The 17th International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD 2009) was held in Chicago, USA, September 22-25, 2009, and was attended by 91 participants from 19 countries. In response to the call for papers, the Program Committee received 79 s- missions. Each submission was reviewed by at least three Program Committee members. Following substantial discussions, the committee accepted 31 long - pers and 4 short papers. All authors received detailed reviewers' comments. In a separate submission process, 10 posters were accepted. These were described during the conference, and displayedatthe conferencesite. Eachposter was also granted a two-page description in the conference proceedings. Two invited speakers, J´ anos Pach from EPFL Lausanne and R´ eny Institute, and Martin Wattenberg from IBM Research, gave absorbing talks during the conference. Prof. Pach looked at the class of string graphs, and tantalized us to consider why their properties are so mathematically beautiful. Dr. Watt- berg showed how sometimes twisting the standard rules of graph drawing can illuminate unexpected information contained in graphs. Keepingwithtradition, the symposiumhostedthe 15thAnnualGraphDr- ingContest, including aGraphDrawingChallengeforconferenceattendees.The contest elicited robust participation from the community with 27 submissions. These proceedings end with a detailed report of the contest. As always, the success of a conference such as this relies on the help of many people. Our thanks to the Program Committee and all of the external referees who worked so hard to sift for the best among the submitted papers. The OrganizingCommittee providedus with admirablefacilities, a ?ne banquet, andtookcareofsomanyotherdetailsthatitwashardtobelievetherewereonly threemembers: Jennifer McClelland, MichaelJ.PelsmajerandMarcusSchaefer.