My friend Ed Goldberg sent me a note yesterday to say that a copy of the August 2012 edition of
BookPage—the real, live
BookPage—had appeared in his own library.
This made me happy indeed, for this issue of that fine magazine includes a conversation I had with the magnificent
Abby Plesser,
"Home is Where the Heart Is." I had received an early PDF copy of the story and had been able to share it on the blog, but I'm thrilled today to share the
live link. Abby and BookPage, I will always be grateful.
Twelve books, twelve years, four genres, and seven publishing houses ago, there was a lovely small
New York Times review of a book I'd written called
Into the Tangle of Friendship.
Between that day and this one, I have been buoyed by readers and friends, by an agent and editors, by good-hearted bloggers and students, and of course by family in this strange but essential writing dream. I have written odd books (a river speaks in one, corporate America is transformed into a Wonderland in another), "small" books, books that might have been more than they were and books that reached more readers than I thought possible. I have kept writing because I can't help it, because it is, as I have said before, medicinal, because even when I tried to stop, I didn't know how stopping worked. What does a life look like without story making and sentence crafting, without reaching and metaphor? I don't know. I don't want to find out.
Over the past few weeks, extraordinary kindnesses have been shown toward
Small Damages, a book that I had worked on for many, many years. Kindness within Philomel, that big-hearted publishing phenom that has gifted me with the talents and deep hearts of my editor Tamra Tuller (do I love her? yes, I do), Michael Green (president and (also) writer of some of the best emails ever), Jessica Shoffel (publicist extraordinary—unbelievably smart and quick and precise and there), Julia Johnson (who told me once that she has a secret third eye), Jill Santopolo (that uber-bright cutie who forged the original link), a fantastically talented design and editorial team, and an amazingly generous sales team. Kindness from interviewers like
Abby Plesser and
Dennis Abrams. Kindness from magazine editors like
Darcy Jacobs of Family Circle and
Renee Fountain of Bella and the super nice people of the
LA Times. Kindness from friends and from bloggers, each of whom is so dear to me, so valued. (In case you are wondering, the spectacular quilted cover of
Small Damages above was created by blogger and friend,
Wendy Robards of Caribousmom.)
That should be enough, truly, but a few days ago, something else happened. The phone rang, and it was my agent, Amy Rennert. Fortunately, I was sitting down, for Amy had called to read me Jen Doll's most amazing review of
Small Damages—a review that appears in this weekend's
New York Times.
We yearn, as writers, to be understood. We yearn to be read with an open heart. We can't even believe our good fortune when this happens to us in the pages of the
Times. When we are read and assessed by one as intelligent and thoughtful as Jen Doll.
The
Times.I have always loved the
Times. Today I love Her even more than always and forever.
There are no words.
A final note: I have been typing this blog post with fumbling fingers, and I'm quite sure that I have erred somewhere up there. But my fumbling became a trembling when Jillian Canto
Not long ago I sat in a local coffee shop with a young woman who dazzled. Yes, that's the word. She'd found her way to the very beating heart of the publishing world as a young Vanderbilt graduate, moved from the Big Apple to the south to work as the BookPage fiction editor, and today works as a content manager for a suburban Philadelphia brand consulting firm, writing freelance pieces for BookPage on the side. Beyond us, the little town of Wayne was having an outdoor festival. Between us, the talk was books and work. I adored her within seconds. She asked smart questions. She listened.
Abby Plesser (for that is this wunderkind's name) had been asked to interview me for a BookPage feature. I could not have been a luckier soul. The conversation alone would have been enough. The resultant story is more capacious, more generous than anything I could ever deserve. The piece ends with these words, below. The whole can found
here.
Abby and BookPage, thank you. Jessica Shoffel, thank you (for everything).
No matter the audience, there is
one thing Kephart hopes readers
take away from her novel: not to
judge others. Of her protagonist, she
says, “Kenzie is very loving, intelligent,
moral. She is in a situation. I
think no less of her and I don’t want
my readers to think any less of her.”
Kephart speaks with such compassion
for her characters and such
passion for her work that it’s hard
not to be inspired by such an unassuming,
accomplished woman. Of
her career, she reflects, “I never want
to look back and say, ‘Well, my best
book was my first one or my fifth or
my seventh,’ so I’m highly motivated
to not just slide. I try to break form
or go to a new place in the world
or tell a story that hasn’t been told
before. I’m invested in challenging
myself and going to the verge or taking
the risk.”
Small Damages is a book well
worth the risk. Kephart has created a
lyrical, beautiful story about a young
woman at a turning point, struggling
to reconcile her choices, find
her place in the world and discover
the true meaning of family.
Beautiful interview. Will pick up the print issue of it at my library.