play. Her second illustrated novel, Cruddy, first appeared in 1999. Three years later she published One! Hundred! Demons!, a graphic novel she terms "autobifictionalography". What It Is (2008) is a graphic novel that is part memoir, part collage and part workbook, in which Barry instructs her readers in methods to open up their own creativity; it won the comics industry's 2009 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.
The Western College Program was created in 1974 when the Western College for Women merged with Miami University. The program consisted of an interdisciplinary living/learning community with small class sizes and student-designed focuses. Majors included Interdisciplinary Studies, Environmental Science, and Environmental Studies. Academics were divided into three core areas: Creativity and Culture, Social Systems, and Natural Systems.
KLRU, branded on-air as Austin PBS, is a PBS member television station in Austin, Texas, United States, owned by the Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council. In 2022, KLRU moved into its "Austin Media Center" studios located on the Austin Community College Highland Campus, which was redeveloped from the former Highland Mall. KLRU occupies 45,000 square feet (4,181 m2) in what was previously the mall's Dillard's department store. The station's transmitter is located in the West Austin Antenna Farm in unincorporated Travis County. In addition to airing program content from PBS, it produces original programming including the national music series Austin City Limits.
Sara Hickman is an American singer, songwriter, and artist.
South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both scope and size every year. In 2017, the conference lasted for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days. There was no in-person event in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas; in both years there was a smaller online event instead.
Daniel H. Pink is an American author. He has written seven New York Times bestsellers. He was a host and a co-executive producer of the National Geographic Channel social science TV series Crowd Control. From 1995 to 1997, he was the chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore.
Shelfari was a social cataloging website. Shelfari users built virtual bookshelves of the titles they owned or had read, and could rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. Users could also create groups that other members could join, create discussions, and talk about books, or other topics. Recommendations could be sent to friends on the site for what books to read.
Gary Keller is an American entrepreneur and best-selling author. He is the founder and Executive Chairman of Keller Williams, which is the largest real estate company in the world by agent count and second in closed sales volume, and units sold. Keller founded Keller Williams on training and education and later brought his teachings to print. His books include The Millionaire Real Estate Agent,The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, and The ONE Thing. He is considered one of the most influential people in real estate.
Margaret Stiefvater is an American writer of young adult fiction. She is best known for her fantasy series The Wolves of Mercy Falls and The Raven Cycle.
SaulPaul is an American artist and rapper from Houston, Texas. He has garnered much attention with his freestyles. SaulPaul's music has been considered unique, in comparison to mainstream rappers.
Rip Esselstyn is an American health activist, food writer, and former firefighter and triathlete. He is known as an advocate of low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet that excludes all animal products and processed foods. He calls it a "plant strong" diet, a term he has trademarked. He has appeared in two documentaries about plant-based nutrition: Forks Over Knives (2011) and The Game Changers (2018). He is the author of The Engine 2 Diet (2009), My Beef With Meat (2013), Plant-Strong (2016), and The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet (2017).
Tardar Sauce, nicknamed Grumpy Cat, was an American internet celebrity cat. She was known for her permanently "grumpy" facial appearance, which was caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism. She came to prominence when a photograph of her was posted on September 22, 2012, on social news website Reddit by Bryan Bundesen, the brother of her owner Tabatha Bundesen. "Lolcats" and parodies created from the photograph by Reddit users became popular. She was the subject of a popular Internet meme in which humorously negative, cynical images were made from photographs of her.
Elizabeth Anne Velásquez is an American motivational speaker, activist, writer, and YouTuber. She was born with an extremely rare congenital disease called Marfanoid–progeroid–lipodystrophy syndrome that, among other symptoms, prevents her from accumulating body fat and gaining weight. Her conditions resulted in bullying during her childhood. During her teenage years, she faced cyberbullying, which ultimately inspired her to take up motivational speaking.
Darden Smith is an Austin-based singer-songwriter known for his lyrics and for weaving folk and Americana influences with rock, pop, and the musical roots of his home state. His debut album, "Native Soil," was released in 1986. His sixteenth album, Western Skies, was released March 25, 2022. Smith has published two books, The Habit of Noticing: Using Creativity to Make a Life (2018) and Western Skies (2022), a companion book for the album of the same name. Over the past two decades, Smith has developed two non-profit programs, The Be An Artist Program (2003) and SongwritingWith: Soldiers (2011). Both use collaborative songwriting to work with groups ranging from children in the classroom to military members returning home from combat. Smith established SongwritingWith:Soldiers as a separate non-profit organization in 2012.
Max Zorn is a Dutch-German artist who has been active in street art at night and urban art since May 2011. His style is notable for its use of brown packing tape as a medium and cutting on acrylic glass with a scalpel to create portraits that need lighting from behind to be seen.
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative is a book on coming up with creative ideas written by Austin Kleon and published in 2012 from Workman Publishing. The book has since then become a New York Times Bestseller. Kleon presents himself as a young writer and artist emphasizing that creativity is everywhere and is for everyone. In his own words, "You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself".
Vanessa Van Edwards is a speaker with Science of People and author of several books. She specializes in science-based people skills.
Korea Spotlight, originally named K-Pop Night Out at SXSW (KPNO), is an annual concert of South Korean artists held in the United States, organized by Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA). It started in 2013, and is a music showcase of the annual SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas.
Laurie Frick is a data artist who uses self-tracking information gathered from personal devices to create hand-built works and installations.
