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By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 9/13/2012
Blog:
Beth Kephart Books
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Patti Mallet,
Elizabeth Mosier,
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Radnor Memorial Library,
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Small Damages,
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For reasons too complex, too personal to render fully here, yesterday was a day of deep emotion.
There were, however, friends all along the way. Elizabeth Mosier, the beauty in the dark gray dress, will always stand, in my mind, on either side of the day—at its beginnings, at its very late-night end. For your mid-day phone kindness, for your breathtaking introduction of me at last night's book launch, for the night on the town, for the talk in the car, for the bounty of your family—Libby, I will always be so grateful.
To Patti Mallet and her friend, Anne, who drove all the way from Ohio to be part of last night's celebration, I will never forget your gesture of great kindness, your love for green things at Chanticleer, and a certain prayer beside my mother's stone. Patti and I are there, above, at the pond which inspired two of my books.
To Pam Sedor, the lovely blonde in violet, a world-class Dragon Boat rower recently returned from an international competition in Hong Kong, the librarian who makes books happen and dreams come true, and to Molly, who puts up with my techno anxieties, and to Radnor Memorial Library, for being my true home—thank you, always.
To my friends who came (from church, from books, from architecture, from corporate life, from the early years through now)—thank you. Among you were Avery Rome, the beautiful red-head who edits Libby, me, and others at the
Philadelphia Inquirer, and Kathy Barham, my brilliant and wholly whole son's high school English teacher, who is also a poet (shown here in green). To the town of Wayne, which received our open-air tears and laughter late into the night (and to Cyndi, Kelly, Libby, Avery, and Kathye who cried and laughed with me)—thank you.
And also, finally, to Heather Mussari—my muse (along with Tamra Tuller) for the Berlin novel, a young lady so wise beyond her years, and a cool, cool chick who (along with Sandy) does my hair—I arrived at 11:15 at your shop inconsolable. You listened. You said all the right things by telling the truth and telling it kindly. I adore you, Heather. I hope you know that.
I was shocked and of course deeply saddened when I learned last week that
Chester County Book and Music Company—the grand lady of independents in my part of the world, a vast store, encyclopedic in scope, and intimate in nature—was now occupying its West Chester store
on a month-to-month basis. It will remain active, we are told, at least through the fall. But the future beyond that is cloudy, unsure. And we readers and writers are devastated.
Chester County is where it always happened. It's where the big-name authors came, the celebrities, the locals, the book clubs, the university students from down the road, the mothers on an afternoon out. It's where the staff, many of them long-timers, read passionately and recommended enthusiastically—in person and by way of placards all around the store. A.S. King was there on a rainy night, and we gathered around. K.M. Walton threw her launch party there and hundreds, I mean hundreds, rallied. Kate Moses and I once sat in the near dark on a very rainy night and met the likes of Kathye Fetsko Petrie. I met Ilene Wong, thanks to CCBM. I met a band of students from West Chester University, saw again old teachers and city friends.
What will we do without our store? How many nights did I come home with a bag of books that I had bought strictly and solely on staff recommendations (and they were almost always right)? How many books in this book-crowded house of mine first lived at CCBM?
And what can we say to thank those who made CCBM what it is, those who must now look for new jobs to do, new ways to channel their passion for stories?
Joanne Fritz, who spent many years behind the desk and in the aisles of CCBM, was the first to get in touch with me about
Small Damages, months and months ago. It is thanks to her that I will be at CCBM this coming Saturday, fitting, I think, that my first event for
Small Damages be held here. Perhaps I'll see you there, but more importantly, perhaps you'll find time, between now and this fall, to make your way to this great store and thank it for all it has given to all of us throughout these many years.
SMALL DAMAGES signing
Chester County Book and Music Company
975 Paoli Pike West Chester, PA 19380
West Chester, PA
2 PM
It is a pleasure peculiar to the teacher that, even after classes end and the students go on their way, so many find their way back to your own soul-er home. They report on their journeys. They change the tenor of the conversation you were having with yourself. They make you believe, above all else, that the intensity of what was then matters still, right now.
You students know who you are, and you know that I am grateful.
In other news, I prepare today to meet with the 14-year-old San Francisco-based book club that travels once each year to meet an author who has written of his/her city. We'll be gathering at
Chanticleer garden, where two of my books (
Ghosts in the Garden and
Nothing but Ghosts take place); we'll talk as well about
Dangerous Neighbors. My thanks to Kathye Fetsko Petrie, a writer and writer advocate, who suggested my name to the group, and a warm welcome to Kyle Taylor and her band of reader/travelers.
