Jason Oberholtzer, editor and producer
Jessica Hagy, artist and writer

Welcome to now.

Creative careers don’t start in the apocryphal mailroom. Real jobs are things our grandparents had, like pensions and segregated lunch counters. Tens of thousands of us are now working collections of gigs via networks knitted together with pixels and hope. Our job titles change daily, if not even more frequently. Our careers are DIY.

And we have more questions than answers. We are hustling to be viable. We are juggling and networking and contemplating and planning and learning as we go.

Because this is the new creative economy. This is the Hustle Economy. And we need all the help we can get.

That’s why this book exists: Because even though we’re all just winging it, we each know a little bit of something about making it (whatever it is) work. And maybe, together, we can all do a little bit more, a little bit better.

When we first started thinking about this anthology, we wanted to collect insights from people we respected and admired. We wanted voices that had been there, done that, and had the hand-stamps and W-9s to prove it. We were looking for self-made hustlers who found their own voices and their own strides.

We wanted generous, honest, confessional voices. We wanted to get emotional essays, not dry business PowerPoints. We wanted all kinds of creative people with all kinds of backgrounds to pour their hearts out and tell their stories. We wanted diary entries, not case studies. We wanted to host a conference between covers.

And because anything done with heart and care is art, we wanted a wide spectrum of artists to present their ideas. We wanted to build a vibrant and noisy salon full of artists, writers, doers, hustlers, and worriers. Thinkers. Makers. Dancers. Founders. Wizards of self-made realms. People who put themselves out there and lived to tell about it.

Fortunately, when we approached these artists, they delivered. We got everything we wanted and more. We are humbled and stunned by the generosity and thoughtfulness of these essays, and by the caliber of the hustlers who jumped with us into this project.

The essays in this book are raw, honest, and real. Each touches on a different topic, a different take on what it means to be a creative in today’s ever-changing and ever-infuriating economy. At the end of each essay, you will find suggested exercises to help make your creative work more rewarding and put your plans to action.

This collection is filled to the brim with solid advice, inspiration, and ideas, and is meant to give you both hope and pause. The essays are inspiring, funny, silly, and belligerent—just like the artists who wrote them. It is designed to help you think, create, and thrive.

We hope you get as much out of it as we have.

—Jason and Jessica