The South By Southwest Music and Media Conference and Festival have just announced that Ann and Nancy Wilson of HEART will appear as featured speakers on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 in the Austin Convention Center. HEART will also perform at SXSW 2012 as showcasing artists, with date and venue information to be announced soon

More details @ http://sxsw.com/node/9789

From Motley Sue – I don’t have a schedule available at this time to share.

Heart will be touring…

They will not be playing as many dates as they did last year, but for the most part they are all going to be 90 minute sets.

Don’t look for anything in January – February is only the date in Anaheim

March will have a few dates

Nothing in April

The rest is too soon to announce… Here’s what we have so far….stay tuned

02.25.2012
CAL STATE FULLERTON BENEFIT – FEATURING HEART
HONDA CENTER, ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

03.10.2012
NEWKIRK, OK
FIRST COUNCIL CASINO

03.11.2012
HOUSTON, TX
HOUSE OF BLUES

03.12.2012
HOUSTON, TX
HOUSE OF BLUES

03.15.2012 HEART WILL SPEAK AND PLAY THE
SXSW MUSIC SHOW
AUSTIN CONVENTION CENTER AUSTIN, TEXAS

03.16.2012
NEW ORLEANS, LA
HOUSE OF BLUES

03.17.2012
WINSTAR CASINO
THACKERVILLE, OK

06.29.2012
ST. PAUL, MN
MYTH (CLUB) – STRUMMER FEST – JACK F

07.21.2012
WALKER, MN
MOONDANCE JAM MUSIC FESTIVAL

09.10.2012
PUYALLUP, WA
WESTERN WASHINGTON FAIR

There was a six-year gap between Heart’s latest album, “Red Velvet Car” in 2010, and its predecessor, “Jupiter’s Darling.” But Ann and Nancy Wilson aren’t planning to take nearly as long again.

In fact, Nancy tells Billboard.com, they’re already well along on the next one.

“We’ve got most of it written already,” Wilson says. “We’re writing again and working on songs with (‘Red Velvet Car’) producer Ben Mink. This time we’re gonna go a little more heavy rock, a little more electric guitar. And so far so good; I think there’s some really amazing songs already.”

Wilson says the sisters and Mink have demoed “about eight songs already,” working “in various hotel rooms…with microphones and his laptop and a couple of speakers and some guitars and notebooks. Me and Ann work on stuff independently of each other and we bring our notebooks, and (Mink) brings musical ideas, too, and we write together and just put everything together.”

Heart — which this year celebrates the 35th anniversary of its debut album, “Dreamboat Annie” — hasn’t previewed any of the new songs yet during its summer tour with Def Leppard, but Wilson expects to play something new before the trek wraps Oct. 29 in Australia. “It’s not unlikely that we would probably road test something in the course of the summer,” she predicts. “We’re still kind of polishing and buffing the rough demos so far, but we’re getting excited.”

Heart expects to hit the studio “as soon as the tour is done…and hopefully we can have everything recorded by Christmas.”

Meanwhile, the Wilson have joined forces with Seattle-based writer Charles Cross — who’s authored books about Kurt Cobain, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix — on a memoir they hope to publish in 2012. “We’re telling the whole story,” Wilson says. “I think it’s important to be kind of brutally honest without making anyone else feel bad in any way, if possible. There’s a lot of stuff the you remember that’s like, ‘Wow, why did I do this with that person?’ or ‘What was I thinking?!’ or ‘How controlling was so and so?’ It’s definitely not a sensational, tell-tale book because that’s never who we are. There’s going to be some wild parties and some failed relationships, but not too much more dark stuff really.”

Wilson adds that she’s been particularly surprised by sister Ann’s “incredible” memory during the process. “I feel like I’ve had a lot of painful situations that I intentionally delete from my memory,” says the guitarist, who divorced from husband Cameron Crowe in 2010. “So it’s been really good to have Ann there to remember a lot of this stuff because I think I kind of have defense mechanisms with forgetfulness.”