I prepare as well to meet, on Monday, with the students of the
25th Annual Rutgers-Camden Summer Writers' Conference, which Lisa Zeidner so brilliantly concocts each year. I'm joining (quite late in the game) a cast that includes the likes of Jane Bernstein, Ken Kalfus, Lise Funderburg, J.T. Barbarese, and Peter Trachtenberg. I'm offering my thoughts on creative nonfiction. I'm banking on some time alone with Lisa, whose friendship I have grown to cherish.
A week ago today, I joined Catherine Murdock and Rita Williams-Garcia at the Philadelphia Book Festival—sat in the cold air before these brave folks and talked books and book making while the wind blew. "Zumba for everyone," Rita signed my copy of
One Crazy Summer, as I headed home. A little joke that had crept up between us.
Today I read that signed book through, smiling bigly and longly, thinking with each page, and then with the next one,
I have another perfect book to recommend. I love when that happens. I love adding a new title to my short list of books that I think everyone should read. The books on my short list transcend categories because they are so well made, because they are wisdom and they are poetry and they are heart, because they are meaningful story. Tween novel? Teen novel? Adult novel? Does it matter? I don't think it does, when the writing is this good.
One Crazy Summer tells the tale of three sisters who visit their long-ago-left-them mother in Oakland, CA. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern have made their trip from Brooklyn in a plane that does some wary warring with the clouds. They've arrived to find a woman who hardly makes a show of knowing them. They're sent to a camp sponsored by the Black Panthers. They watch their mother (who has changed her name to something nearly unspellable) ink a press and roll out poems in a kitchen never used for cooking. Delphine, only eleven, has to see her sisters through. She has to understand just what this Black Panther business is. She has to be older than she is, or does she? Can she hold onto eleven?
My friend Susan Straight named her daughter Delphine, and so I smiled extra wide when I read these words in
Summer. Delphine is our narrator. This is what she has to say about names:
A name is important. It isn't something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is how people know you. The very mention of your name makes a picture spring to mind, whether it's a picture of clashing fists or a mighty mountain that can't be knocked down. Your name is who you are and how you're known even when you do something great or something dumb.
(Thank you, Kathye, for the photo.)
This blog has a singular purpose: To thank Kathye Fetsko Petrie, who is one of the greatest friends books (or a friend) could have, for taking my hot red Sony in the midst of this Philadelphia Book Festival moment and snapping this photo of Rita Williams-Garcia, yours truly, and Catherine Murdock. Kathye undertook the endeavor at physical risk to herself (I didn't realize the stage was quite so high or inconvenient when I asked her if she might do it) and, well, I don't know: I just wanted to say thank you.
Kathye, next photo's on me.
Oh my goodness. Check out this virtual guitar chordbook. Yes, I am easily impressed. What of it? What this means is that now I can listen to chords I can't quite stretch to master yet want to know what I'm striving toward. It's got those At a certain point, music theory makes my eyeballs cross as someone tries to explain diminished or augmented chords. Aiee.
A Song of the Week Special Edition
While you may know Eleanor Farjeon by way of her poem, "Morning Has Broken" (sung both as a church hymn and as a popular song by Cat Stevens), most children's book afficionados know Farjeon as a prolific children's book writer of an older era. The New York Review of Books recently reprinted Farjeon's Hans Christian Andersen award-winner, The Little Bookroom.
Image obtained from Folk of the Wood
At the moment, Lucia is strumming a lovely G chord on her guitar. "How can this be?" you ask. "Lucia is only 4 1/2 years old, and there is no way that her left hand can span the fretboard to play a G chord." You are right. With the standard guitar string tuning of E-B-G-D-A-E (going from thinnest to thickest strings), a simple strum sounds like noise if
"If you play more than two chords, you're showing off."--Woody Guthrie
Sounds like it was a very emotional day and it looks like it all went well. better...than anticipated...
This is really beautiful, all this love, and I'm so happy for you. You look so pretty too.
I just have to say -- we should all be so gracious and look so gorgeouso at the end of a trying day.
My daylight toast: Here's to stamina. To multiple drafts, multiple careers, multiple anniversaries. Here's to revising work, relationships, and the world as needed!!
I raise my coffee cup.
I meant every word. So glad I took some photos - I ALWAYS forget to do that at my events.
It was a beautiful night!
This is really worth reading, it has too much details in it and yet it is so simple to understand, Thanks for sharing the picture it has great detail in it and i really appreciate your true artistic work!
Online GED Diploma
Wish I could have been there. You look STUNNING.
Dear, Sweet Beth - You have honored me in so many ways, and I shall never forget our time together. I'm still a bit dazed and amazed by it all, and am now lined up with the rest of your adoring fans, waiting for next year's book release(s).
Next year - You and Philadelphia!
xoxo