A few weeks ago, Alison Weiss of Egmont USA wrote with an idea. Why not conduct a live chat with readers? Why not, indeed, find a time when both Kristina McBride (
The Tension of Opposites) and I could sit down for an hour for a moderated conversation conducted within the Cover It Live forum?
The question was asked. An idea was born. An evening was chosen.
Please join Kristina, Alison, and me for a conversation about what happens when you choose to build a story within the frame of a kidnapping. Did real-world headlines precipitate the story? Are we obliged, as storytellers, to work the sensationalistic angles? How much room can we make for language and heart and hope in a story that has such darkness at its start?
I'm really looking forward to the conversation, and I am very hopeful that you will find the time to join us. The facts and link below:
Kidnapping in YA: A Chat with Beth Kephart and Kristina McBride
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
7:30 PM EDT
The older I get the less (certainly) I know and the less I also remember. (Indeed, I am at work on a memoir now, but for this one, I've taken notes all along the way—proof, I tell myself. Evidence.) But I do remember (I will swear on this) the first time I ever encountered
Lilian Nattel's blog. She had written about that northern lights phenomenon, aurora borealis. She had posted (as she will) an extraordinary photograph. I'd spent a few months in northern Alberta as a kid, fascinated by those night skies, and so I was enthralled by Lilian's post. We're going to get each other, I thought.
And so we have. We read with equal fervency. We opine on the things we see. We take our cameras out for walks. We threaten to go ice skating together. She's a Canadian and I'm a Pennsylvanian. But there is much that we share. When I read her novel
The River Midnight, I knew we'd be friends for a long time. When I follow her journey toward publication of her new book,
Web of Angels, I feel as though I am preparing for a launch of a book of my own.
And so, Lilian, I am so very grateful to you for
your beautiful and loving read of
You Are My Only—for settling in with it so quickly, for sharing it with your daughter, for ushering in my yesterday with an early morning tease on Facebook. The next time I cross the Canadian border, I'm strapping on a pair of skates, heating up my thermos of tea, and looking for you.
(The photograph above was taken at the Philadelphia Art Museum, this past Sunday.)
I try not to let things get beyond me in this life, but the last few weeks were dense with work and pressure. I paid no attention to clocks, working as much as I could to complete a corporate project that has meant a lot to me. I wrote a few talks, prepared a workshop session, took care of some magazine work for clients.
In between was a certain book stock crisis, Google's announcement that my account (translation: my blog) had been violated and was no longer accessible, a lost camera, and lost glasses. Piles grew tidal around me (which is not a happy thing for a neat freak). The refrigerator emptied (save for a bottle of milk and a quarter stick of butter, perhaps a square of cheese, jello made in a moment of hunger). Bills sat unpaid. I wore clothes from another era because the right-era clothes were, shall we say, indisposed. I answered emails many days late, with what, I am sure, was an humiliating array of mistakes. There should be a book:
Beth's Email Mistakes. The sequel:
Beth's Blog Mistakes. And books—at least a dozen books—came into the house and were placed in a growing teeter on the living room table. Julian Barnes'
The Sense of an Ending. Diana Abu-Jaber's
Birds of Paradise. A.S. King's
Everybody Sees the Ants. Peter Spiegelman's
Thick as Thieves. Philip Schultz's
My Dyslexia. Benjamin Markovits's
Childish Loves. Marc Schuster's
The Grievers. Ann Hite's
Ghost on Black Mountain. Anna Lefler's
Chicktionary. More.
Can I just tell you how much I have missed reading books?
Today, on this freakishly autumnal snowy day, I will join my family of dance friends in the city to celebrate the joint 70 year old birthdays of a still-swinging couple. We'll stay overnight and brunch the next day with beloved friends in a white city, then head to a museum. I'm going to take one of these books with me. And then, come Sunday night, leaning into Monday morning, I am going to lie on a couch and do nothing but turn pages and return to the reader I am.
Thank you for putting up with all the recent launch news of
You Are My Only. I'm eager to once again spend my time here talking about the books of others. That is why I created this space. That is what makes me happy.
Deep thanks to my friends for pointing the way to two separate Kirkus Reviews of
You Are My Only. The first can be found here, penned by Leila Roy of Bookshelves of Doom, on
the Kirkus blog.
The second review, excerpted below, is the generous "official" Kirkus Review below.
Again, I know how lucky I am.
The heartbreaking tale of a kidnapped child and her bereft mother unfolds in alternating narratives in this intense and lovely novel.
... the ripped-from-the-headlines plot is here treated with tenderness and depth. Kephart's deft employ of descriptive language—"Past the door is scuffle and howl, the slow and the fast moving. I see it through the window glass, the glass all scratched with black diamonds"�is extremely effective in setting mood and creating imagery.
Though the initial draw may be the sensational subject matter, readers will come away with much more.
(Fiction. 12 & up)
I was so excited about this one...I cannot wait!
Planning on jammies and hot tea when I drop in for this chat. Better get scooting...